A Look At Our Full List of Culinary Masters 2019
We asked the best behind the burners to nominate the young guns you need to know about. Introducing the class of 2019.
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What makes a great young chef? How to spot talent and how to nurture it? As with any business endeavour, there’s more to making it in the restaurant world than simply putting good food on a plate.
When we asked some of the best in the business to name the leading chefs of the future, concepts like “authenticity” and “belief systems” were clearly just as important to them as “natural talent” and “hard work”.
And so, without further faffing about, we’re excited to present the Robb Report Culinary Masters of 2019.
1. O Tama Carey
LANKAN FILLING STATION, SYDNEY
NOMINATOR: PAUL CARMICHAEL – MOMOFUKU SEIOBO, SYDNEY
“We’re in a time when people are open to more things,” says Paul Carmichael, the force behind the Caribbean-influenced menu at Momofuku Seiobo, the Sydney offshoot of the US brand run by super-chef David Chang. Here, you’ll try feisty, spice-laden dishes in a sleek but lively fine-dining space.
“Our cooking is a representation and exploration of the Caribbean region,” he explains. “I sometimes feel like a fringe dweller. But I believe if you do good things and are genuine about it, people generally like it. True passion and the ability to put it out there is definitely part of it.”
It’s a make-or-break quality that he recognises in another “fringe-dweller”, the chef and creator of Lankan Filling Station in East Sydney – O Tama Carey. “She loves what she does,” Carmichael says. “Feeding people, cooking, making people happy: that sort of stuff. The stuff that matters.”
Maldive fish? String hoppers? Short eats and pan rolls? For many, a meal at O Tama Carey’s tiny East Sydney eatery is a journey into the unknown – to the Sri Lanka her family hails from. And while her career has seen her cook everything from Chinese (with Kylie Kwong) to Italian (at Vini and Berta), it was years before she set up her own kitchen.
“I didn’t always dream of having my own place”, Carey says. “But in my mind I’d always wanted to do a hopper thing.”
Hoppers, in case you’re wondering, are soft starchy bases used to sop up rich and tangy curry sauces – whether a bowl-like lattice of rice-flour noodles (string hoppers) or the more pancake-like egg hoppers, both Sri Lankan staples. Once she’d decided that these would be the focus, Carey’s research included trying to learn her family’s recipes.
“I’d travelled to Sri Lanka, but while I knew the food, I’d never really done it professionally,” she says. “It was only when I started experimenting with making curry powders and actually cracked those that it all started to make sense.”
2. Trisha Greentree
10 WILLIAM ST, SYDNEY
NOMINATOR: DANIELLE ALVAREZ – FRED’S, SYDNEY
Their restaurants may be a stone’s throw apart, but there’s more than the ‘hood (Sydney’s Paddington) that brings Danielle Alvarez and Trisha Greentree together.
Both find their chief inspiration in fresh produce, which shines through in their cooking – it’s an approach that’s placed Fred’s among Sydney’s best. To Danielle, it’s a focus that will bring Trisha her own share of glory.
“I think true success is all about having a really strong belief system,” says Alvarez, who spent time at Alice Waters’ legendary Chez Panisse in California. “You need to have ownership of your vision and people that back you.
“I love this industry, it’s like family. And I feel so happy about the position of women now. Even compared to five years ago, it’s shifted from ‘How do we get more women?’, to ‘How do we keep more women?’. That’s a good place to be.”
“Pure curiosity and instinct” took uni-graduate Trisha Greentree into her first restaurant job while waiting to start her master’s degree. From the hatted Bird Cow Fish to working under Dan Hunter at Victoria’s Brae – Australia’s ultimate destination restaurant – she too did her time.
She also found her role models.
“People who genuinely love to cook and serve others,” she says. “People who live and breathe hospitality, not just professionally but wholeheartedly every day.”
Now heading up a small but like-minded team at cult restaurant/wine bar 10 William St, she’s found the perfect platform for her produce-focussed ethos. For Greentree, it’s all about sustainability and thoughtful farming practices.
“Nothing is more uplifting and inspiring than energetic vegetables that grew in healthy, fertile soil,” she adds.
3. Josh Niland
SAINT PETER AND THE FISH BUTCHERY, SYDNEY
NOMINATOR: KYLIE KWONG – CHEF, AUTHOR AND RESTAURATEUR
They say it takes at least 10 years to become an overnight sensation. And, not yet 30, Sydney chef Josh Niland is certainly on that trajectory. With a groundbreaking Sydney restaurant and fish business, a just-released book (The Whole Fish Cookbook) and a global tour to go with it, he’s poised for the kind of success many would merely dream of.
Three years ago, Niland and wife Julie opened Saint Peter on Sydney’s Oxford Street. It was to be no ordinary fish restaurant. From endless experimentation with less-used species and a ferocious no-waste approach, a whole new set of envelope-pushing techniques and dishes emerged.
“The potential use of fish that goes beyond the fillet inspires me every day,” Niland says. “Minimising waste and reducing our impact on the environment around us should be an innate quality in all of us, like maths or English.”
From a tartare of aged tuna served with a fish-eye cracker to chef-wife Julie’s immaculate lemon tart for dessert, it’s all bloody delicious. And as for Niland, he’s well on his way.
No stranger to national and international fame, Kylie Kwong is one of Australia’s most highly respected chefs. And she knows what it takes to get there. “An innate passion for cooking, a sense of generosity, a crystal-clear vision, an underlying commitment and focus…”
She’s also a huge Josh Niland fan. “Josh is a force of nature,” Kwong explains. “He’s highly creative, technically super-impressive, very, very bright on an emotional and intellectual level, has his feet firmly planted on the ground and supports sustainability, locally grown and harvested produce, ethical business practices and so on.” And, Kwong adds, “He’s so pleasant, humble and easy to deal with.”
4. Tom Hishon
ORPHANS KITCHEN AND DAILY BREAD, AUCKLAND, NZ
NOMINATOR: AL BROWN -DEPOT EATERY AND OYSTER BAR, FEDERAL DELICATESSEN, BEST UGLY BAGELS AND MORE, NZ
Al Brown is something of a hospitality godfather in his native New Zealand – with countless awards, and food businesses, to his name. He’s also well liked, has a great love for his industry and happily champions the next generation of chefs.
As Brown sees it, there are some fundamentals to success.
“To understand and learn the laws of basic cookery and the importance of developing a palate,” he says. “Too many young chefs these days just want to know how to use the sous-vide machine and arrange edible flowers with a pair of surgical tweezers.”
Which is why he has a lot of time for Orphans Kitchen’s Tom Hishon: “Tom is an intelligent chef who cooks with his heart. He manages to create delicious tasting food thatis also innovative, and without gimmick. I have a massive respect for what he does. He’s an all-round good guy, with a terrific philosophy around connection and love of the land.”
Tom Hishon has no hesitation in articulating his restaurant’s philosophy. “I utilise what grows around us, whether native ingredients, produce from community gardens, or from amazing farmers, fishermen or hunters,” he says. It’s a stance that’s earned him widespread respect in culinary circles and titles such as NZ Chef of the Year.
A manifesto on the Orphans Kitchen website extolls virtues such as “purity, simplicity and sustainability”, alongside more practical considerations such as “respect for New Zealand’s erratic weather”.
It means a regularly changing menu – though you can expect dishes like locally caught tarume (the Maori word for snapper) pan-seared and roasted in butter, served with a bordelaise-like sauce made from an intense fish-head and collar stock, and with local collard greens on the side.
“Super simple, but that’s what people are wanting,” he says. “That’s what I want when I eat out – good produce and a couple of nice techniques on the plate. I wanted to do a fresh take on New Zealand cuisine and our national food, and at the end of the day, just have fun.”
Fun includes an annual “root to petal” month where the whole menu is transformed into vegetarian and vegan dishes. “It allows us to explore vegetables the same way you might treat meat,” Hishon explains,
The dishes he explores include cauliflower cheese with pickled, brined cauliflower, served besides soured, smoked macadamia sour cream. “You feel great after you eat it.”
“I knew when I was 13 that I wanted to be a chef,” Hishon concludes. “I started in a dish pit in the local town, worked for great chefs in London, and essentially just tried to develop my own food style.”
5. Jo Barrett
OAKRIDGE, YARRA VALLEY
NOMINATOR: BEN SHEWRY – ATTICA, MELBOURNE
The force behind one of our best restaurants, Ben Shewry has won recognition way beyond our borders, including several World’s 50 Best Restaurants listings for Attica.
He’s always run his own race – something Jo Barrett appreciates. “I’ve always looked up to Ben,” she says. “And I love that he’s never been afraid to be creative.”
There’s plenty of mutual admiration here. When asked to nominate the young chef he’s most impressed with right now, Shewry had no hesitation in naming Barrett.
“When you are looking around at young chefs now, things have changed a bit,” says Shewry. “They’ve grown up with tools that didn’t exist for me – Instagram, for example.
But Jo doesn’t subscribe to that level of bullshit. She has such a high skill level and skill set. She focusses on all the foundational pieces you need to make a great chef.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a chef,” says Barrett. “My fondest food memories are of the veggie patch we shared with our neighbours and one of them teaching me how to make ginger beer and scones… I love gardening. And I love food!”
Co-head chef in regional Victoria with her partner Matt Stone, Jo now has the huge Oakridge Winery vegetable garden to draw on. And aside from running the dessert and pastry side of the menu, she bakes bread, makes cheese, cures salami and has even learned the pastry chef’s art of pastillage, otherwise known as ‘sugar work’.
“I figured if I wanted to be a good chef, I needed to know every section,” she explains. “Before I came to Oakridge
I was looking to be a butcher. But I signed up to do pastry and I’ve been a bit stuck in it ever since.”
A connection with the earth and the ingredients of the country is fundamental to Barrett. “I’ve always felt very spiritual, responsible for our planet,” she says. “Now, it’s about bringing the technical in with the spiritual to create nourishing food and great experiences for people.”
6. Kenny McHardy
MANUKA WOODFIRE KITCHEN, FREMANTLE, WA
NOMINATOR: DAVID COOMER -TRUFFLE FARMER AND CONSULTANT CHEF, ISLAND MARKET, TRIGG, WA
As the name of his Fremantle restaurant indicates, Kenny McHardy’s cooking is all about flames, coals and embers. And like many of this year’s Culinary Masters nominees, it’s also all about direct connections to farmers and producers.
After working under big names like Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing, it was during a short stint in WA’s Great South West that the penny dropped.
“I spent a lot of time with producers and growers and fishermen and farmers,” he says. “And it sparked a concept in me that I’d never taken seriously before.”
Next step was a place of his own. That was four years ago in a former pizzeria “at the wrong end of town. We also had a one year old and a four year old so our timing was really great.” And while there are still a few pizzas on the menu – including, in season, a truffle number with potato andmornay sauce – signature dishes include a terrine of Dorper lamb and a flatbread with smoked eggplant baba ghanoush.
“Cooking never made sense to me before. But this way of working is such a natural thing to do.”
Known for such outposts as Star Anise, Pata Negra and Fuyu, WA legend David Coomer was increasingly focussing on his 11-year-old passion project – a truffle farm in the beautiful town of Manjimup – when he first worked with McHardy and a friendship and mutual admiration was born.
“Kenny is a great guy,” says Coomer. “He passionately supports local producers and works in a kitchen the size of a wardrobe, with just one piece of equipment – a wood-fired oven – from which he cooks super delicious, Mediterranean- inspired food. Manuka is just your perfect local.”
7. Hugh Allen
VUE DE MONDE, MELBOURNE
NOMINATOR: SHANNON BENNETT VUE DE MONDE, MELBOURNE
Shannon Bennett was just 24 when he opened an edgy new-wave eatery in Melbourne’s Carlton. Almost 20 years on, that restaurant is now a beacon of contemporary Australian fine dining, set on top of the city’s flamboyant Rialto Tower, and with a young head chef, Hugh Allen, 24, driving the kitchen. It’s not hard to see the similarities.
“Yeah, I see a lot of me in him,” Bennett says. “He communicates very well and also takes criticism better than he takes compliments – very similar to how I think.”
While Bennett sees the industry changes of the last decade as positive, he’s also felt his share of controversy over wages and other business practices. “We need to get rid of the tall poppy syndrome in this country and celebrate aspiration,” he states. “Customers’ expectations are changing, too. They’re really looking for aspirational dining.”
Following his leader’s mantra, it’s all about aspiration for Hugh Allen – and it comes from his three years at the ultra-famous Noma in Copenhagen (currently No. 2 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list).
“Noma was a tough time but it was amazing, even though I was exhausted for three years,” Allen recalls. “But the energy was incredible – everyone had come just to be at Noma.”
Returning to Vue, where he’d earlier completed his apprenticeship, he was inspired by the Noma philosophy of celebrating ‘time and place’.
Now he’s bent on showcasing the best of Australia to overseas visitors and locals alike with dishes such as hand-dived sea urchin on bunya nut cream, and kangaroo cured on a warm salt rock.
“I want to celebrate Australia. And I want to be somewhere people are excited to come – the best of the best,” he adds.
8. Kane Pollard
TOPIARY, ADELAIDE
NOMINATOR: JOCK ZONFRILLO – ORANA, ADELAIDE.
Jock Zonfrillo is on a high. He’s just wrapped up a two-month pop-up in Sydney, bringing the native-ingredient-centred tasting menu of his hit Adelaide fine-diner Orana to a wider audience, and receiving great acclaim in the process.
“Everyone loved it,” Zonfrillo says excitedly. “It’s an acknowledgement of the value of those ingredients and the culture they’re coming from.”
Temporary is also a way forward, he says, at a time when the traditional bricks-and-mortar model is challenged by soaring rents, wages and fit-out costs. And he believes younger chefs have already worked that out.
“When I was young, people had to push me and drag me kicking and screaming in the right direction. But someone like Kane is intelligent enough to know that he is good and that success will come for the right reasons.”
Kane is Kane Pollard – the young chef behind Topiary, a simple modern-Australian eatery in a plant nursery on the city fringe. Pollard’s cooking has wowed even the chefs Jock hosts for the annual Tasting Australia festival.
“And yet it’s not trying to be anything other than a really nice restaurant in a garden centre – one that recognises its customer base and works to its strengths.”
Level-headed and below the radar, Pollard is already where he needs to be says Jock: “He cooks delicious food with good produce and knows where it comes from. If the next generation are all like him, we’re in very safe hands.”
Kane Pollard grew up in the Adelaide Hills as part of a market-gardening family. “Holidays were spent pulling stinging nettles from the rows of rhubarb or planting seeds for the next crop of Brussels sprouts. I’d go exploring, wading through the masses of wild fennel, dodging spiky chestnuts or picking blackberries. I think that’s where my interest in ingredients, and how your senses react, began.”
Starting in local pubs at 15, he picked up the basics and went on to learn the tougher lessons, like the importance of discipline, quality control and organisation in the kitchen. “I also learned that creativity is what keeps you positive. And the more I pushed myself to create the more I wanted to jump out of bed in the morning.”
Fast-forward to now and the beautiful garden surrounds of his Adelaide-foothills restaurant. “Being involved in the planting, growing, harvesting, foraging and searching is really important to me.” He also shares the strong no-waste philosophy of today’s best and brightest.
Ultimately though, Pollard’s real motivation is his creativity. And making people happy. “If someone says that was the best dessert they’ve ever had, then it’s a good day, because you know no matter what, they’ll always remember that.”
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About Last Night: ‘Culinary Masters 2024’ Celebration at Song Bird
Highlights from the gastronomic extravaganza honouring Neil Perry as our standout chef of the year.
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About Last Night: ‘Culinary Masters 2024’ Celebration at Song Bird
Highlights from the gastronomic extravaganza honouring Neil Perry as our standout chef of the year.
Robb Report ANZ hosted hosted a glittering event last night, feting Neil Perry as the standout chef of the year, at his new Double Bay restaurant, Song Bird.
Editor-in-Chief Horacio Silva fronted a packed room of titans of industry, influencers and gourmands for a gastronomic extravaganza staged over three floors.
Esteemed guests included C-Suiters Michael Saadie (NAB Private Wealth), Maria Lykouras (JB Were), Nick Hooper (Jacob & Co.) and Gretchen (Aware Super), as well as ASX Refinitiv Foundation’s Gerard Doyle, dashing adventurer/philanthropist Luke Hepworth and Atomic 212 founder Barry O’Brien. They savoured an exotic menu crafted by Perry, while enjoying exquisite Petaluma Yellow Label wines. They also got to admire stunning Jacob & Co timepieces and sample chocolates graciously provided by Gaggenau.
The menu featured produce-driven Cantonese specialties, such as delectable Wollemi Peking duck paired with Hoisin sauce, various condiments and homemade pancakes, as well as Abrolhos Island sea scallops elegantly presented on the half shell with vermicelli noodles and a dressing of black bean, garlic, and ginger.
The chicsters in attendance were among the first to experience the buzzworthy new restaurant, with the evening made possible by our fantastic partners Gaggenau, Jacob & Co., Petaluma Wines, NAB Private and Codigo 1530 (with support from Kanebridge Media, The Royal Automobile Club of Australia, Citizen K and ASX Refinitiv).
To be a part of next year’s 2025 Culinary Masters and other coming events, sign up to our weekly newsletter or visit https://robbreport.com.au/events/
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Quiet Storm
Ibiza’s more chilled side—yes, there is one—makes for the perfect backdrop for the new generation of Rolls-Royce’s game-changing Cullinan SUV. Let’s get this peaceful party started.
Every sunrise is a party in Ibiza. Indeed, often it seems like unadulterated hedonism is actively encouraged on the most infamous of the four Balearic Islands, a sun-draped paradise where dusk-to-dawn dance parties segway into swanky beach-club afternoons (often involving more dancing), enjoyed by a melting pot of wealthy international pleasure seekers whose sole aim is to party, and party hard.
While everything you’ve heard about this Mediterranean Bacchanalia by night is likely true, during sunlight hours, the isle tends to move to a slower, more tranquil beat. The laneways around the main hub of Ibiza Town (or Eivissa in Catalan) are populated with pink-skinned tourists who drift from A to B in large, meandering groups. Some are boozing their hangovers away; some are on the deep-fried tapas road to recovery. When they’re not lizard-lounging beside hotel pools, the remainder appear to spend daytimes overindulging their credit cards, either in the endless strips of shops or waiting in queues at the ubiquitous beauty salons, ready to glam-up for the big night ahead.
Streetside, market stalls selling mostly Asia Pacific-sourced “spiritual” paraphernalia are juxtaposed by edgy clubwear stores and high-end fashion boutiques. It may have surface-level notoriety, but Ibiza also enjoys a rich dichotomy; a place where travellers cosplay billionaires, and the billionaires live like bohemians.
This is far from big news to locals and those in-the-know. Since the 1950s, when the island became a haven for avant-garde artists and free-thinkers—notably during the Spanish Civil War—Ibiza has lured a certain type of one-percenter who’s keen to live by the codes of modern luxury but doesn’t want to do so in a flashy, gauche way.
It’s exactly the kind of niche customer that Rolls-Royce claims to intimately know as it launches its new, second-generation Cullinan here during a two-day media jamboree, aiming to not only evolve alongside its clientele but set the tone of affluence itself. Since its 2018 launch, the SUV has remained the crown jewel of the Rolls-Royce stable, a global bestseller that has become a go-to daily driver for many, largely because the promise that came with the vehicle was simple: effortless everywhere. It presents a different profile to the marque’s more formal town cars and coupes—such as the Ghost and Phantom—and offers a Rolls-Royce package that is more social, spacious and adaptable for all of life’s needs and all the roads one may want to travel—including the ones we’ll drive over the next 48 hours.
Our adventure begins around 30 minutes’ drive north of Ibiza Town’s party district on the quieter side of the island, the preferred base of many HNWIs who now call Ibiza home. We’re staying at the secluded Six Senses Resort, situated on the northern tip of the peninsula at Cala Xarraca. The immediate area is surrounded by nature trails, sleepy villages and expansive views of the Mediterranean Sea, while the resort itself has a private, pueblo-like feel, its terracotta buildings engulfed by beds of charming wildflowers. In this corner of the isle, for the right price, world-class DJs who spin at iconic island clubs like Pacha and Amnesia are available for house calls and famed chefs create intimate culinary moments behind closed doors. Enrichment can also be found through spirituality and emerging wellness experiences, such as grounding cacao rituals, sobriety coaching, sustainability education sessions and longevity-focused health clubs.
If you’re currently wondering what place a Rolls-Royce has here, remember that privacy and serenity are hallmarks of this storied brand. And in terms of high-level bespoke offerings, craftsmanship and a real-world view of sustainability focused on things made to last, few automotive brands on the planet can match the expectations of those who inhabit this island.
The next morning, we hit the road. Our initial drive takes us towards the west coast, passing charming white-washed villages, pine forests and olive groves that grow out of red dirt. Cullinan’s torquey, 6.75-litre, V12 engine leaps into action when called upon, and combined with the instinctive feel of the steering, manages to hide its somewhat behemoth size. Though the scenery is divine, the tarmac is undulating, but on the cliff-lined curves and uneven surfaces, the plush underpinning of the Rolls-Royce’s signature “magic carpet ride” ensures we barely feel a bump.
Arriving at our first destination, the marina of Santa Eulària des Riu (where a local informs us that the yacht flying a Dutch flag belongs to F1 driver Max Verstappen), the Cullinan cuts a commanding presence. And here, as our steed’s vibrant paint glistens under the Spanish sun, and its lines nod to those found in the mid-size yachts and chic speedboats in the harbour, it starts to make sense why this car would feel so at home in Ibiza.
Cullinan’s new exterior design has a fresh and sharper sense of verticality, evidenced in the more upright lines, crisp edges, and a more powerful-appearing illuminated Pantheon Grille. As someone who wasn’t that much of a fan of Series I’s appearance, these additions give the car more attitude, making for a pleasant surprise. Some dazzling new paint options are on offer too, such as Emperador Truffle. This minimalist, solid grey-brown was inspired by richly veined brown marble, and when combined with the bespoke “Crystal Over” finish, a lacquer infused with glass particles, elicits a mesmerising sunlight-like shimmer.
Before long, we embark on the next leg of our journey, towards Cala Jondal on the far south of Ibiza, best known for its buzzy, upscale chiringuito (the Spanish word for beach bar), helmed by Sevillian chef Rafa Zafra, formerly of the celebrated El Bulli restaurant. This time, we take an inland route, passing bewildered locals not used to seeing a Spirit of Ecstasy statue close up.
As fun as it is to drive, being a passenger in the Cullinan is an experience in itself. The deep-pile carpet is particularly transcendent, likewise the 18-speaker Bespoke Audio system with its 18-channel, 1400-watt amplifier. Who needs Pacha and Amnesia.
Relaxing on the back pews also gives us a chance to run our eyes over the car’s other interior highlights, not least the cityscape-inspired illuminated facia panel, made using a technique which involves 7,000 dots being laser-etched at different angles and depths onto darkened security glass, leading to a striking, multidimensional effect. Naturally, there’s the option to create your own motif in collaboration with the marque’s bespoke design team.
Speaking to customers’ desires for more boldness, there’s a range of new interior textile options, including an artistic leatherwork technique for the seats, dubbed Placed Perforation, whereby tiny perforations are made in the material to create a custom artwork design; plus, an alluring embroidered rayon fabric textile made from bamboo, a modern reimagining of the type found in historic Rolls-Royce cars. Its development was inspired by the bamboo grove of the Côte d’Azur’s Le Jardin des Méditerranées, a beloved spot of the marque’s co-founder Sir Henry Royce.
Rolls-Royce’s pleasingly pedantic approach to sweating the small stuff can also be seen in its use of an open-pore veneer called Grey Stained Ash, which took four years and six specially trained craftsmen to develop and is individually stained and arranged in a pattern to best suit each car.
This hands-on, artisanal ethos, however, doesn’t come at the expense of contemporary digital elements. The relatively small footprint of Rolls-Royce means it’s able to stay more closely connected with its clientele, and in the Cullinan, via a customer-only app called Whispers, the brand can stay in contact with customers and share new bespoke offerings, relevant lifestyle content and events.
After a dazzling lunch at Rafa Zafra’s beachfront Cala Jondal—which certainly should be first on Whispers’ list of hot dining spots—it’s time to make our way back to the airport and say a regret-tinged adios to the Cullinan.
Details play a role in the meaningfulness of a personalised car, and the stories they allow an object to tell. This is a particularly true at Rolls-Royce, where every car model is handmade to order; where one can select a moment in time and have it mapped out in stars on the roof; where you can bring a box of crystal champagne flutes and have them crushed and mixed into paint; or where you can request a veneer made from your favourite backyard tree as a child. The possibilities are infinite.
As we’ve seen over the past two days, embodying the spirit of an Ibiza-based billionaire might just come down to the unwavering pursuit of personal optimisation. Maybe that’s the bigger ideology at play here under the Balearic sun: that the Cullinan represents a unique kind of private hedonism, a euphoric moment between driver and machine. For now, though, the exhaustion from all the driving is taking its toll. Or maybe, just maybe, we’re tired from dancing into the night to the DJ who came to our private villa the night before. In one way or another, this island always captures you.
The Rolls-Royce Cullinan will be available in Australia in late 2024, price on application; rolls-roycemotorcars.com
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Only The Good Die Young
In a future of floating billionaire summits, do we really want to live forever?
Two thousand tech moguls, shamans, CEOs and DJs packed together on a cruise ship for what organisers call “invitation only, one of a kind experiences where super humans make magic”. What could go wrong? That’s the pitch for Summit at Sea, an event billed as a “floating Davos” for millennial technocrats, staged in international waters off Miami. But even if the marketing lingo sometimes threatens to sink under its own weight (“Wherever your gravitational force takes you, our constellation offers wonder”), Summit at Sea captures something about the zeitgeist of what billionaires are looking for now.
They want woo-woo; they want to microdose mushrooms, ketamine and LSD (as championed by the likes of Sergey Brin and Elon Musk), and they most certainly don’t want to die. This issue is about those issues. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel are among the squillionaires bankrolling longevity initiatives—presumably to live long enough to be able to spend all their money. But as Alison Boleyn reports in her first story for Robb Report, even those outré efforts—Thiel is said to receive blood transfusions from people under 25—pale when compared to venture capitalist Bryan Johnson, who reportedly spends $2 million a year on anti-ageing methods. For those of us who can’t afford eternal life, however, the good news is the world is still full of earthly delights.
Take the healthful effects of the Greek island of Tinos or driving the new Rolls-Royce around Ibiza, for example. We also check into an integrated wellness clinic in Thailand and a luxury resort in Spain that focuses on gut health—miso soup and a side of algae, anyone?—and luxuriate in Guerlain’s stunning new day spa outside of Athens. And we spend time with Rory Warnock, a breathwork practitioner and ultra-marathon runner whose tips for curing anxiety and promoting wellbeing are being sought by everyone from CEOs and Olympians to companies like Google and Bupa. And like us, he’s also partial to a well-made negroni. Oh, waiter? Maybe we’ll let the ship sail without us.
Robb Report ANZ’s Issue #38 is now on sale. Pick up your copy of our September issue for an invigorating upgrade for the mind, body and wardrobe.
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Forever Young
You’re born, you live, you get old—right? Well, not according to a growing legion of death-dodgers who are prepared to pay any price to reverse the ageing process.
It is, by any estimation, a meeting of strange bedfellows. Gathered here tonight, at the table of a centi-millionaire venture capitalist living in Venice, California, are Kim and Khloé Kardashian, Kris Jenner and the manfluencer-neuroscientist Andrew Huberman. And the reason this hybrid crew has assembled? Part evangelism, part investment drive, and mostly to discuss how to never, ever die.
The menu that evening—black lentils over drifts of veg with berry-strewn nut pudding—nodded to what the head of the table eats every single day, albeit in separate sittings and all before 11.00 am. Bryan Johnson, who sold Braintree Venmo to PayPal for US$800 million (around $1.2 billion) in 2013, now devotes his life and fortune to winding back his biological age. What he calls his “Don’t Die Dinners” manifest a trend in health and wellbeing where the vision of living to 120, 150 and beyond, has moved from anti-ageing scientists, elite athletes and tech eccentrics to a whole new level of celebrity.
“The two futurist topics everyone is obsessed with right now are artificial intelligence and living forever,” says neuroscientist and futurist Joel Pearson. “Interest in longevity has exploded over the last eight months and that’s because of Bryan Johnson’s Don’t Die campaign.”
In March, when doctors injected 300 million young Swedish bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) into Johnson’s knees, hips and shoulders, it was in a clinic in the Bahamian resort owned by Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods. The 47-year-old—that’s in chronological years; his heart has the biological age of 37—consumes 32 kg of vegetables monthly and more than 100 pills a day, hits bed strictly at 8.30 pm and will repeat the MSC therapy next year so his joints match his already youthful bone mineral density. Other biomarkers show he has the cardiovascular fitness, muscle mass and nighttime erections of a fit 18-year-old. Johnson’s waking hours are devoted to a regimen of therapies and exercises continually recalibrated by a team of more than 30 doctors, with one goal: to slow down the ageing process. Or as Johnson is fond of saying: “Is death no longer inevitable?”
One of Johnson’s July dinner guests, the charismatic Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, has helped propel this notion of extreme longevity. Huberman Lab is Apple Podcasts’ most popular health and fitness show, and the 16th most popular podcast across all categories. His self-optimisation ethos appeals to the acolytes of the show’s manly backer, former UFC fighter Joe Rogan.
“It’s that bro science,” says Pearson, who heads the Future Minds Lab at UNSW and himself adheres to a routine of saunas, kava and red-light therapy to improve sleep. “It’s the young guys in the gym with the ice baths and the hormones and the hunting.” (Because testosterone declines in men starting from their 30s, attempting to boost the hormone through abstinence has become an ideology of a particularly butch patch of anti-agers; getting good-quality protein by shooting your own is another.)
DJ Steve Aoki (46, but biologically 33) has equipped his Las Vegas home with ice plunge tubs, saunas, pulsed electromagnetic field mats, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and a tea bar . He has “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” tattooed across his neck and says he’s signed up for “the full-body freeze”—the cryopreservation of his body for future revival.
While US-based futurist Dr Divya Chander says this euphoria around stretching longevity has not extended to women—“I think they still feel limited by their biology”—Hailey Bieber has shown that the gender divide might be shifting. On an episode of The Kardashians, the 27-year-old model (biological age unknown) underwent an intravenous infusion of NAD with her friend Kendall Jenner. NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is a compound in the body that supports cellular process. “I’m going to NAD for the rest of my life and I’m never going to age,” Bieber said on the show. She was visibly joking yet Jennifer Aniston, 55, told the Wall Street Journal last year that she’s also used NAD+ IV drips, and Kourtney Kardashian, 45, calls her liquid form of NAD “the genetic key to longevity”.
The Sydney-based founders of UAre, an app designed to increase longevity, say that in the early years of testing, men and women responded differently to the product. “The conversation with men was more about winning,” says co-founder Marc Pasques. “‘I extended my lifespan by a year by doing more exercise’, or ‘I extended it by two’. Women talked about hanging out with grandkids.” But he goes on to admit that gap in motivation is closing.
UAre has just opened a $1 million seed round and forecasts $10 million in revenue in 2025 and $30 million in 2026. There’s money to be made in extending youth, if not eternal life. Bryan Johnson sells Blueprint basics for US$333 (around $495) a month. The Harvard biologist and author of Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To, David Sinclair (chronologically 55; biologically 42), who controversially advocates for resveratrol—a plant compound found in red wine and grapes—as an anti-aging drug and who says there are no limits to how long we can live, has co-patented a skincare line with Caudalie.
Professional services giant PwC argues that the oft-used estimate of the global market value of longevity therapeutics at around $65 billion by 2030 does not take into account the potential for these to replace conventional therapeutics in healthcare. Australia’s first medical facility to offer personalised longevity programs, Longevity Medicine Institute, opened in Sydney’s Double Bay in July. “People are coordinating their aesthetic care with longevity doctors,” says New York-based celebrity cosmetic dermatologist Dr Paul Jarrod Frank, whose clients include Madonna. “They’re using supplements like NAD, newer peptides and various manipulative efforts to try and look younger and live longer.”
Similarly Don Saladino, the personal trainer who’s shaped up Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, emphasises age-extending practices in his star clients’ programs as strongly as any aesthetic goals. As Ryan Reynolds readied himself to assume a “tight-as-hell” costume for this year’s Marvel movie Deadpool & Wolverine, Saladino coached the 47-year-old through better sleep practices, walking and increasing dietary fibre. He reframes strength training as not just body-sculpting but as creating “body armour” for later life, to prevent the falls so catastrophic for the elderly.
And Chris Hemsworth, who plays another Marvel superhero Thor, included efforts to stave off the onset of dementia through meditation and exercise alongside Arctic ice plunges in his bid to increase longevity in the TV series Limitless.
The man who was Australia’s deputy chief medical officer during the Covid-19 pandemic questions the lure of many supplements and longevity interventions. As host of the 9Network’s Do you Want To Live Forever series, Dr Nick Coatsworth visits Okinawa, a “blue zone” where an astonishing number of inhabitants live past 100 in good health. There he watches some local elderly dance to hip-hop. “All that biohacking people do, it’s just a waste of time,” he says. “To live longer, you have to spend time with good friends, keep moving and have a good diet.”
Joel Pearson, who stopped taking resveratrol and NMN supplements years ago after research showed mixed results, agrees. “If there’s compelling evidence showing frequent sauna users can get a 40 per cent drop in all-cause mortality, then why would you spend time worrying about a molecule that has very small effect?”
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Breathing New Life
Ancient cultures have used it for thousands of years to cure anxiety and promote wellbeing; now everyone from CEOs to Olympians are discovering the health benefits of breathwork.
Rory Warnock is not your typical new-age guy. When we meet him, he’s sipping a negroni overlooking the ocean at Casa Amor in Saint-Tropez, dressed in an open-neck shirt, expensive sunglasses and a jaunty Hermès silk scarf tied around his neck; no kombucha teas or healing-crystal necklaces here. His relaxed posture is a far cry from 10 days ago when he was preparing to run a 200 km marathon through the Tian Shan mountain range in remotest Kyrgyzstan. “I carried everything I’d need for six days in the mountains. My pack weighed 10.8 kg on day one, excluding water. And I surprisingly ended up coming third,” he says.
According to Warnock, this staggering feat of endurance was mainly down to one thing: breathwork.
Proclaimed as an all-natural wonder drug by an ever-growing chorus of scientists, doctors and fitness enthusiasts, breathwork describes the act of inhaling and exhaling in a way that brings an overwhelming, sometimes euphoric, sense of calm and balance to your body. Though it dates back thousands of years—evidence has been found to suggest the practice was adpoted in ancient India, and shamanic cultures in South America, Africa and Australia—modern-day breathwork broadly falls into two different categories.
The first is the mindful breathing that forms an essential part of yoga and meditation: alternate nostril breathing, or box breathing, are taught as simple physiological tools to downregulate the nervous system and move the brain from fight or flight mode. It’s believed these simple methods re-tune brain chemistry, by reducing the amount of noradrenaline to the organ—akin to popping Valium or taking a perfectly safe mini-tranquiliser.
The second is holotropic breathing, which is deep, transformative breathwork. Devotees says it’s more like taking a mushroom trip. Pioneered by Dr Stanislav Grof in the ’70s, it invloves laying on your back in the dark and following a sequence of breathing patterns as you’re guided by a trained facilitator—and is often set to music. It’s claimed that this more intensive work can yield powerful results by connecting to the subconscious, releasing accumulated trauma and accessing inner wisdom.
Nine years ago, Scottish-born Warnock took a risk. He traded working for a successful packaged goods company in London for a career as a breathwork coach in Sydney—long before his passion was an internet buzzword. The move, however, was not necessarily driven by financial motives. “I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression at a pretty young age, like 21 or 22 years,” he says, taking another sip of his negroni. “I was pretty much crying myself to sleep for about three years and I didn’t really understand what was going on.”
Dissatisfied with being prescribed “a little white pill” by his doctor and given a “pat on the back”, Warnock began to look for new ways to heal his condition. “I tried to do everything I could to improve myself in a more holistic way and so I got into running,” he says. “I changed my lifestyle.”
And more significantly, he discovered breathwork, giving him a new mission in life. “When I first heard about it, I thought ‘breathwork’, that sounds a bit ridiculous. Someone is going to tell me how to breathe in a certain way and it is going to change how I think and feel and ultimately perform day-to-day? But I went along to one session and that one hour changed the direction of my whole life. I was hooked on the feeling. I was hooked on the immediate effects, hooked on feeling joyful, happy, strong, empowered.”
In person, Warnock’s enthusiasm is infectious, but his testimonials are, increasingly, backed up by science. A 2014 study by the Stanford Research Unit found breathing exercises to be effective for treating PTSD in combat veterans; and by 2016, US Navy seals started using breathwork to achieve calm and focus before battle. British neuroscientist Professor Ian Robertson calls it the “the most precise pharmaceutical you could ever give yourself, side-effect free”, while some researchers claim breathing exercises are an effective, low-cost treatment for PTSD, bi-polar, insomnia, and can even help combat grief.
The general public are buying into the movement, too; according to a report by the Global Wellness Institute, breathwork has experienced a 400 percent uptick in popularity since 2019. And, unsurprisingly, billionaire technology titans, who are always looking for the next big health panacea, are buying in. “It’s all very steeped in Silicon Valley tech culture,” said Jag Gill, a New York-based banker turned tech CEO in a recent interview with The Washington Post.
Dr Smita Dsilva is an ayurvedic doctor (ayurveda being an ancient Indian alternative medicine) at the RAKxa Integrative Wellness in Bangkok, Thailand, a clinic that received celebrity patronage in July when supermodel Kate Moss passed through. “Breathing exercises have been used for centuries as a powerful tool to manage stress and anxiety, increase focus, and improve overall wellbeing. In the high-pressure business world, this is a simple yet effective practice, she says. “Giving attention to the breath promotes the purification of both the mind and body, while also raising the energy. It also frees the mind from unnecessary thoughts that promote anxiety… regular practice can release up to 80 percent of the body’s toxins through the breath.”
And breathwork is not just an elixir for various negative mood states. According to Dsilva, the practise can also help with aesthetic issues: “Kapalbhati pranayama is a specific breathing technique in yoga that involves forceful exhalations and passive inhalations, engaging the abdominal muscles throughout the practice. The vigorous breathing and abdominal contractions help reduce bloating and support the removal of toxins, potentially leading to reduced belly bloating and weight loss.”
These findings will not be news to the clients who flock to Rory Warnock’s breathwork school in Sydney’s Bondi suburb. Or to the Olympic athletes, AFL players and CEOs who are huffing and puffing his studio door down on a regular basis. Most likely due to his soft Scottish accent and self-effacing manner, Rory has been adopted by a raft of high-calibre companies, including Google, Amazon, BUPA and Energy Australia, eager to learn how mindful breathing can bring better productivity to the workplace. He’s an ambassador for Apple and Lululemon, and has evolved into a seasoned conference speaker. Warnock’s brave career-change gamble has clearly paid off.
When he’s not teaching the world’s movers and shakers how to harness the power of something that we all do around 20,000 times a day without even thinking, Rory has gotten into the habit of bookending his year with long-distance races; for him, breathwork and ultra-marathon running are intimately linked. But he insists that mental issues can be addressed on a more prosaic level.
“You don’t have to go for a 45-minute yoga class or a run,” he insists. “You can just do a few minutes or even a few seconds of breathwork and you can move from a low state, to a better mood state. And it is exactly the same with anxiety; if you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, there are breathing exercises you can do in real time to shift how you feel.” Negronis are allowed, too.
Rory Warnock; and discover Warnock’s breath lessons on Spotify.
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