When world-renowned chef, Analiese Gregory gave up the restaurant business around five years ago, she started on a path of personal discovery that eventually silenced the mental noise of self-doubt.
“Before I moved to Tasmania, I was always so nervous,” Gregory tells SBS. “I used to ask myself ‘can I actually cook?’ I wondered about my cooking skills constantly. I had big impostor syndrome.”
This was despite the fact that Gregory was – and still is – one of the most celebrated chefs of her generation. She fine-tuned her cheffing skills under the mentorship of Peter Gilmore at his acclaimed restaurant, Quay and later worked at the Michelin star restaurant Le Meurice in Paris.
But, over time, the gruelling effect of long hospitality hours skewed Gregory’s personal connection to food – one that was forged as a child in nature, growing up on a dairy farm in New Zealand with a Welsh father and Chinese-Dutch mother.
The “anti-restaurant”, which is due to open some time in August 2025, does not focus on serving fine dining dishes, nor will it focus on increasing covers. Instead, the plan is to host 10 diners at a time. Guests will eat seasonal food that Gregory has grown, hunted and foraged. The menu will work with nature and hero ingredients that celebrate the chef's connection to her local environment.
Connecting with nature – and herself
In Tasmania, the chef feels she's returned to a truer version of herself and rediscovered her connection to food, the land and sea. “There’s been a real joy in living here and doing what I am doing,” she says.
“As a child I was always out in the fields. Then, I got older and hated camping. For so long in my adult years, I didn't own a flat pair of shoes (apart from my kitchen clogs). I only wanted to wear dresses and high heels, and be in big cities visiting art galleries. I was very much the city girl.
“When I lived in Sydney, before I moved to Tasmania, I didn’t even cook at home. I worked six days a week and, most nights, I’d eat a staff meal before service and snacks after service. On my night off, I’d go out to eat. I think I only ever cooked at home once every six months.”
Eventually, Gregory heard the call of nature summoning her to live a more sustainable life. So five years ago, she bought a cottage in need of renovation in Tasmania's Huon Valley, 40 minutes drive from Hobart, and chased her food goals.
“I used to dream of having an old wooden farmhouse and a kitchen that was filled with bowls of homegrown produce. I really tried hard to make my house in Tasmania be just like my dream. It’s now all paid off.”
“When you live in any big city, all kinds of food are available at any given time of year. But in Tasmania, you have to eat and live with the seasons properly. You can fight against it but it’s much easier to give into it. I’ve come around to accepting these sorts of things.”
Now, Gregory eats regularly at home and feasts on foods that she’s passionate about because she’s grown, sourced or made them herself. In her kitchen there are fruits and vegetables from her garden, homemade pickles and other condiments, honey from her bees, cheese that she personally crafted and prosciutto that she cures herself.
She also eats sea urchins, fish and abalone that she sources locally herself, often forages for native greens and has also raised chickens, goats, pigs and sheep, as well as grown herbs in her farm. And, she courageously takes on hunting – even if it feels confronting – and fishing in the wild, including underwater spearfishing, in a bid to stay true to her values.
“I feel as though I've come full circle. I feel more fulfilled. Nature has definitely been healing.”
The impostor syndrome is also gone. “This period in my life has been a time of upskilling. Now I'm like: ‘oh okay. I can do this’.”
The quest to be wild
Gregory now aims to continue strengthening her connection to nature. To do that, she seeks inspiration from Indigenous females across the globe who have traditionally fulfilled the hunter-gatherer role.
“One day, I would like to be ‘a wild woman’. To me, being ‘wild’ means being able to live within nature but not necessarily harm it. You have to be comfortable being with yourself in nature, with your own thoughts. There's also a certain amount of self-reflection that has to happen for you to be able to do that. That’s what I think of as being ‘wild’.
“I don't know if I fully achieved it yet, but I feel like that is something I want to work towards.”
Season 2 of A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking premieres on Monday 23 June, 2025 at 7.30pm on SBS On Demand and SBS Food.
