Zeb Gilbert joined Wasabi Restaurant & Bar in 2013 and brought with him fifteen years of experience and extensive knowledge garnered on his travels around Asia. His driving force remains a focus on using and promoting seasonal produce, and he works closely with local producers to ensure that his seasonally driven menus receive only the best the Sunshine Coast has to offer. In 2016, in conjunction with the launch of The Cooking School Noosa and Ibento Event Space, Zeb joined Danielle Gjestland as co-owner of The Wasabi Group.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Good food, family and the great outdoors.

What is the purest thing you have ever tasted? Freshly cooked bamboo from Big Heart Bamboo.

What is the best thing you can do with your hands? Create delicious food that people enjoy.

What was your first experience with sustainable eating? I was lucky enough to grow up in household where we raised our own animals for meat and grew all our own fruit and vegetables.

What do you love most about what you do? You never stop learning.

What do you consider the most overrated ingredient? Eye fillet.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever been taught? Keep it simple.

Is there anything you don’t particularly care to eat? Raw uni.

When was the last time you ate out, and where? Two weeks ago, at Michelin-starred Ristorante Consorzio in Turin, Italy. It was amazing.

What are your favourite books or cookbooks? Thai Street Food by David Thompson. It reminds me of the year we took off and ate our way around Southeast Asia. We spent four months just travelling around Thailand.

What is the dish on your own menu that most engages you? Kani Soba: House-made bunya and soba flour noodles, local sand crab, our hen’s yolk, smoked sand crab dashi, and duck fat.

What do you make from scratch? We make almost everything from scratch. At the moment we are working on our third (and most successful) batch of mirin.

What would you be doing if you weren’t doing what you are doing? Fishing!

How do you like to spend your day off? In the kitchen with my two girls. They are 3 and 6 and love helping me create our family dinners.

What does success mean to you? Reaching a point in my life when I have worked out the perfect work-life balance (still a work in progress).

What are the qualities you most admire in others? Loyalty.

Can you tell us something we don’t know about you? I got my love of cooking from my mum. When we were young we travelled around and would make stops at places like Ambathala Station, near Charleville. Mum kept the wood stove burning constantly as the shearers cooked. Watching mum cooking over the open flames, making everything from scratch, using every part of the beast and feeding the shearers, sometimes up to five times a day, sparked my love of food.

If you could eat only one thing today, what would it be? My mum’s lamb neck stew, cooked in the camp oven.

What do you see when you think of the cuisine of your own country? A rich melting pot of different cultures.

Which producer or supplier really brightens your day? Theo from Huey’s Fishing, when he pulls the boat up in front of the restaurant with the morning’s catch.