10. Alicia Cheong | Heroes Melbourne

Alicia started working at Fancy Hanks before she went off travelling round the world checking out barbecue joints around America and doing a bit of couch-surfing. She eventually ended up working for a year in the kitchen at Restaurant Andre (No 14 on the Worlds Best Restaurants). The Fancy Hank’s team are glad they’ve got her back to head Heroes Melbourne and I feel lucky to chat to her. Alicia exudes a calm excitement and a great deal of gratitude for the path she has been able to take in her relatively short but action-packed and very successful career to date. I turn up to chat to Alicia before service at Heroes and the music is pumping. I suggest maybe turning it out so I can record the conversation and then realise that I sound like an old lady…