In May 2016 when my friend Annie flew over from Australia to visit for a few weeks, she brought with her two lovely cook books. Falafel for Breakfast was my favourite, I cooked from it and kept it with me at all times in the Riverbank kitchen!
So when I booked flights to Sydney for January this year, I took a deep breath and sent a random, cheeky email to Kepos Street. My request found its way to Kristy, half of the married couple who own the two Kepos restaurants and write the beautiful books.
A few exchanges later and not only had I fixed myself up with a couple of days of work experience, but I also had a long list of personal recommendations of places to eat and visit.
This was great news for my friend Jennie and me. Jennie had flown over from Auckland and was there to meet me when I arrived in Sydney. We spent four nights together in the city, exploring the list of cool coffee shops, eateries, ice cream parlours and even gin distilleries around my two days at Kepos Street. Yes, we crammed it in!
On the morning of 11 January I was apprehensive, but I needn’t have been. Kristy Frawley could not have been lovelier. As we ate breakfast together, she shared stories of how they found Kepos Street and the massive hand fate played in them taking it on. She told me about how hard they’d worked and how tough it had been to open, but then how they’d never looked back. And Michael, her husband, on hearing that I have no formal training in a kitchen told me that passion is the most important thing anyway. I loved that.
Next stop was the kitchen itself and the team in there were amazing. They explained things, gave me some easy jobs and taught me to make some delicious Kepos salads. I loved the opportunity to learn and just soak up the magic – the dishes were skilfully created, delicious and beautiful to look at and I was completely delighted when Michael offered me the opportunity to do an evening service too.
Honestly, had I not booked my travel on to the country, I’m not sure they would have ever shaken me off. I loved every minute.
Thank you team Kepos. x