← All founding chefs 
Founding chefs
Romain Bapst
Brisbane · AU
Born in Strasbourg and trained in France, Romain Bapst arrived in Australia in 1990. He cooked at Mietta’s in Melbourne, on Hayman Island and at Prunier’s in Sydney, then spent thirteen years at Il Centro in Brisbane before opening Lutèce in Bardon in 2013, a bistro known for its duck press. He is President of the Académie Culinaire de France in Australia and of Les Toques Blanches Queensland, a past President and Chairman of Bocuse d’Or Australia, a Maître Rôtisseur of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, and the only Maître Canardier in the country. In 2017 the French government made him a Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole.