Aussie butcher making it big Beijing farmer

Rob Cunningham tells about his journey from a small-town life to an illustrious career in a luxury hotel in the city.

After running some attention-getting restaurant kitchens in Asia for several years, only a thatch of graying hair betrays that Australian Rob Cunningham is now 44. At work in the open kitchen at Feast in Beijing's East Hotel, the executive chef moves like a spring, almost bouncing amid his kitchen crew as they primp picture-perfect plates of ox tongue. His tattooed forearms pump like engine pistons, whether he's talking about pureeing parsnips in Beijing or slaughtering a hog back on the family farm in Milawa, Victoria.

While he's clearly animated in the bright lights of a big-city kitchen, Cunningham says he's still a country boy at heart.

"Back home, I was always the one who was skinning the pig or breaking down the bees (hives)," he says during a break.

His hometown was small - "there were about 30 kids in my middle school" - but there was a strong food tradition.

"Lots of Italian immigrants came there after World War II," he says, "and I watched and learned as they made gnocchi, preserved tomatoes and all kinds of jams. I was intrigued by it all."

Like other pig farmers, Cunningham says, "we sold a lot to Italian families, so we all made salami, ham and bacon."

As a farmer's son, it was a way of life not only to butcher livestock but to consume the whole animal, nose to tail. Many city folks today think it's no accident that "offal" and "awful" sound just alike, but Cunningham would like to get back to the more traditional - and less wasteful - approach he knew growing up.

"When we killed a beast - sheep, pig or cattle - we used everything," he says. "These days, people don't regularly consume all parts of the animal."

So Cunningham has launched the Carnivores Club at his restaurant, in part to push diners to appreciate the sources of their food. He recently invited guest chef Yao Yang to create a whole-pig menu designed with a gourmet take on secondary cuts and offal. The two had teamed up for a fundraising dinner last year, and found they had a great time cooking together.

The dinner was a hit after about a month of planning, practice and "some really, really bad jokes in the kitchen". Yao, creator of the restaurants Saffron and Chi, is also a well-known food blogger and host of the culinary TV show Yao Yang in My Kitchen.

Presentation was key: While all edible parts of the pig were used, there were no recognizable (read: disturbing) body parts on plates. The opening course of braised pig's hock, for example, came with curls of crispy pig's ear, pork jelly, radish and cucumber salad.

Last month, Cunningham invited Andrew Ahn, chef-owner of Ssam Korean restaurant in Beijing, to team up for a similar feast spiked with contemporary flavors from his country. The two started the dinner by teaching guests how to make kimchee.

While Cunningham actively uses social media to showcase his food creations, his posts are just as likely to be about other chefs' cooking. His recent WeChat moments have highlighted "the best lamb ever" at 99 Yurts, a Mongolian eatery north of the capital, and a vacation to Thailand he's just returned from with his wife and daughters. Those posts had foodie friends swooning as the Cunninghams munched their way through the famous street food in Bangkok and other Thai cities.

They would have understood back home.

"I remember Dad would take us to a beach town for vacations, and we'd go to a Thai restaurant he'd read about. The food was so mysterious, interesting, stimulating - I just loved it."

Nowadays, while his home area remains a small town, its culinary base has continued to evolve. "It's now a regional center for artisan cheese," he says, "and I have a cousin who makes artisan mustard. There's a strong winery presence - Brown Brothers is there - and excellent honey is produced there, too."

But the spirit of the countryside remains there, as it does in Cunningham.

"I still love the shooting when I go home - hunting rabbits, deer and ducks," he says. It's not part of his lifestyle here in China, he says, though he's tried to arrange to hunt here.

"One of our caviar suppliers was going to take me - but something happened," he says. "It didn't work out."

Most things have worked out for Cunningham. In Australia, he worked in top kitchens in Sydney and Melbourne; in London, he had the chance to hone his skills in Michelin-starred restaurants.

In Asia, he had worked for a year in Japan - a country that had long fascinated him - without giving China a thought until he was recruited by the Shanghai team at M on the Bund, who were about to open the company's now-popular outlet near Tian'anmen Square in Beijing. He has run Feast and other restaurants in Swire Properties' East Hotel since it opened in September 2012.

"In the five years I've worked in China things have changed a lot, especially in presentation and service," he says. "In 2009 there were lots of opportunities, and fine-dining was taking off. I thought, 'Why not?'"

Contact the writer at: mike.peters.cd@gmail.com