Peter Gilmore
🇦🇺 Australia · Australian cuisine · b. 1965
The Sydney chef whose nature-driven cooking made Quay one of Australia's most acclaimed restaurants.
Biography
Peter Gilmore is an Australian chef best known as the long-time executive chef of Quay, the harbour-front fine-dining restaurant in Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay. Under his direction Quay has been one of the highest-rated restaurants in Australia for more than 20 years, has been ranked as high as #27 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list (2010), and has been named Restaurant of the Year by the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide four times.
Gilmore was born in Sydney in 1965 and trained at Ryde TAFE college before working through a number of regional Australian and Sydney kitchens — including De Beers at Whale Beach and the now-closed Quadrant restaurant — and a formative spell in the UK and Europe. He took over as executive chef of Quay in 2001, and over the following decade rebuilt its menu around a single idea: that Australia's extraordinary biodiversity — both wild and cultivated — should be the structural basis of a genuinely Australian fine-dining cuisine.
That philosophy made Quay one of the leaders, alongside Attica in Melbourne and Brae in Birregurra, of the so-called 'New Australian' movement. Gilmore is famous for his obsessive collaboration with small specialist growers — heritage vegetable seeds, rare-breed pork producers, foraged native ingredients like finger lime and warrigal greens — and for dishes like 'snow egg' (a meringue-and-ice-cream dessert filmed for an episode of MasterChef Australia in 2010 that briefly made it one of the most-Googled restaurant dishes in the world). In 2015 he also took on the role of executive chef at Bennelong, inside the Sydney Opera House. His cookbook 'Quay' (2010) won the James Beard Award for Best International Cookbook in 2011.
Cooking Philosophy
Nature-based, vegetable-forward Australian cooking. Gilmore's working principle is that the cuisine of a country can only be as rich as the producers it works with. His menus are organised around heirloom and native produce, almost always grown for him by named specialist farmers (some of whom he has paid to grow obscure heritage seeds for years), and meat is treated as a co-equal rather than a centrepiece. He famously catalogues over 100 unusual vegetables, fruits, leaves and grains on the Quay 'garden of textures' menu in any given season.
Restaurants
- QuaySydney, Australia
Executive chef since 2001; three-hatted in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide for over 20 consecutive years. Located at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay.
- BennelongSydney Opera House
Inside the Sydney Opera House; executive chef since the restaurant reopened in 2015.
Awards & Recognition
- Three Chef Hats (Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide) every year since 2003 — the longest unbroken run of any Sydney restaurant
- Restaurant of the Year (Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide) — four times
- World's 50 Best Restaurants — peaked at #27 (Quay, 2010)
- James Beard Award for Best International Cookbook (Quay, 2011)
Iconic Dishes
Cookbooks
- Quay: Food Inspired by Nature (2010)
- Organum: Nature-Based Cuisine (2014)
- From the Earth: World's Great, Rare and Almost Forgotten Vegetables (2018)
Recipes in Peter's Style
These recipes from our database reflect the australian cooking tradition that Peter works in. They are not direct reproductions of Peter's copyrighted recipes, but traditional dishes inspired by the same culinary heritage.
In Peter's Own Words
“I am only as good as the people who grow my food.”
— Quay: Food Inspired by Nature (2010)
“Australian cuisine is biodiversity served on a plate.”
— Interview, Gourmet Traveller
Career Timeline
Begins his apprenticeship at age 17 at the De Beers restaurant at Whale Beach, on Sydney's northern beaches.
Completes his apprenticeship at Ryde TAFE in Sydney.
Travels and works in restaurant kitchens in the United Kingdom and Europe.
Returns to Sydney; cooks at the Quadrant and other Sydney restaurants.
Takes over as executive chef of Quay at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay.
Quay awarded three Chef Hats in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide for the first time — a rating it has held continuously ever since.
Quay named Restaurant of the Year in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide.
Publishes Quay: Food Inspired by Nature; Quay peaks at #27 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list; the 'snow egg' dessert is filmed for MasterChef Australia.
Wins the James Beard Award for Best International Cookbook for Quay.
Takes on the additional role of executive chef at Bennelong inside the Sydney Opera House.
Publishes From the Earth, focused on heritage and rare cultivated vegetables.
Mentors & Influences
Frequently Asked Questions about Peter Gilmore
Where is Quay restaurant?
Quay is on the upper level of the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney's Circular Quay, overlooking the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Peter Gilmore has been its executive chef since 2001 and the restaurant has held three Chef Hats in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide continuously since 2003.
What is the 'snow egg'?
The snow egg is one of Peter Gilmore's signature desserts at Quay — a poached meringue 'egg' filled with custard apple ice cream, sitting on a guava granita, finished tableside with a maltose tuile. It became briefly viral in 2010 after being filmed for an episode of MasterChef Australia in which contestants had to recreate it, and is widely considered one of the most recognisable restaurant dishes in modern Australian cooking.
What is 'New Australian' cuisine?
The term covers the wave of Australian restaurants — Quay in Sydney, Attica in Melbourne, Brae in Birregurra, Orana in Adelaide and others — that from the late 2000s onward built a deliberately Australian fine-dining identity around native ingredients, heritage produce, and close relationships with named small growers and foragers. Gilmore at Quay is one of the central figures of this movement.
Does Peter Gilmore also cook at Bennelong?
Yes. Since the Sydney Opera House restaurant reopened under new operators in 2015, Gilmore has been its executive chef, running it in parallel with Quay. The two restaurants share a creative direction but Bennelong is positioned as a slightly more accessible 'best of Australia' menu, where Quay is a longer degustation.
Has Quay won any major awards?
Yes — three Chef Hats every year in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide since 2003, four-time Restaurant of the Year in the same guide, and a peak ranking of #27 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2010. Gilmore's cookbook Quay won the James Beard Award for Best International Cookbook in 2011.
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