Celebrity Profiles
Walsh, Stuart
Renowned Culinary educator from Victoria, Stuart established the Culinary Academy at the Hotel Sofitel and was, until recently, the Dean of the School of Tourism and Hotel Management at the Canberra Institute of Technology.
Executive Chef at the famed Royal Melbourne Golf Club and the back to back winner two Australian Regional Culinary Competition in 2005 and 2007, as well as a Culinary Olympic and World Culinary Grand Prix award winner. Stuart is now a small business operator with his wife Coral on the far NSW South Coast at Merimbula.
A champion for local produce Stuart has cooked at special events in Germany, Singapore, India, Cambodia, and was part of the "Consuming Passion's" team that cooked for the 2009 Australia Week celebrations at "G’Day U.S.A" in Los Angeles and New York in 2009.
Ward, Amanda
Australian-born, Amanda Ward caught the travel bug early and has spent a lifetime travelling, often led by her voracious interest in food. A journalist by trade, she has written for many publications, more recently specialising in Italian food, wine and lifestyle as a result of her partnership with Italian chef Salvatore Pepe. The couple host small culinary tours exploring the diversity of Italian cuisine from Calabria to Piemonte and everything in between. In 2004, she wrote and published Cibo cookbook, documenting Salvatore’s journey in food from Italy to Australia.
Currently, Amanda is Associate Editor of The Adelaide Review, an independent monthly newspaper, where she is able to combine both her journalist skills and her passion for food, wine, art and architecture.
Worrall-Thompson, Antony
Award-winning chef Antony Worrall-Thompson has run several highly successful restaurants and is a well-known TV personality. He began his culinary career at various restaurants in and around Essex, much to the horror of his grandmother who refused to write to him because she could not bring herself to write Essex on the envelope.
In 1981 he opened his first restaurant, Ménage à Trois in Knightsbridge and then he went on to launch Wiz and Woz in West London. Antony has opened numerous restaurants during his career and now has two restaurants and a pub: Windsor Grill and Kew Grill, which serve his unique retro-grill style cuisine using only the best, locally sourced ingredients, and the Greyhound Pub. His latest venture is Windsor Larder a 'Food And Wine To Go' shop, a small friendly shop where you can buy a variety of foods and other items from a snack to lunch for the office or a complete meal at home.
In March 1988 he won the Mouton Rothschild Menu Competition, and shortly before in December 1987 the most prestigious accolade: the Meilleur Ouvrier de Grande Bretagne (MOGB) which is the Academy of Culinary Arts competition, held every four years, to find the most talented chefs in the country. He is one of only seven chefs in the United Kingdom to have won the Meilleur Ouvrier de Grande Bretagne (MOGB) a lifelong title that's considered the chef’s Oscar.
In 1998 Antony became resident studio chef and main presenter for BBC2’s Food & Drink programme. He was a Ready Steady Cook regular and filmed several of his own series for Carlton Food Network. In 2003 he was appointed presenter of BBC1’s hugely popular, Saturday Kitchen until May 2006. In May 2006 he left the BBC after 14 years to host the live cookery programme Saturday Cooks! on ITV1. He now presents Daily Cooks Challenge! on the same channel as well as that seasonal spectacular, Christmas Cooks Challenge. Antony emerged from the jungle in 2003 as one of the nation’s favourite celebrities in the ITV series I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. He is increasingly in demand by broadcasters to comment on serious food issues such as diabetes, obesity, nutrition and the eating habits of children.
He is passionate about organic farming and sourcing ingredients locally whenever possible, seasonality is key to the food that Antony wants served in his restaurants. He and his wife Jay, their two young children, and a brood of animals, live near Henley on Thames.
