Meet the 'Folkers' Phil Edwards

Phil Edwards

Name Phil Edwards 

Position Head Chef

How long have you been a chef? 28 years

28 years is a long time to do anything, why do you keep coming back to work? Passion for the industry and passion for cooking. 

What's the worst part about being a chef? The shit your wife gives you for never being home!

If you weren't a chef what would you be? Probably an artist - I'd love to be a painter. I'm learning watercolour at the moment and love it. I also wouldn't mind being a gardener. 

Worst hospo experience? I was hired to run a restaurant in QLD and the day I went to meet the staff I found out that the entire kitchen team had walked out and we had service that night! Somehow I managed to pull a crew together and we opened for service. If that wasn't bad enough we ended up losing the restaurant in the Brisbane floods a little while later.

What's your hot tip on dining out in Melbourne? Follow your taste buds rather than price - there's so much good food that doesn't require taking out a second mortgage.  

Favourite ingredient? Local Mornington Peninsula seafood

Favourite cuisine? Probably Thai for it’s fresh clean flavours

You're stuck on a desert island and you can have three items, what are they? Slab of craft beer, coffee machine (and Commonfolk coffee), and a fishing rod.

If you could swap lives with a celebrity who would it be? Daniel Riccardo

Follow up question. Have you ever done a 'shoey'? Actually yes! At the Good Food Guide awards. 

Celebrity crush? Demi Moore in her younger years but more recently Miranda Kerr.

Who’s got the easiest job at Commonfolk? It’s gotta be the coffee roaster in the winter. They get to sit next to a lovely warm roaster while everyone else freezes their butt off. Do they even do anything *winks*?!

Thanks Phil catch ya. Bye bye.