Bill Granger
1969 - 2023
Melbourne-born Bill Granger was a self-taught cook who became a celebrated global restaurateur and food writer with a career spanning over 30 years. Together with his partner Natalie, they built a thriving business that today counts 19 restaurants across Australia, Japan, South Korea and the UK. Bill wrote 14 cookbooks, selling over one million copies, made five television cookery series seen in over 30 countries, and wrote recipe columns for magazines and newspapers worldwide. In 2023, Bill was honoured with the Medal of the Order of Australia for his outstanding service to tourism and hospitality.
At the Beginning
Having started studying interior design in Melbourne before detouring into a fine arts degree in Sydney and waiting tables on the side, in the early nineties, Bill soon moved from art and design to food.
“Like a lot of students, I worked as a waiter. In my case it was at La Passion du Fruit. The owner, Christine Juillet agreed to let me open for dinner three nights a week. Passion just had what was called a 'tearoom' license, which meant we weren't allowed to cook on the premises.
“I did all the cooking that my venture required at my mother's place, and then assembled the dishes (reheating soup in a coffee pot, steaming asparagus in an electric kettle) at the restaurant. Much of what I made was fresh and that quirk of restaurant law, taught me how to combine the best produce I could find, with elements I had pre-prepared, into dishes people enjoyed.”
Bill Granger, 2000
“I found a cheap corner site in Darlinghurst (described, fabulously, in one newspaper review at the time as a 'slightly raffish neighbourhood') with a rent I could afford. In fact, it was the only property anyone would allow me to rent. There were a few drawbacks: the local council told me I could only open 7am to 4pm Monday to Saturday, the restaurant was restricted to just 32 seats, and it was the height of a recession. I had no spare cash to splash on interiors.
“Fortunately, as an ex art student, I had a bit of a feel for design. I liked minimalism, and it was cheap.”
Bill Granger, 2020
“Nothing about bills was showy; the tremendous sense of well-being that the place managed to convey had been achieved very economically and with the simplest of means.”Terence Conran, 2002
“Sliding Doors theory - in one universe you turn left; in another you hook right. If the theory is true, a world exists where a 23-year-old Bill Granger stays in art school and never opens a café in a remodelled Darlinghurst pub. What a grey world to live in. Thank heavens that in our universe Granger is better with pans than paints.”Callan Boys, Sydney Morning Herald, 2019
“I remember a girl at uni back in the 1990s enchanting me with a description of this café she loved that was just one big table piled with the best magazines from New York and London, serving only food made that day and excellent coffee, all to an appreciative audience of nurses from St Vincent's and aspiring fashion designers and class-A drug dealers and other fixtures of the Darlinghurst demimonde. When I moved to the neighbourhood it was still exactly that, and the essentials of the blueprint have been lifted and copied and riffed on so many times and in so many places around the world that it's easy to lose sight of just what a revelation the original bills was. (It's a mark of respect that I render the name here in all its 90s lower-case, no-apostrophe glory.)”
Pat Nourse, 2023
Bill Granger – A Trailblazer
With his beaming smile and endless enthusiasm, the late Bill Granger brought his own approach to all-day dining to the world. In every dish, every cup of coffee, and every welcoming greeting, Bill captured the energy of Australia’s great light and big skies, combined with a lightness of touch and his own passion for making people happy, whether it was in Bondi or in Notting Hill.
“That Bill was the catalyst not simply for that now distinct Australian export combining coffee and casual dining but for a change in the rituals and rhythms of our lives. From pub to cafe, tea to coffee, evening to early morning. It is impossible to overstate the inspiration, impact and importance of what Bill and Nat created and how it ushered in a change to our culture, not a fine dining one or canon of strict recipes but a brightly optimistic, quietly sophisticated and totally egalitarian approach to food. Australian food used to be a question, Bill made it a statement.”David Prior 2023
Bill created beautifully crafted, comfortably contemporary spaces to inspire convivial conversation, where friends and family could gather at any time of the day to talk, laugh and share their lives over good food and friendly service. When asked for the secret to his success, Bill said it came down to “always thinking about the people we’re cooking for and giving them what they want, often before they know they want it.
“The key to Bill’s global success is that he changes constantly, and yet has never changed. The principles remain the same – take something people love to eat, and make it fresher, lighter, more beautiful. It’s irresistible. It’s the sort of food you eat when you’re on holiday and yet you can eat it every day”Terry Durack, Sydney Morning Herald