TONY TAN'S ASIAN COOKING CLASS

Tony Tan is a cook's cook known for his mastery of technique, depth of knowledge, and generosity of spirit. He's the expert chefs go to when they want to tweak a dish. Tony was born in Malaysia to a Chinese family who owned restaurants. In the 1970s he moved to Melbourne to study renaissance history and Chinese language (he's a fluent Cantonese and Mandarin speaker, as well as Hainanese, Hakka, Hokkien, Spanish and French), but instead became involved in its food scene. He owned the restaurant Shakahari in Melbourne, then Tatler's cafe in Sydney, before taking himself to Europe to cook in France and study and at Leiths in London. Back in Australia, he took food tours, appeared on TV, wrote for Gourmet Traveller, and opened a cooking school in Melbourne. He now lives in regional Victorian Trentham, where he runs intimate sold-out cooking classes, tends his vegetable patch, and plans regular trips to Melbourne to eat widely and connect with hospitality industry family.