Peter Gilmore is the Executive Chef at two of Australia’s most exciting and dynamic restaurants - Bennelong in the Sydney Opera House and Quay across the harbour in The Rocks.
Peter is an Australian, born and bred in Sydney. He was inspired to cook at a young age and started his apprenticeship at 16, then spent his twenties working in kitchens overseas and in country New South Wales, developing his own style.
Peter is now one of the most awarded chefs in Australia taking the helm of the kitchen at Quay in 2001. Quay has been awarded Three Chefs Hats for an unprecedented 18 consecutive years and named Restaurant of the Year six times in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. In 2019, Peter was named Chef of the Year after Quay’s major reinvention which saw him create an entirely new menu. This also resulted in Quay's listing at #3 in Australian Gourmet Traveller’s 2020 Restaurant Guide, where the restaurant has held three stars for 17 years. In 2020 Quay was awarded Hottest Restaurant in NSW and Most Iconic Dish in the Weekend Australian Hot 50. Quay was listed for five years on the World’s 50 Best Restaurant list and held the title of Best Restaurant in Australasia for three of those years.
Peter, along with Fink, reopened Bennelong restaurant in the Sydney Opera House in July 2015 to critical acclaim taking out the title for ‘Best New Restaurant’ at all three major Australian Restaurant Awards.
Across both restaurants, Peter describes his cuisine as food inspired by nature and as a passionate gardener himself, he was one of the first chefs in Australia to embrace heirloom varieties of vegetables and continues to work in partnership with small and artesian producers who cultivate bespoke produce exclusively for both Quay and Bennelong. Peter collaborates with a range of producers across Australia, from the fishermen who hand dive and line catch the seafood he serves to the farmers who rear rare breed animals with superior flavour and texture for the table. Peter’s appreciation of nature’s diversity and his endless experimentation in the kitchen and garden are the driving forces in his cooking.
Peter has released three cookbooks, Quay: Food Inspired by Nature published in 2010, Organum: nature, texture, intensity, purity in 2014, and From the Earth: World’s Great, Rare and Almost Forgotten Vegetables in 2018.
Peter and his cuisine are held in the highest regard within Australia and around the world. Peter is regularly invited to attend international festivals and seminars. He is proud to be an ambassador for Tourism Australia.
Peter has been a regular guest chef and judge on Australian MasterChef most famously creating the Snow Egg which set the final challenge in the second season; to date one of the most highly watched shows in Australian television history. Peter is a regular guest on various cooking shows including The Restaurant Australia Documentary on Netflix.
