Food Wine Sleep

Born in Melbourne and raised on the Gold Coast, Pete’s passion for cooking was discovered because of his love for the great outdoors!

After opening his first restaurant, The Pantry, in Melbourne's bay side suburb of Brighton in 1993 at the age of 19, Pete moved to Sydney in 1996 with his brother Dave and established his second restaurant Hugo’s in Bondi, followed by Hugos Lounge in Kings Cross in 2000, Hugos Bar Pizza in 2004 and his most recent venture Hugos Manly in 2008. Pete’s restaurants have gone on to win numerous awards including the SMH coveted “chefs hat” 7 years in a row, “Best Pizza in the World” in New York and “Best Bar in Australia” in late 2005,“best nightclub in Australia” 2007,2008 & 2009 and “best pizza restaurant in Australia” in 2008 & 2009.

Along with his restaurants Pete has been in front of the camera for the last 8 years as a TV presenter. Pete’s work includes hosting Australia’s number 1 cooking show “FRESH” on Channel 9 and “Home” a lifestyle channel program.

Pete is currently filming a new project that has him cooking for the worlds best parties and has recently signed onto a major TV project that will be on air early 2010.

Pete appears annually at some of Australia’s most acclaimed food events such as “Tasting Australia”, “The Good Food Show” and “The Great Barrier Feast.” He travelled to New York for the G’day USA promotion in 2009 where he cooked at “The Waldorf Astoria” and whilst he was there featured on “The Martha Stewart Show”, ”The Rachael Ray Show” as well as the “ CBS Early Show”. He will be once again cooking up a storm for the 2010 G’day USA program in LA in January 2010.

Pete has a passion for writing and his first book ”Fish” a collection of over 130 fish and seafood recipes from Australian and New Zealand species, was published in August 2007 and is currently up to its 4th reprint. His second book is titled “My Table – food for entertaining” and was released in November 2008 and his most recent book, “My Grill” is all about the art of barbequing which hit the shelves in August 2009, and is already into its 2nd reprint as well as been sold into Germany for release in 2010.

He is currently writing a book on “cocktail food & drinks” for release in 2010. Pete also writes a monthly column for the Australian Womens Weekly along with being a contributor for Selector magazine.

Pete has a range of cooking products hitting the shelves in late 2009, so watch out for those!