Posted by kathryn in Miscellanea

It’s Good Food Month and strangely the first “event” I went to didn’t involve eating a single thing! Shoot the Chef is a photographic exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. I had some free time on Friday and thought I’d take a look.

Known last year for its fabulous picture of Simmone Logue in a dress made of cupcakes, Shoot the Chef gives a rare and fascinating insight into the world of the professional (and some non-professional) chefs.

I love cooking and I do quite a lot of it. I also know a reasonable amount about cooking, but I’m definitely not a chef. I’m always intrigued by these photos and the insight they give into the workings and personalities of restaurants and the people that work there. This is well away from the celebrity chefs we see on TV, instead it’s about the hard-core work of being a chef in Sydney.

I couldn’t take any photos inside, but a few pictures really stand out – an intense, moody and combative Matt Moran staring out of Murray Frederick’s photograph. Where Was I (Christopher Reane) is a clever and telling shot of an anxious chef peering through rows and rows of restaurant dockets, while Glimpses of Rupert&Ruth: Ode to the Busy Chef (Anke Allen) shows snippets of two chefs, snatched while working. My favourite though, was a photograph by Jack Meagher of Tom Cornell, the chef at Red Bend Catholic College. Tom is at the centre of the photograph looking calm and slightly stern as cheeky and grinning boarders rush past him to get their dinner.

While there, you can also have a look at paintings by Sydney Nolan, Arthur Streeton, Russell Drysdale and the fabulous Brett Whiteley. Then finish up with a cup of tea at the cafe looking out over beautiful Sydney Harbour and Woolloomooloo.

• Where: Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery Rd, The Domain,
• When: Until the end of October
• Time: 10am-5pm (until 9pm Wednesdays)
• Cost: Free
• For more about Good Food Month look here; follow Cucina Rebecca’s weekly roundup of foodbloggers at GFM.

07 October, 2006