P-PLATES SERVICE
20yo buys one of city’s best known restaurants
A 20-YEAR-OLD chef has bought a restaurant once rated the second best in the country.
Ryan Humphries, the new owner of awardwinning Allure on Currumbin, says he wants to restore the eatery to its former glory.
Mr Humphries took over the restaurant reins on June 1 and finished refurbishments last week.
IT won’t be his 21st birthday until next week, but Ryan Humphries is already celebrating after snapping up one of the Gold Coast’s most acclaimed restaurants.
The new owner of Allure on Currumbin, once ranked the second best restaurant in the country by TripAdvisor, plans to restore it to its former glory and become our youngest ever hatted chef in the process.
It was a case of right time, right place for the 20-year-old chef from New Zealand, who had been travelling Australia when he hopped off a bus from Cairns and walked into a free trial at the French dining institution.
“I started here at the bottom a year and a half ago,” he said.
“I’d heard about Allure’s reputation and I’ve never been more terrified of a trial in my life but I got the job.’’
Then the head chef and some other staff left.
“It was one of the busiest Saturday nights ever and it was just me and other young chefs in the kitchen and we smashed it,’’ he said of the time he took over.
“I was worried but it couldn’t have gone better and I loved being in charge.
“The owner said I’d proven myself and made me head chef in February.”
Mr Humphries took over the restaurant reins on June 1 and finished refurbishments last week.
“I found out they were trying to sell the place and I was always kind of keen, even though they didn’t know I was interested,” he said. “I still don’t really know how this happened … I had to pay the bond upfront but they are letting me pay the restaurant off weekly.
“I’ve painted, put in new curtains, a new chandelier; I want to put some romance back into the place.
“I’ve been going out to introduce myself to as many of the customers as I can. They usually look at me and go, ‘What! You’re way too young and way too skinny to be a chef’.
“Owning my own restaurant was always one of my goals. I didn’t think I’d be able to do it until I was 30, 35 years old, but I thought why not take a risk instead of living pretty standard?”
But that’s not where this chef’s ambition ends.
“Allure has such a good reputation and I want to get it back to the success it had under its original owners, then open another Allure at Broadbeach or Hope Island,” he said.
“And I want a chef hat. If I get one this year, I’ll be the youngest chef to get one.”
In the meantime, diners can enjoy Mr Humphries’ new lunch menu – Allure’s first – a revised dinner offering and a nine-course degustation.
His recreation of the French classic duck à l’orange is not to be missed, but it’s not the only trick up his sleeve. He specialises in the Master Chef-immortalised croquembouche.
“Every one I do I try to make more spectacular than the last one,” he said.