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‘I’ll hunt down the whistlers’

CELEBRITY chefs can be well known for their hot-in-thekitchen temperaments but Sean Connolly – the executive chef of Hippopotamus restaurant at QT Hotel, Wellington, and Esther at QT Hotel, Auckland – reckons he’s up there with one of the bad boys of world rock, Liam Gallagher.

In an interview on Stuff today, the 55-year-old Yorkshireborn chef and restaurateur, who divides his time between his home base of Sydney and New Zealand, says he’d happily trade places with the Oasis frontman.

‘‘I love him. He makes me laugh,’’ he says. ‘‘He says what he thinks, and has no filter. The stuff that comes out of his mouth follows my mind. Also to stand in front of 50,000 people and sing like he does would be amazing. I’ve seen him a few times in my life.’’

Connolly also gives a glimpse of the sort of thing that might see him fly off the handle in the same interview when he answers a question about hated noises with ‘‘whistling in the kitchen’’.

‘‘Whoever is whistling in the kitchen, I’ll hunt that person down. I f…… hate whistling. I get a pain in the side of my head when I hear it. It drives me loopy. I also say that if anyone’s too jolly while cooking, they’re not concentrating.’’ Beneath the tough exterior, though, there does seem to be a soft centre as Connolly – a family man who lives in Sydney with his wife, Jo, with whom he has three children aged 24, 21 and 18 – named his Wellington restaurant after his grandmother.

And when asked who he thinks ought to have their portrait on a Kiwi banknote, he reverts to family too. ‘‘I’d have two. That would be my grandmother Esther who was like the Queen Mother in our family and my mother Margaret who is like the Queen. They both taught me to cook and set me up in my career. I was cooking from an early age and I found my vocation early because of them. My mother is 84 and she still lives back in Yorkshire. I’m hoping to visit her this year.’’

Despite dividing his time on either side of the Ditch,

Connolly (who’s back this month for Auckland’s Restaurant Month) is full of praise for New Zealand.

‘‘New Zealand is such a great country and I can’t fault it... I love the contact with New Zealand suppliers, that they come to meet me at the restaurant with the tomatoes or herbs they’ve grown for me to cook. You don’t get that same village feel in Australia. You don’t get a chance to meet the growers.’’

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2022-08-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281736978219854

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