COOKING THE BOOKS - From Inside the Food Industry

This week Robbie catches up with an old friend, Hugh Allen, who is currently work at Noma in Copenhagen. They first met when Hugh was 15 and doing his apprenticeship at Rockpool Bar & Grill, and Hugh then went on to work at Vue de Monde, Noma Sydney and Noma Mexico. It's a real insight into what it's like to work in one of the world's most forward-thinking, elite restaurants.

This week Robbie talks cheese with one of Australia's finest cheesemongers. Olivia explains what cheese is and how it came about, which cheeses are a must-try and some tips when purchasing cheese.

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This week on Cooking the Books we have Rebecca Bell, co-owner of City Larder. Rebecca breaks down one route you can take to get a food product to market, as well as talking about her early pursuit to become a sommelier, and being the first Front of House stagière at The Fat Duck Restaurant.

If you're thinking about starting a food wholesale business or pursuing a wine career and are not sure how to go about it, this hopefully will be very beneficial.

In this week's Cooking the Books we have one of Australia's finest chefs, Sam Aisbett. Sam won a michelin star and got into the Asian Top 50 Restaurants within the first two and half years of being open. He is a man of integrity, one of the good guys, he is humble and always keeps it real.

This week on Cooking the Books we have Micheal James, the co-owner of Tivoli Road Bakery alongside his wife, Pippa James. Micheal is thought of as one of the greatest bakers of his generation. He speaks about how he got started in baking, how it's all about the quality of the products you buy, and the effect that factory farming is having on our health.

In this episode Julie talks about how baking brought her relief through some really difficult times, and how she began her Instagram feed which then lead on to a book deal. It's a great story that I feel is just getting started and one that really shows that patience, persistence and hard work do pay off.

This week on Cooking the Books we have Shaun Hurrell; the creator of Barrio Comida, the mexican pop-up soon to have a fixed residency in Durham, England. Shaun talks about setting up his business through his pop-up, as well as how a fried egg changed his view on cooking, and the internal fight he has picking excellence and consistency.

In this episode, Tom talks about representing Australia in Ireland as part of the 6 man butchers team, where they picked up awards for their sausages and for being the most hygienic team.

We also discuss where he thinks butchery is heading and where ready-to-eat meals fit into that story, as well as customer service and quality of produce.

First of all I've got to apologise for the audio quality - we recorded this at the City Larder Kitchen where all the noisy fridges and stainless steel did us no favours. Please try and get over that. Lesson learnt, my bad.

In this episode Zac explains how Rockpool dry age there beef, he also talks about sustainability and what that means to him and Rockpool, as well as some great tips on managing a big team.

In this episode, Heath talks about how he and his business partners built there brewery by hand and saved $350k in the process. He also explains how it all started with a walk with the dog to now setting up brew pubs in India.