The Mill

I decided that I was going to be a chef when I was five years old. When I was ten I wrote to four restaurants, asking for work experience; only one, The Mill in New Plymouth, responded. I spent four weekends there peeling vegetables and constantly eating. Looking back, the food was not amazing — prawn cocktails, fisherman’s baskets, nondescript steak and salad — the kinds of dishes typical of small-town New Zealand in that era, but to a ten year old it seemed pretty special.