Benjamin Christie: Australian Emeril?

By JULIETTE ROSSANT How do you become a super chef in a country whose total population is less than one third of greater Tokyo yet the size of the US's Lower 48 and covered with deserts? Ask Chef Benjamin Christie, a self-described "Australian Chef Consultant," based in Sydney, with real drive to conquer. After apprenticing at Sydney's The Watermark, Benjamin became executive chef at a QANTAS resort and then took over a restaurant in a new boutique hotel. He then tackled his management and operations skills by becoming executive sous chef for three luxury properties on Bintan Island off Singapore. So, how do you take over an underpopulated country? You seed it with your own people. Thus, upon his return to the Land Down Under, Benjamin established "Chefs Unlimited," his own version of Manpower for chefs, with additional marketing and culinary services. Clients include: the QE2, Maldives Hilton, Hyatt Auckland, Duxton Hotel Singapore, Mumbai Marriott, and Sofitel Cambodia. Eventually, Benjamin sold Chefs Unlimited to partners. These days, besides the knife Benjamin wields the pen as columnist for publications including Dining Around Sydney magazine, Food Service News magazine, and de Groots Best Restaurants of Australia website. Recently, Benjamin became a "chef-presenter" (or "chef-anchorman" as we less-Colonial-types might say) for Dining Downunder, a Canadian-Australian joint production to showcase Australian meals "with a twist," complete with cookbooks (including one of his, so far) and spices (not his -- yet). Such Media exposure has landed him guest stints in Kuala Lumpur (Ritz Carlton and Marriott), Bangkok (Shangri-la), Prague (Corinthia Towers Hotel), and Essen (Casino Zollverein). Right now, however, he is traveling in Europe and Asia to promote the show -- just after landing on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's ABC Asia Pacific free-to-air satellite TV channel, which broadcasts to 6.5 million homes in 30 countries and over 140,000 hotel rooms. Benjamin is making superchef moves, from Down Under to all over the world. Clearly, he is foregoing the Restaurant track for the new Media track to fame and fortune -- all he needs Media-wise now is a spot on the Food Network to start the vault toward the height set by Emeril Lagasse with his Emeril Live. Make no mistake, however: while the Media track has been preferred to the Restaurant track since the late 1990s, it is fraught with more peril precisely because of its higher speed. Meteoric rise risks meteoric fall, as just proved over the past 12 months by Rocco DiSpirito (see entries "Rocco DiSpirito: Trapped in Reality TV's Twilight Zone?," "Rocco Barred From Reality TV," and "Claude Troisgros: Riding De Rocco DiSpirito Star,"). Then again, maybe Benjamin can do it -- there is that whole slew of Aussie actors, from Mel Gibson to Nicole Kidman to Hugh Jackman, so maybe Benjamin can make it among global chef stars -- with that "Australian twist." Watch out, Tetsuya!