The Cooking Professor

Riki Kaspi

Riki was born in Israel, into a multicultural environment that revolved around food. Her Mother was from Turkey and came from a family of dedicated and intuitive home cooks. “There were no recipe books,” says Riki. “Recipes had always been handed down orally.” After training as a chef, Riki travelled with her jazz saxophonist husband, Heni, and worked in restaurants around France. Whilst expanding her French cuisine repertoire, she developed the idea of establishing her own French-style ‘Bistro’. When she and Heni immigrated to Australia, she realised her dream by taking over Riki Blake's North Perth Café where she won critical acclaim for her cosy, intimate and buzzy little place specialising in North African and Middle eastern cuisine. Riki and Heni sold the cafe early in 2009 and embarked on travel again to Europe and the Middle East and on their return Riki started teaching at The Cooking Professor.  Riki is now the owner of The Cooking Professor.

Rohan Wills

After many years living and working in Europe and North America, Rohan has returned to Australia with great experience. Rohan has worked as a personal chef for Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Jack Johnson and Madonna.  He is married to a Spanish girl from the Costa Verde in the North of Spain and his passion for Spanish regional food can barely be contained. Rohan is a talented and versatile chef and his classes will be filled with knowledgeable and relevant cooking tips and techniques that will make cooking the perfect dinner party at home a breeze.

Duxxa Tailor

Duxxa is a Gujarati Indian born in Zambia who spent many years in the United Kingdom and New Zealand before moving to Perth.

She spent childhood days, when not at school, with her mother in the kitchen learning the basics of Indian cuisine.  It is traditional in Indian families that daughers are introduced to cooking very early in childhood.

There is an art in cooking and certainly Indian cuisine is unique to the palate.  Duxxa believes that to learn through the eyes and with a hands-on experience is the key to learning Indian cuisine.  She is passionate about cooking and hopes to inspire you.

Peter Kenyon

Peter lives in Northbridge with his wife Jan, a cat called Shiraz and a number of goldfish. When he was a uni student, he began to get interested in cooking, at first out of necessity because his Mum was a long way away, but then as a passion because he just loved the process of cooking and the entertaining which followed.

When he was a graduate student, he worked at the prestigious C&O Restaurant in Charlottesville, Virginia in the USA. On returning to Australia he became an enthusiastic amateur cook and went to many cooking classes around Perth, as well as becoming a cooking book tragic. In 2004, Peter took long service leave from his real job and lived a long-held dream of working in the kitchen at the Loose Box, one of Perth's premier fine dining restaurants. His cooking career continued in 2005 when he cooked for the Linari International Classical Music Festival in Tuscany. He returned to Linari in 2006 to cook for the Festival. Peter has also cooked for John Maiorana's Italian Cooking Classes as one of John's assistants. He has won a number of recipe competitions and regularly cooks for friends' dinner parties, weddings and other functions.

Peter also loves wine (too much, perhaps?) and has a very nice cellar. With friends, he makes one barrique of red wine per year. Apart from growing the grapes, he and his friends do all the winemaking from picking and crushing to bottling in a garage in suburban Attadale. All concerned think the wine is nearly as good as Grange!

In his 'real job', Peter is Professor of Economic Policy at Curtin University of Technology.

Frederick Kirby

Frederick has extensive experience within Europe and Australia having trained and worked at several Michelin-starred restaurants.  He has worked at the Merion Hotel and the Fitzwilliam Hotel in Dublin as well as the K Club Golf Resort which recently hosted the world-famous Ryder Cup. Frederick was the Executive Chef at Riverbank Winery located in the Swan Valley where he was responsible for gaining two chefs hats for the restaurant in the Australian Good Food Guide.  He has most recently been the Executive Chef at Sandalford Winery with a write-up in the 2012 Good Food Guide. His philosophy is to keep food fresh and simple to enhance and enrich the natural flavours of the ingredients.

Yvonne Bleach

Yvonne grew up in Singapore, a multicultural hot-pot of food and flavours.  She started her journey in food as a young child watching her grandmother grow her own food business. This was furthered with her writing for Elle Magazine in Singapore as a lifestyle writer.  Food writing was part of her repertoire and through it she met amazing chefs and tasted a variety of cuisines.  Her food love affair was furthered when she worked in PR for top hotels and a variety of lifestyle groups in Singapore.  This allowed her to work with Michelin star chefs and understand the dynamics of fantastic restaurants.   Retreating from the rate race and now settled down in Perth, she has gone back to her family's roots of the food business and runs her own catering company putting a gourmet spin on the street food you find in Singapore and Malaysia.  At the Cooking Professor, Yvonne will be showcasing Hawker and home-style food from Singapore and Malaysia.

Alexandre Lui-Van-Sheng & Jacques Saint-Alme

Alexandre and Jacques friendship began in the French colony of Reunion Island at Alexandre's family bakery. His father  is a well-known chef and the owner of over 30 bakeries. The two young apprentices couldn't find a better place to learn the secrets of the traditional Macaron using Alexandre's father recipes handed-down over generations through the family business. Both of them continued their work and training in France, moving to Perth four years ago. After a short while, the two young bakers decided to treat Perth to these wonderful little round, colourful and flavoursome French treats. Their business, Maison Saint-Honore, was the next step to open their own home made French biscuit factory, selling their sweet treats at various shops and markets around Perth.

Vincenzo Velletri

Vincenzo was born in Fondi, a small town in central Italy.  He grew up on a farm where fresh produce was always available and learned about good food at his mother's knee.  Vincenzo migrated to Australia 20 years ago and has worked at many fine Italian restaurants in Perth.  He is a member of the Slow Food Movement and is the leader of the just-formed Swan Valley and Eastern Region Convivium of the Slow Food Movement.  Vincenzo is passionate about good, fresh food produced locally and the pleasure of eating it.

Chihiro Kayaba

Chihiro was born in an historic port town of Japan.  While growing up in Japan, she developed a love for food and cooking due to the abundance of fresh produce available in her town and learning traditional Japanese cuisine at her mother's knee.

Chihiro has used her knowledge of traditional Japanese food and has added a contemporary twist to many of the traditional dishes.  Since migrating to Australia Chihiro has been teaching her wonderful cuisine to passionate foodies who love Japanese food but are a little daunted by the techniques and ingredients involved in Japanese cuisine.