Kiwi chef is on the rise

Josh Emett. Photo / Supplied

Josh Emett isn't your typical chef. He doesn't blast profanities at every given opportunity. He doesn't have an uncomfortably overpowering presence. He isn't smug and he doesn't intimidate. But Emett isn't just any chef.

With 10 years at the helm for Gordon Ramsay, one of the world's most renowned and volatile chefs, the 36-year-old Kiwi has learned the politics of cooking the hard way. Working tirelessly to become somewhat indispensable to the Ramsay food empire; Emett has effectively assumed control of Ramsay's North American operations, vindicating his position as Executive Chef de Cuisine by winning three Michelin stars - the most influential culinary rating in the world - for Ramsay's two restaurants, a feat that has elevated him to the pantheons of the world's greatest chefs.

And it seems the years of working 18-hour days and being a cog in the fast and furious Ramsay machine are now beginning to pay off, with the New Zealander ready to take the reins and launch his own illustrious career in the spotlight.

The Waikato-born chef, who was given his first cookbook at the age of 9, is about to embark on making a documentary about his humble Kiwi upbringing and the long and arduous road to success.

Following in the footsteps of his patron's worldwide success with the Hell's Kitchen and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares programmes, the Chef De Cuisine Project will chronicle Emett's rise to success from his upbringing on a remote farm to becoming a trainee chef and the painstaking time it has taken him to reach his elevated position running Ramsay's US culinary operations.

"I think it's a good story," Emett says, unabashed.

"It's the story about a Kiwi farm boy going overseas and being successful and sort of grinding it out and then returning to New Zealand and rediscovering it, really. It's about finding out what's been going on while I've been away for 16 years and about New Zealand's produce and our people."

Emett's story is a simple one. He grew up on a farm in Ngahinapouri, near Hamilton, and swore from an early age he wouldn't work a nine-to-five job or do anything conventional.

At the age of 15, while working at the Wilson Carlisle Retirement Home in Hamilton, he decided cooking was for him. And he has never looked back.

The Chef de Cuisine Project is set to be filmed in New Zealand, the United States and Britain early next year, and will see Emett working with Queenstown-based producer Mark Gillings. The documentary will chronicle Emett's early life, his rise to fame within the Ramsay empire and his feelings on returning home to see how much has changed since he's been away.

The three-part series will document the roots of Emett's career, beginning at the Est Est Est restaurant in Melbourne. Here he was under the patronage of the head chef Donovan Cooke, whom he says opened the door to the culinary world for him.

Emett then moved to London, where he worked as a chef for Ramsay, then at Claridge's before moving on to the Savoy Grill where he earned himself his first Michelin star after just 12 months.

Rewarded by Ramsay with the post of "Executive Chef de Cuisine for Gordon Ramsay" at the London Hotel in New York, he was heralded as being the man responsible for changing the menu, reorganising staff and shaking up a wobbly fine dining establishment.

More acclaim for his hard work came in the form of a further two Michelin stars for the restaurant less than a year after opening.

Today he is managing operations there and at Ramsay's other US restaurant, the London in Los Angeles.

Also New Zealand's first Michelin star chef, Emett says the road to success has been a battle.

And despite having frowned on chefs who become celebrities through TV appearances in the past (saying they don't run professional kitchens but are merely "cooks who get on TV"), Emett says he isn't bothered about what people make of his own transition to the small screen.

"I'm not worried about the celebrity chef thing; if anyone's done their time in the industry it's me," he says.

"I've bloody earned it. If I want to go and do something like this now, I don't have to explain myself.

"It's part of the industry, whether you like it or not these days.

"Unfortunately chefs can't just sit in their kitchens and be left alone to go about their business. There's so much press and marketing and exposure that you need to be doing to keep up with everyone else, otherwise you just fall behind into oblivion.

"You need to be out there promoting yourself and your business."

So despite holding down an extremely high-pressured job and the arrival of a new-born son (12-week-old Finlay), training for the Speight's Coast to Coast challenge and a television career in the pipeline, Emett admits he's never been happier.

"It's great now, I've got that balance," he says, smiling.

"I knew I had to go through those really, really hard times, but that it was necessary.

"This documentary is about getting back to cooking because that's really what it's supposed to be about. Cooking's why we got into this in the first place."