He doesn’t crave attention, but the three-hatted Yiaga and Vue de Monde chef dominated the Good Food Guide awards. We sat down with the 31-year-old to ask how he juggles work – and now fatherhood.
Queen’s We Will Rock You blared as Hugh Allen – the 31-year-old chef who leads Yiaga and Vue de Monde in Melbourne – took to the stage to accept Oceania Cruises Chef of the Year cheered by a crowd of 500 at The Age Good Food Guide’s Awards ceremony on Monday.
He made a rockstar entrance, then a reflective speech, first thanking Good Food for the recognition and his team for their support. But then: “I had a boy four weeks ago,” he said. “That’s the proudest thing for me this year. As good as this is, I love being a dad.”
It was a rousing start to Allen’s second week back at work since he and his partner Claire welcomed their son, Heath. “There’s many things I’ve been involved with creating work-wise, but when you see a little human you’ve created, you’re like, ‘Hey, man! You’re cute as hell’,” says Allen, two days after the awards. “Everything feels a bit more complete.”
Allen dominated this year’s Guide awards. His year-old Fitzroy Gardens fine diner Yiaga was named T2 Tea Restaurant of the Year and earned a coveted three hats. It’s been lauded as a “once-in-a-generation” opening. Long-running fine diner Vue de Monde, where Allen is executive chef, also picked up three hats, the highest ranking awarded by the Guide. By the end of the night, he had four framed certificates to cart around.
Impressively, Allen is the only chef in the country to lead two three-hatted kitchens simultaneously. “It looks a bit different every week,” he says of his routine. “But with Yiaga only open four days, I’m predominantly there for them. Then one or two at Vue.”
“And if I’m going between both? I usually just walk,” he says, taking a route through Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens and the CBD.
Running two top-ranked fine diners coupled with the new responsibility of fatherhood sounds like a juggle by any definition. But Allen said he’s quite focused on each restaurant when he’s there. And at home? “We’re still working out what the new norm is … Right now, it’s kind of go with the flow.”
Allen celebrated with his team on Monday night over a few bottles at City Wine Shop before kicking on nearby at the just-crowned Bar of the Year, Three Horses, until around midnight. On Tuesday, “It was pretty much back to business: work bits and bobs, and baby stuff.”
But his phone has been blowing up. “I’ve definitely been inundated with lots of lovely messages,” he says. “I’m getting through them ... some people even get an emoji back!”
By his third appearance on stage at Monday’s ceremony, it was clear that Allen isn’t a chef who does it for the love of the limelight. “Me, personally, I don’t enjoy [the attention] ... I never have,” he says. “But it’s obviously amazing for the restaurant.”
Since opening almost a year ago to the day, Yiaga’s rise has been stratospheric. “I knew it’d be a bigger opening; it was quite a few years in planning,” says Allen. “But I didn’t expect it’d be [this big],” with a recent global dining prize catapulting the restaurant to even greater heights.
Even before the accolades, tables were booking out at Yiaga quite a few months in advance, says Allen. (Mark your diaries: bookings for next February go live at 10am on November 1.)
“It’s like a concert: the seats go live and you can just see ‘booking in progress’, ‘booking in progress’, ‘booking in progress’,” Allen says. “Tables of one to four [people] go pretty much that day ... but there are often cancellations and we use the waitlist constantly.”
There was one common thread in Allen’s acceptance speeches at the Guide awards: his passion for Melbourne. To a room full of his peers – chefs, restaurant owners, front-of-house stars – he said: “Every time I travel and go overseas, it’s great and you eat out and you immerse yourself in amazing things, but [I] always come back to Melbourne. Whether it’s getting a sandwich or something on the higher end, I’m just like: F---, this city’s good and it’s because of all of you. So, thank you so much.”
“[Yiaga] was a dream of mine,” he added. “To be able to do it in this city is an even bigger dream.”
At 31, Allen has achieved more than most chefs. But, “I don’t feel like it’s happened super quickly,” he says. “I didn’t finish school. I started in kitchens very young. I’ve been doing this since I was 15 or 16. That many years in one thing is a long time. If I was a doctor – with 15 years in hospitals – I’d be considered a very experienced doctor.”
It’s been a decade and a half working his way to the top of Australia’s fine dining scene, but Allen has never stopped moving the goalposts. “I remember when I was younger, I’d think, ‘If I ever got this or achieved that, that would be amazing’. And then you do it and the next day comes ... and you have new goals and benchmarks to set,” he says.
Only a year in, Yiaga is making waves on the world stage. But, Allen says, “By no means do we think we’re as good as we can be.”
“We’re excited to double down and push it as far as we can.”
The 46th Age Good Food Guide reviews are available via the Good Food app, which is free for premium subscribers of The Age and also available as a standalone subscription. You can download the Good Food apphere. Click here for more Good Food Guide stories.