OZGE KALVO

“I TURNED MY PATH TO BECOME A CHEF.”

OZGE KALVO

SYDNEY, NSW

The medical world’s loss is the Sydney dining scene’s gain as the Istanbultrained chef rises up the ranks.

Ozge Kalvo was inspired to become a chef while watching Ready Steady Cook as a child, despite not understanding English.

“One day, I tried to make carameldipped strawberries after I saw them in an episode – it was the first thing I did in the kitchen,” she says. “Then I found myself constantly trying new recipes when I got home from school. It was just a hobby at that time because all my life I thought I wanted to become a doctor. But I failed to get into medical school and it made me realise that becoming a doctor actually wasn’t my dream, it was my parents’. So, I turned my path to become a chef.”

Kalvo, who is Turkish, studied gastronomy and completed her chef apprenticeship. She then worked in both fine-dining and more casual venues in Istanbul, as well as doing recipe development for a TV cooking show.

Keen to emigrate to Australia, a chance meeting with an Australian customer in an Istanbul restaurant resulted in her moving to Sydney with her partner in 2015. She was offered a job at Efendy, in Balmain, and did recipe development for restaurateur Somer Sivrioglu’s Anason restaurant, which opened in Barangaroo in early 2016.

Late last year, she moved to the highly regarded Ester Restaurant in Chippendale. “I’m working with Nathan Brindle in the kitchen. He has never-ending energy and is constantly creating new dishes and shoving a spoon of something in our mouths to taste. Trying to keep up with his energy constantly pushes me to step up.”

Opening her own place, with her sommelier husband, is her long-term goal. ”But I want to work in a couple more kitchens, preferably in different cultures and styles. Starting to live in another country after a certain age delays some things about the future, but we’ll get there.”