Chefs savour awards

It's the five days that have changed their lives.

This year's West Australian Good Food Guide Awards Chef of the Year and Young Chef of the Year received their coveted awards at a gala event last Monday night, and the past week has seen both their lives change dramatically.

"All this week, we've been receiving letters of congratulations, phone calls, people dropping in bottles of champagne and bookings have soared. It's gone mental," O'Sullivan said.

"We don't really get walk-ins here, but last night for instance, we had 40 bookings and ended up doing 82 covers. Incredible."

O'Sullivan and his business partner, wife Hazel, own the Red Cabbage restaurant in South Perth.

"It still hasn't sunk in," O'Sullivan said. "We can't wait to get to the end of the week, so we can draw breath and process all this."

The Red Cabbage chef said he had an inkling he may have been in the running but had no expectations about winning and added the lead-up to the awards was "more nerve-racking than my wedding day".

Jake Stone, the 23-year-old winner of the Young Chef of the Year award, said it had been a tumult- uous week. "I've had heaps of praise from the guys at work. My chef mates are just stoked that I've got it," Stone said.

The chef, who started in the business washing dishes at age 15 before getting an apprenticeship a year later, said the award had changed his life. "I'll be able to travel and get work in some of the world's top restaurants now," he said.

Source: The West Australian, 24 September 2012