When you chat to Sian Redgrave it’s tempting to confine the topic to food. The prominent chef, recipe developer and food stylist is, after all, an innovative force in the culinary arts, renowned for fusing different artistic disciplines when creating evocative meals and dining experiences. High-end brands have benefitted from her recipes, and audiences everywhere marvel at how she uses food as an artistic medium to elevate its ability to give pleasure.
For Sian, the kitchen is her studio and the plate her canvas. Slice a little deeper, however, and her special source appears, and it’s one of the essential fuels that powers her creative fire.
“I have an obsession with Florence,” she says, referring to the Italian cultural epicentre known as the cradle of the Renaissance. “I’ve just returned. I’m consumed by its history and how the Medici were so invested in the arts and artists.”
Last year, the Perth native swam in the city’s artistic depths when she completed a residency at Numero Venti, a sixteenth-century palazzo hotel in the Tuscan city. Here, she conducted hands-on cooking classes and absorbed Firenze’s creative magic. The experience embodied her philosophy about good food.
“Your energy greatly affects the way you cook. Great food is all about ingredients and intention.”
Driven to create
Intention captures the essence of Sian, and it showed up early in life.
“I was always very creative when I was younger,” she says, referring to her intense artistic drive. “I was attracted to art and music, but I think it's quite difficult for creative people to home in on one discipline.
“I was raised by my mum and my aunt, who was my inspiration when it came to creative endeavours. She was an artist and collector and a very eclectic woman.
“I can’t remember ever having a conversation where I was told to get a mainstream job to earn good money, but I do remember a family friend saying to my mum after she learned I was studying at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, ‘Why isn’t she studying law?’ My mum replied there was nowhere else I should be.”
She was right. Driven and with her own sense of direction, Sian studied costume and set design and later joined the fashion world before committing to the decision that would catapult her.
“I auditioned for a cooking show when I was 24 and I ended up winning it,” she says. “It might have seemed like a left-field move but the conventional idea of a career with food had this unappealing image of get a job, work in a kitchen, slog it out for years and then maybe become a head chef.” That didn’t appeal to Sian, because, “For me, food had always been in my life’s background and something I love. I grew up watching Nigella Lawson and Martha Stewart.
“For me, food had always been in my life’s background and something I love." Sian Redgrave
She was determined to find her own way.
“I moved cities, did some chef training and threw myself into different work experience opportunities which involved a lot of food styling and recipe writing. Today, I’m effectively building sets from food and doing a lot of creative direction. It’s strange because I’ve come full circle and reached where I began in my initial design studies at university. It’s just that the medium is different.”
It's in the preparation
One look at Sian’s work tells you her creations need time and planning, but she makes a confession.
“I'm a bit of a hot mess internally because part of me is really organised and very methodical. I can be quite OCD. Then there’s this other part of me that hates having rigid plans.
Underneath it all is a rock-solid self-belief.
“Even though I need pressure in order to complete things, and the nature of my work needs a huge amount of preparation, I still rely on my intuition and often create special things in the moment. There’s no way I can premeditate every tiny detail. I need to trust myself to do that.”
It's a big admission from a creative whose work often appears to have taken months to plan. But her dichotomous inner drive is more turbocharging than tiring and it pairs well with a special ability she’s cultivated since childhood
“I see everything visually. I used to think beauty was superficial but it’s not. Beauty is important for our joy and our peace every day, whether it’s from nature, art, food or what we wear.”
Conveying feelings
“It’s nice someone thinks I can do that,” Sian says, when she’s asked how she’s able to create food that gives rise to feelings. “I feel like it’s an extension of me when I’m cooking, similar to how a song writer imbues their feelings in their lyrics.
“I’m fascinated by the human depth behind art and the psychology that drives it.”
Like many artists, the degree of difficulty and overcoming involved in creating is rarely seen. It’s a point acclaimed sculptor Henry Moore made when he said an artist’s ideas can only take shape when they have an active relationship with their materials.
Extracting the creative power necessary to achieve that isn’t always easy, but the city of Florence and its history has some answers.
“During the Renaissance, it wasn’t only religious ideas that drove the creation of beautiful objects. These artisans and artists created works to fulfill their own needs as well as those of other people. It’s similar for me in that I’m fulfilling a client’s brief while at the same time fulfilling my own creativity.”
She says her personal influence appears in all of her cooking and styling, adding that it manifests as warmth and abundance.
And her favourite meal to create?
“I love making pasta. The simplicity of wheat and water coming together to sustain humans for thousands of years is remarkable. And I also love making intricate desserts. They can be such a challenge. I was obsessed with history as a kid. I’m captivated by the thought that hundreds of years ago the French were creating croquembouche and beating egg whites with sugar to make meringue.
“I’m fascinated by the human depth behind art and the psychology that drives it.” Sian Redgrave
Creative performance
Ask Sian what performance means to her and she’s quick to answer.
“I’m hard on myself because I feel I haven’t yet achieved a quarter of the things I’d love to,” she says. “I struggle with the idea of failure and not doing enough. On the other hand, I’m deeply grateful for being able to do something I love and make a living from it.
“For me, performance is making sure I’ve done something joyful for the people around me and for myself every day.”
Arriving at this point in life has required some hard-earned wisdom.
"I’m hard on myself because I feel I haven’t yet achieved a quarter of the things I’d love to."
“Firstly, achievement can take longer than you expect. I can be impatient but I know that focusing too much on specific success targets can be exhausting and counterproductive.
“The second is you’ll never be finished. There is no such thing as a final point. I might one day master Italian cooking by age 80, but there will be so many other things left to master.”
Recharging
“Outside of food music is my greatest joy in the world,” she says, revealing how she unwinds. “I would say I love it more than food,” which is no surprise when you learn she played the saxophone, clarinet and drums at school.
Sian Redgrave has many talents and loves, including cars.
“My dad is an architect. He was very much into brutalism and modernism and, for me, their streamlined designs made a natural leap to cars, especially the early 911. Porsche has always retained its elegance and timeless quality. For me, a 1977 911 Targa would be cool but I also love the ‘90s and the Type 964 Porsche 911 Turbo. They’re beautiful and functional.”
It's here that Sian reveals a special connection.
“I’m a traditionalist in the way I cook but I like to modernise the visual impact of the food I create,” she says. “Because I love history I always wonder how I can take historical things and present them differently today, changing them without changing their bones. Porsche has done this seamlessly. You can see it in everything, from the 911 to the Macan.”
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woman with drive is an online content platform from Porsche Cars Australia that celebrates and empowers women with inspiring and vibrant stories. woman with drive has published a number of stand-out campaigns, including the Women at PCA Series. It also brings together Australia’s trailblazing women at Porsche’s annual woman with drive event during the annual Formula 1® Australian Grand Prix.
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