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Josh Emett and Steve Marshall - Source: ONE News -
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The waiters' orders are coming in and the chef's orders are being barked!
I'm standing in the kitchen of Melbourne's latest fine dining restaurant where Hamiltonian Josh Emett is running the show.
Emett is the executive chef for Maze restaurant , the first Australian venture for TV celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.
After successful stints with Ramsay restaurants in London and New York, the 36-year-old was handed responsibility of opening the latest eatery in the Maze chain, in Melbourne's CBD.
And it's hard work. We arrived at midday to find Emett overseeing food and restaurant preparations for the official opening that night.
As 60 bodies worked feverishly away, Emett gave me a tour of the swanky new pad that is actually two restaurants under the one roof. "Double the pain," Emett later tells me in an interview.
Above the chandeliers is the Metrolpol Hotel, a brand new $350 million, 650 room palace. I'm told it's the largest hotel in the Southern hemisphere.
Opening night began smoothly. Couples and groups trickled in through the large wooden Maze doors.
They could have a choice of fine dining in the Maze restaurant or the Maze grill, a New York style steak house.
During an interview earlier in the day, Emett told me he liked to run the kitchen his way, not in the mold of his potty mouthed boss, firm and with no bull s*#t!
Midway through the evening, I ducked out back and found Emett running a controlled kitchen environment. No one was getting fired, well at least not tonight, Emett says.
The only tension to hit the kitchen was when word leaked through that a well known food critic was in the house. Emett's eyes narrowed and the chef's bark became louder.
A customer also caused a stir on arrival when she complained about a lost internet booking. As it turned out, she had in fact made the booking online at the Maze restaurant in London!
As opening nights go, this one couldn't have been smoother.
Emett signed off at midnight, knowing the phone call from Ramsay in London the next day would be a good one...
Read more of Steve Marshall's blogs.
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