After Dinner Speakers: Peter Gordon, Mike Lynch, Duncan Goodhew
New Zealand-born Peter Gordon, co-owner and head chef of London's Providores and Tapa Room, is renowned as a leading light of the Antipodean fusion style of cookery.
Peter began his career at the age of 17 as an apprentice in Melbourne. With this grounding he spent the next year travelling around south-east Asia, India and Nepal - an experience which was the catalyst to his development of the fusion style of blending East and West cuisines.
Back in New Zealand in 1986 he set up and ran the original Sugar Club restaurant in Wellington. Its success convinced him to transplant it to Notting Hill in 1995, where it quickly became one of the hottest tickets in town and picked up a Time Out award only a year later. The best-selling Sugar Club Cookbook followed soon after as did monthly columns for glossies and numerous television appearances.
He left the Sugar Club in 1999 and two years later with Anna Hansen opened the Providores and Tapa Room to the same critical and public acclaim as the Sugar Club. Also in 1999, he set up the annual charity event Who's Cooking Dinner? to raise money for leukaemia. Like everything else he has been involved in it's been a roaring success.