Jacqui Challinor

Jacqui Challinor’s food career began as an apprentice at Sydney’s organic café group, About Life in 2006. She then joined the ranks at Sydney hospitality group, Merivale in 2007 and completed her apprenticeship working under Head Chef Christopher Whitehead at Mad Cow before moving onto Felix under Lauren Murdoch and Sebastien Lutaud. She gained her first head chef role at Xanthi Bar & Restaurant working alongside Executive Chef, David Tsirekas.

Jacqui joined Sydney restaurant, NOMAD upon opening in 2013. She was inspired by the restaurant’s ethos of Australian focused produce and hands-on processes around cheese, charcuterie and bread making, as well as working with the heart of NOMAD’s kitchen, the wood-fired oven.

Jacqui moved into the Head Chef role in 2014 where her cooking style has developed into big, bold flavours, generosity and good, honest cooking with a focus on locally sourced produce. She has continued to keep NOMAD as a hatted restaurant in SMH & The Age’s Good Food Guide with our latest venture, Reine & La Rue earning 2 hats six weeks after opening.

Over the past ten years, Jacqui has been involved in several charities close to her heart, including OzHarvest CEO Cook Off (raising over $50,000 across multiple years) and CookForThe Bush, a concept Jacqui and the NOMAD team brought to life to raise funds for the NSW Bush Fire crisis. Over two days, NOMAD raised $149,000 for the Australian Red Cross Bush Fire Appeal. Jacqui has also been involved in the annual #CookForSyria dinners which is a UK born initiative that supports children and refugees affected by the ongoing crisis in Syria.

In 2021, Jacqui took the role of Executive Chef of NOMAD Group, where she now oversees all four venues, NOMAD Sydney and Melbourne, Beau and Reine & La Rue.