Welcome to "Toronto: Down Under", a celebration of Australian Cuisine.

We’re bringing yet another new dining experience to Toronto.

This year, Australia Day falls on Thursday January 26th. On this day in 1788, the First Fleet Landed from England at Sydney Cove to establish the first European Colony in what became New South Wales.

In the lead up to Australia Day 2012, we will be preparing an amazing meal : nine courses of food to celebrate the founding of our friends on the other side of the planet. We'll be pairing the food with wine, beer, music and fun form Australia! Think Kangaroo. Wattleseed. Lemon Myrtle. Killer Seafood. Wine. Beer. Whisky.

Luke Hayes-Alexander will be coming down from Kingston for THREE DAYS ONLY to cook some of the great cuisine he experienced on his two week trip to Australia, where he staged in some of the best restaurants in Sydney. Australian John Placko, one of the most knowledgable and skilled modernist chefs in the Toronto will be there. Rounding out the team will be Matt Kantor, of Secret Pickle, Little Kitchen and Ghost Chef.

Our hosts for the evening will be Alison Fryer of The Cookbook Store and Tony Briganti from Rosemill Development. Special Thanks to Lifford Wine for getting us some tasty beverages.

The Team

About Luke:

Luke Hayes-Alexander is the 21 year old Chef of Luke's Gastronomy in Kingston. He began training himself at the age of 11 and became Chef the day after his 15th birthday. Since then, he has received an extraordinary amount of domestic and international press, including The Toronto Star, The Ottawa Citizen, Canada AM, Toronto Life, The Financial Times and Food and Wine Magazine. He was recently called 'The Future of Fine Dining' by Centurion Magazine.

This past September, Luke spent just over 2 weeks in Australia. He performed Stages in, and dined in, some of the country's finest restaurants. He travelled through the Outback with 3 of Australia's top Food Critics to be a judge at the legendary Blinman Camp Oven Cook-Off...he was the first Canadian to be invited to this event. CTV News wrote a great feature just before Luke left for 'down under'.

Luke's clients hail from all over the world. All comment on the playful, complex juxtapositions on his plates. Luke is just happy to be changing the way people look at food...one plate at a time.

About John:

John first came to Canada from his native country of Australia in 1985 for the “Taste of Canada” culinary competition. He also competed successfully in numerous culinary competitions in Australia, won gold at the Culinary Olympics in Germany as team captain of a regional team and was the first chef to represent Australia at the Bocuse D’Or competition in France.

He has worked for the Hilton hotel group, the Hyatt Hotel organization in Mexico as executive chef and opened two new restaurants in Sydney, Australia during his career.

John spent almost 10 years in menu development, as product development manager/executive chef at Cara Operations Ltd. and then as director of culinary development for Prime Restaurants Inc.

With the growing popularity of avant-garde (molecular gastronomy) cuisine, John has been demonstrating the techniques to numerous chef/culinology gatherings over the past 5 years and now runs hands-on workshops on selected weekends for professional chefs. His full time position is as director of culinary excellence at Maple Leaf Foods’ innovation and culinary centre, ThinkFOOD! His best dining experiences ever: El Bulli, Spain and Noma, Denmark.

About Matt:

Matt Kantor entered the Toronto culinary scene in 2009 designing custom menus for clients and creating dining experience events. Despite not having a restaurant, Kantor quickly established a profile as an adventurous and creative chef through his Secret Pickle supper club and Little Kitchen roadshow dinners, including the elBulli tribute, regularly sell out. His imaginative and playful style of food creation makes avant-garde fine dining exciting and accessible.

Kantor has been featured in many of the top Toronto periodicals, including Toronto Life, the Toronto Star, PostCity, and The Globe and Mail, and has been interviewed several times on CBC Radio one and CFRB 1010AM . Matt is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and has worked in some of the top restaurants across North America.