If you’ve taken a class with Matt before, then you’ll immediately notice his palpable passion for food. His love for food is in his DNA, he muses. With culinary expertise running in the family (his uncle and grandfather are chefs, and his mother is a beautiful cook), it was only natural that Matt would follow in their footsteps.

For Matt there was an intuitive progression from chef to teacher. Every time he teaches a class in our kitchen his adoration for food grows and spreads (hey, just like a Starter culture!). He adores being able to open people’s eyes to the wonderful world of artisan baking.

One of Matt’s favourite classes to teach is  The Home Baker workshop because all the students are freshly exposed to bread-making and leave with a new-found and proud appreciation for artisan bread baking. He also enjoys the Artisan Pastry – Cakes & Tarts class, after which he takes home a box of delicious tarts. I joined the class recently and I completely concur – the friands I made in that class didn’t even make it to my fridge. And oh my, they were delicious.

On top of the adult classes he teaches every week, Matt also runs School Excursions, our ever-popular School Holiday Programs, Team Building sessions as well as Breaducation® for our wholesale customers. So he’s got his hands full (no pun intended)!

Matt has been cultivating the Brasserie Bread Baking School for almost three years now. Surrounded by such beautiful food and lovely people, it’s no wonder that it doesn’t feel like work for him.

From the art of cooking to the beauty of photography, Matt is an artist at heart. He’s often scuttling around in our cafe with Michael, devising and crafting new dishes for our specials menu. And I’m pretty sure he’s sick of my asking him to take pretty photos for our blog, newsletters and marketing materials by now. That’s what happens when you have so many artistic skills – you get countless requests from the marketing department 😉

But underneath it all, he defines himself as a father. He proudly professes that his kids are his heroes. And I can see why. His boys Jay and Tyler are super-cute. They’ll no doubt take after their father and develop a fondness for food, especially sourdough bread 🙂

Check out our video of Matt teaching The Art of Sourdough class.

Matt at the AIDS Trust Food & Wine Festival

Matt demonstrating how to do a gluten test

Matt's favourite bread, the beautiful Harvest Grain Loaf! He loves it for its beautiful blend of seeds and grain and the lovely sesame seed encrusted exterior.