Hailing from the very southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, Grant was brought up with a family of vegetable and fruit growers, cattle and sheep farmers. At a very early age Grant decided he would be a chef.

By the age of 19 after finishing cooking school and 4-5 years cooking under his belt in the best local restaurants, he left for London where he spent 5 years working for some of the top chefs of the time.
Since then Grant has travelled many parts of the globe to discover new and authentic foods of the world.

Grant landed in Sydney in 2003 and came across the highly regarded 2 hat seafood restaurant “Pier” and soon became the Head Chef. He was given complete freedom to create and develop the food further, which took the restaurant to 3 hats, 3 stars, No1 restaurant in the country and international acclaim with the San Pellegrino top 100 restaurants in the world, along with the publication of the Pier cook book.

After 7 years at the helm, Grant had the itch to make his dream of having his own restaurant a reality. He opened Gastro Park in April 2011.
Gastro Park “A playground of Gastronomy” opened with immediate success gaining 2 chefs hats from the SMH and 2 stars from the Gourmet Traveller in its first year. Guest judge appearances on MasterChef Australia, 18/20 from the Gault&Millau with Grant also taking chef of the year for Australia in 2016, Gastro Park was also a finalist for best restaurant in the country 2016 coming in at no 7.

After 6 years Grant decided to change concept, The Antipodean Restaurant was born, This was a complete change of direction, delivering a completely local approach and supporting only Australian and New Zealand products to support the local industry .

Now with Smile Catering, Grants new platform where he can offer his years of high end experience to create unique experiences in many diverse locations.

Learn more by viewing his instagram @ grantkingchef