Pete Evans

Pete Evans
Born	Peter Daryl Evans 1973 Melbourne
Residence	North Bondi[1]
Nationality	Australian
Occupation	Chef
Years active	1993 – present
Television	My Kitchen Rules
Partner(s)	Nicola Watson
Children	2
Website
www.peteevanschef.com

Peter Daryl "Pete" Evans (born 1973 in Melbourne) is an Australian chef, author and television personality.

Career

Restaurateur/chef

In 1996, the group expanded to Sydney to launch the Hugos Restaurant Group. Evans moved to Sydney with his brother and David Corsi and they opened Hugos Bondi in 1996, followed by Hugos Lounge in 2000 and Hugos Bar Pizza in 2004 (both in Sydney's Kings Cross) and Hugos Manly in 2008. As the group's executive chef, Evans worked across all of the restaurants, and the catering business.^[2]

The group closed Hugos Bondi in 2006 to pursue the pizza bar, rather than casual fine dining format for which Hugos Bondi was known.^[2]

Over 1998–2011, the restaurants in the Hugos Group were awarded eight Sydney Morning Herald 'Chef's Hats', 21 'Best in Australia' awards, and three 'Best pizza in Australia' awards at the Australian Fine Food Show. In 2005, Hugos won 'Best pizza in the world' at the American Pizza Challenge in New York City.^[3]

While visiting Australia for her Oprah's Ultimate Australian Adventure (2011), Oprah Winfrey sent 60 of her 'ultimate viewers' for a pizza-making and cocktail class with Evans at Hugos Bar Pizza.^[4]

Evans has cooked at several events in the US as part of the annual G'Day USA: Australia Week promotion. In January 2010, he cooked with Australian chef Curtis Stone and American chef Wolfgang Puck for 850 guests at the G'Day USA black tie gala in Los Angeles.^[5] In January 2012, Evans cooked for the G'Day USA black tie gala dinner in New York City. The event catered to over 650 guests.^[6]

Debt

Pete Evans and his business partners have been reported to owe creditors in excess of $769,000 to a multitude of different creditors dwelling from failed new restaurant called 'Little Hunter' which is believed to have cost $1.2 million to fit out but after liquidation of all the restaurants assets of Little Hunter only $104,000 was recovered. Since the liquidation of 'Little Hunter', Evans has opened a new venture called 'Junior Hunter' located in the same building where in turn he has purchased assets from the previously diminished Little Hunter. He is currently being investigated for having a 10% stake in 'Junior Hunter', which he has previously denied.^[7]

Television host

Evans has appeared in, and hosted, a range of television cooking programs. His first television job was for the LifeStyle Channel's Home series (2001–2005) which he co-presented with Brendan Moar and Shannon Fricke. Evans filmed over 60 episodes of the show, which focused on styling, home, gardens, cooking and casual entertaining. In 2006 Evans, Moar and Fricke appeared in a travel-based spin-off series "Postcards from Home" (2006), which saw the trio travelling to countries outside Australia. For this series, Evans interviewed chefs including Ferran Adria of Spain's El Bulli restaurant.^[8]

The LifeStyle Channel also produced the six-part travel and cooking TV series Fish (2006) with Evans and close friend Udo Edlinger, as well as a one-hour documentary Cooking for Our Princess Mary (2006) which followed Evans in the kitchen as he prepared a four-course banquet for Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark.^[8]

From 2007–2009, Evans joined long-running television series Fresh with the Australian Women's Weekly with fellow presenter Lyndey Milan. The series was cancelled in 2009.^[9]

Since 2010, Evans has been a judge on My Kitchen Rules (MKR).^[10] with his friend and co-host Manu Feildel. The fourth series of MKR was shown in 2013.^[11]

Author

Evans has written the following books, all published by Murdoch Books:

• Fish (2007) ISBN 978-1-921208-58-4
• My Table (2008) ISBN 978-1-74196-240-6
• My Grill (2009) ISBN 978-1-74196-543-8
• My Pantry (2010) ISBN 978-1-74196-816-3
• My Kitchen (2011) ISBN 978-1-74196-828-6
• Pizza (2012) ISBN 978-1-74266-154-4
• Healthy every day (2014) ISBN 978-1-74261-389-5

Evans had a monthly recipe column in the Australian Women's Weekly (2009–2012) and has been a contributor to Selector magazine.^[12] In October 2012, Evans began a monthly recipe column for Home Beautiful.^[13]

Brand relationships and products

Evans has developed a pizza oven with Breville, a line of cookware and kitchen tools with Baccarat and a range of kitchen sinks with Clark sinks. He is an Australian ambassador for Jacob's Creek Reserve Wines^[14] and for SumoSalads, who he has teamed up with to provide healthy, seasonal lunchtime options.^[15]

Controversy

In November 2012, Evans attracted considerable derision on social networking site Twitter, following his appearance in the magazine Sunday Life, a supplement to both the Sunday Age and The Sun-Herald. Evans was featured in the regular column "My Day on a Plate". Although many of his choices of food were taken as bizarre by a lot of readers, it was his apparent fondness for activated almonds that attracted the most ridicule.^[16]

Evans' increasingly frequent commentary on nutrition via speaking engagements and social media have led to controversy, particularly over his championing of the paleo diet.^[17][18]

Evans has attacked the Dieticians Association of Australia and the Heart Foundation on social media, as well as claiming that diet is the cause of autism.^[19]

Evans is also opposed to fluoridation of drinking water.^[20]

References