The large stainless steel bench in the centre of the room is overshadowed by reconditioned hospital lights that hang overhead. With an interactive whiteboard on the wall, a metal bookshelf to one side, and a bench lined with what looks like very specialist scientific equipment — you can tell that this isn’t your everyday restaurant kitchen.

This room is Calombaris’ sanctuary. Affectionately named Press Club Projects, after his enormously successful flagship restaurant The Press Club, the venue is situated in Melbourne’s heart, on busy Flinders Street.

It is in this room that Calombaris plans to experiment with his much-loved recipes and take his food to the next level. It is the perfect marriage between food and science, and it looks damn cool.

For those of you who know the name Heston Blumenthal, this story may sound slightly familiar. Blumenthal is a British celebrity chef who brought this method of cooking in to the mainstream consciousness. And Calombaris acknowledges that Blumenthal is a personal friend and an inspiration to his own cooking.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” Calombaris says. “We’re not the first ones to have a development kitchen with equipment like this. Heston is a great mate of mine and I am definitely inspired by the man.”

Taking us on a tour of the room and explaining each of the pieces of equipment, you can see that Calombaris is clearly excited to see how far he can go with it.

“I’ve always read about a lot of this equipment. The Anti Grill I’ve used before, the Pack Jet 100 per cent, the Thermal Mix 100 per cent, the Thermal Circulator yes — but not as high tech as this one.

“[The Thermal Circulator] can also help us do things like, we could literally create a water that we bring to the table, unscrew the top, tip it on the table and as it comes out, it sets like ice,” he explains.

“It’s basically taking the theory of when you go to the snow, you pour antifreeze, so it’s sort of that idea but the opposite — in reverse.”

“To be honest … for a junkie, this is like ‘wow!’
They can make a lot of shit in here.”

Another interesting gadget is the Spray Drier, which allows you to pour liquid in it, that is then turned into a powder. Calombaris explains that he and his chefs recently trialled it with milk, which they could then sprinkle on to a plate in powder form.

“Think of it like instant coffee, that’s what it does,” he shares.

To learn how to use each of these pieces correctly, Calombaris and his team spent half a day with two scientists.

“Oh my God, I was bamboozled,” he laughs. “Thank God I found one of them that can actually analytically talk to me in baby terms.

“What [the scientists] are loving is that we can make this … fashionable. Not fashionable but simple.”

But Calombaris also mentions that chefs aren’t the only people who would love to get their hands on this hi-tech equipment.

“To be honest, hence why we’ve got a lot more security going in here … for a junkie, this is like ‘wow!’ he laughs. “They can make a lot of shit in here.”

The George Calombaris we know and love from the hit television series MasterChef Australia, is a passionate guy and this comes across even when the cameras aren’t rolling. From the minute he walks into the room, dressed in a casual blue pullover and jeans with a satchel draping across his chest, he doesn’t waste any time in telling us all about his food dreams.

“Everything that I create has to have nostalgia; it has to be like a memory, a childhood idea,” he shares before turning around to pick up a small prototype of the classic Australian icon, the Hills Hoist. The hoist is a height-adjustable rotary clothes line that was found in every Australian backyard in the ‘60s.

“This is a prototype that we’re getting made as we speak,” Calombaris explains.

“The classic Hills Hoist which every Aussie family has in their backyard. We used to have one of these, it kept us occupied for hours and we’d jump on it and swing around.

“As I started delving into the history of the Hills Hoist, I discovered in Queensland, they do this thing where they hang bladders of wine, like cask wine, from the ends and they have a game where they swing and if it lands you, you have to drink it,” he laughs.

The connection between stories and food is a theme that carries throughout all his menus. But before diners at Calombaris’ restaurants can expect the waiter to bring their clothes line to the table, he explains that customers sit down for a game of backgammon.

“So the idea is that you sit down, and there’s always a box in front of you, and this box is a backgammon board — again a nostalgic reference to Dad’s past time,” he explains.

“And there will be pieces on there, and you’ll sit down at the table and the pieces will already be there. You might start playing around and your champagne will come out. And then your first course is already there, the pieces of the game are to eat,” he says, getting visibly excited.

“And then the Hills Hoist will come out and this will be covered in all the most amazing dried vegetables that are crisps and different flavours, and then have a box around it will all these different dips.

“And then, Dad would take me to the soccer and we’d always get nuts so the idea for nuts is something really exciting. I want to create a walnut that you literally pick up and eat the whole lot but it’s got a filling of blue cheese inside.”

Calombaris explains this menu with such passion and enthusiasm, it’s hard not to get swept up in the excitement of it. And that’s the point. He is trying to remind you of your own childhood memories, so that the food is as much an experience as it is a meal.

But just because the dish may look incredible, Calombaris maintains that the taste of the food is never compromised. In fact, it is the most celebrated part of the dish, as it should be

“The thing is, this mustn’t overcome flavour because if it does then it’s wank,” he says matter-of-factly. “At the end of the day, if you say it looks like a walnut but it tastes like sawdust, then it’s pointless.”

And taste is what sets Calombaris’ food apart from the rest. He explains some of the different ways in which he is able to capture so much of the flavour through the method he uses for cooking.

“What we’re trying to do is extract or input things to make things taste better,” he elaborates.

“The Freeze Dryer for example — that is removing moisture to intensify the products flavour because we all know water dilutes flavour.

“So we removed that idea. We use the Anti Grill which cooks minus 50 degrees Celsius, so its just like a normal grill but the other way around and minus 50.

“It’s better to cook asparagus on that, you’ll get more of an asparagus flavour than you would boiling it in water. Water extracts out all of its flavour and dilutes it so that’s all we want to do.

“We want to become cleverer cooks, use modern technique to combat the way we cook to make things taste better.”

While the machinery is important, Calombaris says the dishes on his menus always start with an idea and a dream, and the piece of machinery simply allows him to make it a reality. He draws inspiration from his travel, culture, and the people he meets.

“You go, you know what? If I get this amazing, crisp, beautiful fennel — and I love the idea of lemon flavour — but I’ve got to squeeze lemon juice on it and that will make it go soggy. OK, what can I do?” he says hurriedly, almost too fast for me to keep up.

“If I freeze dry it, I can then pulverize it, is that going to give me a good flavour? Yes! So I can put some lemon dust on it and its got that lovely lemon flavour.

“So that’s always the idea,” he finishes.

Calombaris says he’s always being asked about why his dishes taste so good compared to what people are experiencing in their own homes.

“The Thermal Mixer, which has been around for years,” he begins, launching into another of his stories.

“I can take a piece of pumpkin, stick it in there, add my milk, add my stock, a nob of butter and some sea salt, hit it at 60 degrees for 11 minutes, and I’ll end up will the most velvety, sweet, delicious pumpkin soup.

“And people will go, ‘What did you put in it?’ ‘Did you put celery?’ ‘Do you put onions?’” he says.

“That’s what this space is about. It’s a space where I want to make things better and I want to have a little sanctuary.”

“No! I put pure pumpkin in it, but I’m cooking it quickly. Where most of us at home … soup goes in the pot, by the time we turn the gas on, we get the stuff out the fridge, it’s cold, and then it takes 45 minutes.

“My mum takes 50 minutes to make a soup at home and its good, its delicious — everything is delicious at home. But that soup has lost all of its intensity because it has taken too long to get where it needs to be.

“And the longer it takes, the more flavour particles that escape. Hence why you walk into a house and you say, ‘oh it smells beautiful, what is that?’ Well that is actually flavour you’re smelling, they’re floating flavour particles that have left that product.

“That’s what this space is about. It’s a space where I want to make things better and I want to have a little sanctuary.”

It is when Calombaris talks of his family home that we see him most exposed. His Greek heritage is something he draws on a lot in both his cooking and his public persona. But while many chefs will boast of how as children, they would cook with their mothers who taught them everything they know, Calombaris bluntly admits he was never allowed to even step foot behind the cook top.

“People always ask, ‘were you cooking at home with your mum?’ No!” he shares. “But food is the centre of what we do, its pulls us all together.

“Yesterday I got home, and mum was in the back garden with my little boy who is just two, picking broad beans. And to me, that is just fucking gold. They are experiences you can’t forget and the things that I don’t forget.”

As a young boy, Calombaris attended a private academic boy’s school in Mulgrave, in Melbourne’s south east, and says that he was a terrible student.

“I was a nightmare,” he admits. “But I will quite proudly say I got the home economics class started. I studied home economics in Year 11 and 12 for two reasons — one because I liked cooking but two because I had to travel to our sister school to do it,” he laughs.

“I was planning, so I knew I wanted to be a chef and I wanted to get an apprenticeship so I just put myself out there,” he explains.

“I was working part time on the weekends — Friday, Saturday, Sunday — washing pots and pans at a little pasta place in Mulgrave. And that was great grounding for me and gave me great respect for all the facets of a restaurant in that we’re all equal.

“So that was really good for me and then started my apprenticeship and then here we are now.”

After his apprenticeship, Calombaris teamed up with Capaldi and the Sofitel’s Gary Mehigan to open Fenix, where he worked for two years.

He then spent two years working at Reserve, in Melbourne’s Federation Square where, at the age of 24, he won Young Chef of the Year, Best New Restaurant and two chef’s hats in The Age Good Food Guide.

“I took small steps with grand ideas. I dreamt. I constantly dream,” Calombaris says.

“It’s OK to be a ‘jobber’. I call jobbers the people who come in, they start at 8 they finish at 6, they peel the onions, they chop the carrots, they pick the herbs and that’s OK.

“I’m not there to discriminate because in life you need all types of people. For me, along the way I just set myself little goals and I got pummelled. My four years of my apprenticeship were hard, they were so hard, but I they were rewarding as well.

“I literally locked myself away from the world, all my friends, I had no social life. And people will say to me [now], ‘gee George, you’ve lost so much weight’.

“Now I’ve come to a point in my life where I can say, ‘you know what? I’m not going to be in the kitchen at 8am, I’m going to come in at 9.30am and I’m going to the gym and doing what I used to before I became a chef, play soccer.’”

Given he owns seven restaurants — six in Melbourne and one in Mykonos — and has written five cook books, it is no wonder Calombaris was highly sought after for the MasterChef Australia gig when the first series aired in 2009. Since then, he has been one of three judges and has featured in five series and four spin-offs that have included Celebrity MasterChef Australiaand Junior MasterChef Australia, amongst others.

“MasterChef came along and I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” he shares. “There are a lot of chefs out there who want to be on TV and I’ve never wanted to be on TV. For me, its just about right moments, right times.”

Calombaris doesn’t mind when fans approach him in the street for autographs or to tell them about their own cooking experiences.

“I look at it like this, I’m the one who said I’ll go on TV. I have to respect the people. If someone says ‘hello’ to you, you need to stop and give them that minute.

“Don’t get me wrong, if someone is rude then I can be rude back, that’s easy. Ninety-nine per cent of people are so genuinely nice, they’ll tell you something or they want to tell you about something they’ve cooked, and that’s nice. But there are days when I want to lock myself in my cave which is fine.”

It is in his cave that Calombaris has been able to prepare for the grand reopening of The Press Club later this year. Since 2012, The Press Club has been closed for renovation and is taking its first bookings in December, 2013. As we were chatting at Press Club Projects just next door, the new restaurant is literally a construction site.

When asked about how the construction plans are coming along, Calombaris asks us to sit tight while he disappears behind the bookshelf. Yes, the bookshelf in Press Club Projects might look like a wall, but it actually opens to expose a secret room behind. (I told you this place was cool).

Calombaris returns with a book full of designs of what the ‘new’ Press Club will look like. It is obvious as he begins talking that this is a project very near and dear to his heart.

“The old Press Club logo will never change. I’ve got the theory like Apple,” he starts. “Even through their bad times, they never changed it, they just shined it.”

He flips through the book whilst standing beside me.

“This is a box that we’re creating,” he says stopping on a page with an image of a small package on it.

“So when you have a booking with the Press Club, automatically as you leave you get this box with stuff in there for you. And the most important thing you’re going to receive in there is a reservation next year — same time, same place. And it’s yours.

“So it’s like, you’re part of the gang, you’re part of the club. You own that spot and you can gift it to someone. So what I want is you coming back once a year to see the evolution, to see the growth.”

“The old Press Club logo will never change. I’ve got the theory like Apple … even through their bad times, they never changed it.”

As we get to a page of what the restaurant floor looks like, we see gold booths where customers will be able to sit with their friends in an intimate way. Calombaris says there will be around 10 tables in the restaurant, which is significantly smaller to the old set up but he likes it this way.

“This is the Press Club,” he says proudly. “Everyone has their own individual spot, you’ve got your own booth. And the idea is we service you from the front like it’s a stage and we give you a performance. So we never come around you, or are leaning over you.

“This here,” he says gesturing to photo of what the front of the venue will look like.

“I was just in Italy in this little town and this Italian man who paints Greek Orthodox icons was there. I just thought that was incredible … someone not of that culture, but believes in it and understands it. It’s not about the religion, it’s about the feeling.

“He painted Saint George for me so I’m putting that on the front door.”

Given how enthusiastic he is about the new restaurant and the need to get it perfect, it is clear that Calombaris isn’t the kind of guy who rests on his laurels.

“We’re constantly evolving and growing, and by January next year there will be a lot of changes that I’ll make with a couple of the other restaurants which is exciting. But right now my main focus is here and the Press Club because there is so much detail, everything has to be thought of — right to the peg on the Hills Hoist.”

While he plans to spend a lot of time in the restaurant, for the initial 12 months at least, Calombaris purposely only plans to open the doors of the venue from Monday to Friday, so that he can spend time at Press Club Projects, as well as with his young family.

Calombaris and his partner have one son, James aged 2, and a daughter, Michaela, who is nine months old.

“I’ll be there until we get it to where I want it to be and then I’ll slowly step back, step sideways slightly. At the end of the day, I’ve got to let the people who are aspiring to undo the shackles to do it, with my parameters,” he shares.

“I’ll always love food so this isn’t my job, this is my absolute passion. I’m obsessed by it, it’s my drug, I’m addicted to it.

“And don’t get me wrong, you’ll go through moments where your creativity stalls and that’s OK. I used to get upset but now I go, ‘oh it doesn’t matter’.

“Creativity comes through moments. I could be at mum’s house and she does something that makes me go, ‘wow’.

“If you look deep you go, ‘wow that’s pretty cool.’”

And that was exactly what I said as I walked out of Press Club Projects after our interview.