INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed chef Aaron Teece has stepped into the role of group head chef across The Hinterland Collection’s expanding portfolio of tourism, hospitality and dining experiences in the Tweed region.<\/p>\n
As group head chef, Teece will oversee culinary direction and food experiences across The Hinterland Collection’s venues and brands, including Summergrove Estate, Potager \u2013 A Kitchen Garden and sister marine tourism business Tweed Eco Cruises.<\/p>\n
Raised in the Northern Rivers, Teece brings a global culinary r\u00e9sum\u00e9 spanning luxury hospitality, destination dining and high-profile private events, alongside a growing reputation for immersive, sustainability-led food experiences.<\/p>\n
Beyond restaurant kitchens, Teece also built a career as a private chef to high-profile international clients.<\/p>\n
The role, he said, required a different kind of discipline, less predictable, more personal, and often operating at an elite level of service and expectation.<\/p>\n
“I suppose it’s a very big change to the restaurant scene…” he said.<\/p>\n
“You’re working on a different level of stress, a lot of travel, landing in areas and sort of having to have meals and everyone fed at certain times.”<\/p>\n
Among these experiences came work within the orbit of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.<\/p>\n
While Thatcher was often publicly referred to as the Iron Lady, Teece said the woman he encountered in her later years was much gentler than her reputation suggested.<\/p>\n
“By the time I was working with her, she was sort of like your grandmother,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Definitely not the Iron Lady that everyone was talking about.”<\/p>\n
During his time as Thatcher’s private chef, Teece cooked both her personal meals and catered to her dinner parties, which he said could present a challenge at times.<\/p>\n
“For her day to day, it was really easy to look after, she usually ate similar things each time…but at the dinner parties you had very influential people there, so, you’d find yourself sort of sometimes single-handedly cooking and serving 15, 18 people with whatever they felt they liked at the time,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said in this kind of role he would live close to or onsite, cooking from morning until night.<\/p>\n
“I’d live and work in the house or if you didn’t live in the house, you’d live in a house very similar or very close by, depending on the location you’re at,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And then you’d be the first one there in the morning, the last one to bed and do everything you needed to in between.”<\/p>\n
He said the experience provided rare access to time, ingredients and experimentation not often available in traditional restaurant environments.<\/p>\n
“It’s probably where I learnt more working as a private chef than I did in a lot of restaurants, because it was a different way of cooking,” he said.<\/p>\n
“You had huge amounts of time to be doing things and usually an unlimited budget or semi-unlimited budget, so you’d be able to grab different ingredients and play with them until you’re happy with what you were wanting.”<\/p>\n
Teece has worked in a number of prestigious venues overseas, including Harvey Nichols’ Fifth Floor Restaurant in London.<\/p>\n
He said working in these kinds of environments pushed him into a new culinary culture entirely.<\/p>\n
“I found the kitchens back in the day, sort of, everyone was for themselves,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So, the first to get into the kitchen would grab the best saucepans and things like that.<\/p>\n
“It’s not nearly as nice as Australia…where we’re a big team, we all support each other.<\/p>\n
“Over there, it’s sort of a fending for themselves sort of thing, so you try to go in and spend as much time in there, trying to get on top of things, because it was just such a stressful environment.”<\/p>\n
Now back in the Northern Rivers, Teece said he is focused on what he sees as possibly one of the most fertile food regions in the world, shaped by microclimates, local producers and year-round seasonal variation.<\/p>\n
“I think the food bowl that we have between even Noosa down to Yamba is probably one of the best in the world,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So, I think it’s really unique how long our seasons can last here, and utilising such… if you’re looking at a 250km radius all the way out to, say, Beaudesert, the amount of produce you can get, nearly everything available to you in such a small proximity, it’s very rare to get that anywhere else in the world I think.”<\/p>\n
At The Hinterland Collection, Teece said that philosophy will extend beyond the plate, marking a stronger emphasis on education, storytelling and immersive guest experiences.<\/p>\n
“I think hospitality itself has lost the hospitable side of things,” he said.<\/p>\n
“People are now just creating food and trying to just sort of get bums on seats in restaurants.”<\/p>\n
Teece said the experiences planned across The Hinterland Collection’s venues, including garden tours, salami-making workshops and produce-focused dinners, are designed to give diners a deeper understanding of the work, costs and craftsmanship behind hospitality.<\/p>\n
“It’s like bringing that education to the public a little bit more so they understand where the costs of food are coming from, why we charge what we do, the amount of hours we spend in kitchens,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So for me to be educating people, trying to bring fun back into the situation as well, and experience more so than anything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed chef Aaron Teece has stepped into the role of group head chef across The Hinterland Collection’s expanding portfolio of tourism, hospitality and dining experiences in the Tweed region. As group head chef, Teece will oversee culinary direction and food experiences across The Hinterland Collection’s venues and brands, including Summergrove Estate, Potager \u2013 A […]<\/p>\n