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Jamie crew on hunt for local staff

With more recruitment next week, Jamie's Italian plans to open before Christmas, Kirsten Lawson writes.

Tight-lipped ... Jamie Oliver's restaurant empire will have a presence in the capital on the site of the former Kingsley's Steakhouse and it will open to Bunda Street.
Tight-lipped ... Jamie Oliver's restaurant empire will have a presence in the capital on the site of the former Kingsley's Steakhouse and it will open to Bunda Street.Supplied

Jamie's Italian is again on the hunt for staff in Canberra, with the much-anticipated restaurant opening by Christmas.

The restaurant chain has appointed a head chef for Canberra - Australian-born, New Zealand-trained Nick Haszard, but still needs a sous chef and about 50 more for the 100-strong workforce.

On Monday and Tuesday, September 23 and 24, it will hold its second recruitment drive in Canberra, putting applicants through their paces in the kitchen and on the floor in sessions at Three Seeds at the Fyshwick Markets. The restaurant is looking for cooks and chefs, bartenders, waiters, and other front of house staff. Prospective chefs will watch a demonstration of typical Jamie dishes being cooked and be asked to recreate them. Front-of-house staff will have to describe and present a dish, and bar staff, too, will have to jump through the hoops. In its brief to applicants, the company it stresses the need for experience in a high-volume restaurant, with queues out the door of Jamie's Italian in Sydney.

A stand-out ... Antipasti meat plank for two from Jamie's Italian in Sydney.
A stand-out ... Antipasti meat plank for two from Jamie's Italian in Sydney.Marco Del Grande
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Executive chef David Clarke will be here for the recruitment, along with general manager of the group in Australia, Karen Westfield, and training chef Lizzie Fiducia.

The Pacific Restaurant Group, which owns the Kingsley's restaurants, has the rights to Jamie's Italian in Australia, and the new Jamie's is being built on the site of the former Kingsley's Steakhouse. On the ground floor of the Canberra Centre, under the Dendy cinema, it will open on to Bunda Street. Work began on the site in July.

With about 150 seats inside and 50 outside, it will open seven days and the look and feel will be in line with the Jamie's Italian restaurants around the world - more than 30 of them. ''Urban, industrial, lots of reclaimed furniture'', built to a British design, as Westfield described it when she was in Canberra for the last round of recruitment.

On the hunt for staff ... Karen Westfield, general manager of Jamie's Italian in Australia, and executive chef David Clarke, who are recruiting in Canberra.
On the hunt for staff ... Karen Westfield, general manager of Jamie's Italian in Australia, and executive chef David Clarke, who are recruiting in Canberra.Supplied

Executive chef Haszard has worked in London, Dubai and South Africa, with solid experience in top hotels, including a head chef role in the "seven-star" Burj al Arab Hotel in Dubai, and in South Africa at the One and Only Resort in Cape Town, and the five-star Mount Nelson Hotel, also in Cape Town, where he was executive sous chef. He headed back to New Zealand last year, where he was head chef at Peter Gordon's Dine at Skycity in Auckland.

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In July this year, he began at Jamie's Italian in Sydney in preparation for his move to Canberra.

Jamie's Italian runs a tight media ship, and hasn't given us access to Haszard for an interview. But personal style, in any case, is not the focus of his appointment. His job is to produce the Jamie's Italian menus, which are very similar throughout the restaurant empire, and devised and approved in Britain.

Depth ... Nick Haszard, executive chef of Jamie's Italian, Canberra, who has worked in London, Dubai and South Africa.
Depth ... Nick Haszard, executive chef of Jamie's Italian, Canberra, who has worked in London, Dubai and South Africa.Supplied

Westfield is no stranger to this kind of Brit-Italian restaurant empire. She worked as operations manager for the Antonio Carluccio chain of restaurants in Britain before moving to Australia, after falling in love with the place years earlier as a backpacker. In Australia, she worked for the Marriot hotel at Surfers Paradise, before the arrival of the Jamie's chain.

Jamie Oliver and Antonio Carluccio's restaurant operations have bumped hips in a number of ways beyond the employment of Westfield. Oliver started his career in Carluccio's first restaurant in London. Carluccio was also close friends and business partner of Gennaro Contaldo (his offsider on the Two Greedy Italians television show), and Contaldo now helps Oliver run his Jamie's Italian restaurants.

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Westfield says while the menu is largely the same throughout the eateries (changing with the seasons), there are some shifts in emphasis, such as more seafood dishes, for example, in Australia.

There is also an emphasis on getting to know the local communities - she is keen to

offer cooking classes for children and set up links with local schools, cooking schools and food festivals.

The Jamie's Italian chain has stretched as far afield as Dubai, Russia, Singapore and Turkey and has done so in just five years since it opened in Oxford. The Australian presence is newer still, with the Sydney eatery opening just two years ago, and Perth earlier this year. The group is also looking at the other major cities around the country.

As to the big question, no, we should not expect to see the man himself, at least not at the opening. Jamie Oliver didn't attend the opening of his Sydney restaurant two years ago either, nor Perth, although he did make an appearance in Sydney early last year.

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Not that you would expect a Canberra opening, albeit with his name, face and brand at the fore, to occupy too much of the attention of a chef of his output. Oliver has published about 15 books, fronted almost as many television shows, runs a series of better-food campaigns in Britain and the US, has a Food Tube site on YouTube, and has the Fifteen chain of restaurants, as well as his more recent barbecue steakhouse, Barbecoa restaurant in London.

With or without Jamie, the Sydney restaurant, with its emphasis on very good produce and a fast and buzzy pace, is popular and opened to good reviews. "No big surprises," wrote Sydney Fairfax critic Terry Durack. "It's pretty much the same as the very first Jamie's Italian in Oxford, which I reviewed soon after it opened in 2008, and the other 25 Jamie's Italians across Britain and in Dubai. There's the same pasta-making area in the front window; the have-a-drink-while-you-wait-for-a-table bar; the salumi station; the big rustic/industrial vibe; the frantic open kitchen. This one's a double-decker, with tables upstairs and down, metal chairs, graffiti walls, wire mesh and copper pendant lights."

And not too shabby food-wise. "The pasta gets cooked al dente, the salumi gets finely sliced to order, the breads are real and the olive oil and balsamic vinegar are on the money," Durack concluded.

Sydney floor manager Imogen Storey will be part of the opening team in Canberra, training the Canberra hosts. She's not long back from Singapore, where she helped in the opening days of the latest Jamie's Italian, which opened there in July.

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