Chef profile: Damien Brassel

Damien Brassel hasn't experienced winter for more than two years, so his first Australian one is proving to be an inspiration for this globe conquering chef.

He is delighted by the quality of Australia’s winter produce and is in raptures over our truffles and the abundance of pumpkin, rhubarb and daily foraged mushrooms as he prepares to celebrate his first year down under.

Brassel brings a 20-year track record of international cooking to the Urban Purveyor Group’s rapidly expanding stable in his role as its Corporate Executive Chef. He spends much of his working week training and mentoring the culinary teams within the group’s 20 restaurants, inspiring and developing its chefs and rigorously testing new dishes.

"It’s fantastic to be able to help our chefs bring new ideas to plates and offer them clear guidance as they perfect their techniques,” he says.

“The produce on Australian farms is amazing. I’ve been researching the history of Australian cuisine and rare native ingredients with the aim of training our chefs about produce they may have never seen or used before.”

Brassel lists The Fat Duck, The Marco Pierre White Restaurant and Michelin-starred mentors such as Gordon Ramsay and Marc Veyrat on his international resume. He received his own Michelin star at Knife + Fork in New York, which was also awarded Time Out’s Best New Tasting Menu. His Michelin-starred credentials mean he is continually raising the bar for his culinary teams, with a focus on maintaining high quality.

Brassel’s most recent role at the Starr Restaurant Group in Philadelphia saw him working with the Urban Purveyor Group’s Culinary Director Martin Heierling, and it is a professional relationship he relishes.

“We have a strong understanding of each other’s strengths and we share many goals and expectations,” he says.

Brassel is working on a new Bavarian-themed restaurant that is scheduled to open in Miranda in Sydney’s south in September. It will fit into the group’s stable of Bavarian Bier Cafes in NSW and Queensland, its popular Munich Brauhaus in Melbourne and Lowenbrau Keller in Sydney.

Add to this his role driving the culinary research and development for new restaurant concepts, including Swine & Co in its new location, and you’d think Brassel would be busy enough.

But butchery is one of his passions and after guiding a recent meat selection overhaul at The Cut Bar & Grill, he’s been working closely with its talented executive chef Joseph Webb to train the Urban Purveyor Group’s staff in their skills with the knife.

“I think knife skills are becoming a lost art,” he says. “So many chefs try to run before they can walk, so I like to take them back to basics and teach them how to debone meat and fillet fish with precision, giving them skills that they will carry with them for a lifetime.”