Stephanie’s food career began in 1966 with a popular restaurant called Jamaica House on Lygon Street. It was the opening of her restaurant – Stephanie’s – ten years later, however, that cemented her place in Australian culinary history. Over its 21 years of operation (first in Fitzroy and then in a grand Victorian house in Hawthorn), Stephanie’s revolutionised fine dining in Melbourne and across the country and shaped the careers of a generation of chefs.
Chef and restaurateur Neil Perry credits his time at Stephanie’s with teaching him to respect simplicity in cuisine and to always source and use the very best ingredients. Farm-to-table chef and food writer Annie Smithers has called her apprenticeship at Stephanie’s the most formative experience of her cooking career. “My connection to seasonality, terroir and preservation techniques all originate from that kitchen,” Annie recalls in her recent memoir, Kitchen Sentimental. As she writes, “Stephanie Alexander didn’t just teach me how to cook, she taught me how to love food.”
What made Stephanie’s remarkable was not just the beautiful food served, but the philosophy that underpinned its masterful preparation. From the beginning, Stephanie built her menus around seasonality, championed and celebrated Australian produce, and cultivated lasting relationships with local suppliers and small producers. As Annie recalls, “Stephanie had a commitment to the small growers, the small farmers, the artisan, the specialist that I have never seen bettered.”
After the restaurant closed in 1997, Stephanie went on to co-found Richmond Hill Café & Larder – a Richmond cafe that had a retail shop and a first-of-its-kind walk-in cheese room. It very quickly became a Melbourne institution. Among those who worked at Richmond Hill in its early days was Market Lane co-founder, Fleur.
“I was very young when Richmond Hill opened, so I worked with the back-of-house team, helping prepare things for the shop,” Fleur remembers. “It was there that I fell in love with hospitality. There was energy and passion and a sense of purpose behind what the team was doing. There was nothing like it in Melbourne at the time. It was ambitious and exciting, and very formative for me.”
Beyond her celebrated hospitality establishments, Stephanie has inspired and influenced generations of home cooks with her wonderful writing. She has published over 18 cookbooks, but it’s The Cook’s Companion – first published in 1996 and now in over half a million homes – that stands as her most enduring contribution and is thought of by many as their “kitchen bible”.
Organised alphabetically by ingredient, its thousand-plus pages are filled with recipes, cooking techniques, and generous offerings of food knowledge and heartfelt encouragement.
In the book’s original introduction, Stephanie wrote that it would all be worthwhile, “if this book encourages young people to start cooking and experienced cooks to enjoy cooking more”. Three decades on, that goal has been more than fulfilled. A special 30th Anniversary Edition has been released this year, now fully updated with new recipes, revised introductions and fresh guidance.
As Stephanie writes in this new version, “I am thrilled that so many readers have told me how much the book means to them, how it is almost a member of the family”.
Reflecting on her life’s work, she adds, “I have cooked for sixty plus years for my family, for my close friends, for the public, and increasingly for myself. Always I have enjoyed it. Most of what I have learnt is in this book.”
Another of Stephanie’s enduring legacies is the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, which she first piloted in 2001 at Melbourne’s Collingwood College. Grounded in her conviction that children who learn about fresh, delicious food will carry positive food habits with them for life, the non-profit introduces kids to the pleasures of growing, cooking and sharing food. 25 years on, the program is now represented in over 1000 schools and early-learning centres across the country.
Today, at 85 years old, Stephanie is still passionately working hard to educate and inspire. Through her writing, public speaking and ongoing work with the foundation, she continues to remind us that good food, grown and prepared with care and shared around a table with people we love, is one of life’s greatest pleasures.
We feel so honoured that Stephanie has shared the recipe on the following page with us – for a cake she loves to serve with coffee. This recipe was originally written by Joan Campbell and is featured in the updated Cook’s Companion. As Stephanie explains, “One of the features of this new edition is that I mention important food gurus in my life, both writers and practitioners. I will never be accused of plagiarism as I love showing where I have been. This trail of influences reveals my likes and dislikes, and I thank all of those who have gone before me and given me an idea or helped me solve a problem, or introduced me to something delicious.”
