Andrew Cameron

John McLeay

Gavin Staden

This book is the celebration of three distinctive characters, thrown together by fate to create a restaurant nobody believed in. Together with a collection of recipes collated from the kitchens of both Red Spice Road restaurants and the team of talent therein, this book shares the highs and lows of operating a restaurant in a city that loves its restaurants - Melbourne.The book is edited by someone who could only be described as Melbourne food press royalty Rita Erlich, who effortlessly brings a sense of order to the words. Rita's long experience includes longterm co-editing of The Age Good Food Guide, editing magazines, writing columns, demonstrating and lecturing, and writing books, most recently Melbourne by Menu: the story of Melbourne's restaurant revolution.The photographs are beautifully shot by Juanita McCleary - a very dear friend of the restaurants and a very patient lady. Her eye for detail and her ability to shoot some sixteen recipes in a short day has made her contribution to this book extremelywelcome, and tantamount to its success.We hope you find this story as enjoyable to read as it was for us to write and share. About The AuthorsAndrew Cameron is the brains and the bucks behind the Red Spice Road restaurants. A restaurateur by default, Andrew has his finger in a lot of pies including furniture design, and photography to name just two. But when he is not in the restaurants trying to leverage one of his ideas or concepts or putting the boot up John or Gavin, you'll find him at his desk at Cliftons Training Rooms, the company that helped start this all and kept this mob in a job. Without him, none of this would be possible, and the other two would most certainly have wound up in the gutter somewhere.John McLeay is the Executive Chef and the creative spirit behind the restaurant. A man with his finger on all things Asian (culinary-wise), John excels at trying something on a street in Pattaya and (through a lot of trial and error) putting it on a menu on some laneway in Melbourne. We are all grateful that most of the time he finds success. We love him dearly and his undying reciprocal love for the restaurantsis reflected in the pride he shows both behind the pass and when speaking to his fans. This small group of people can usually be found on the tables at the restaurants or at the numerous events where he continually demonstrates his apparent inabilityto follow a recipe.Gavin van Staden likes to think he's the boss, and most of the time everyone plays along. Forever the big man, Gavin is definitely the nerdier of the three and is constantly let down by the technology he tries to integrate in the restaurants. When not cursing about takings not balancing from the night before, or groaning about kerning on menus, Gavin does try to keep the peace. We're glad to report he does it pretty well.

Gavin Staden

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