Acclaimed chef Chris Taylor used to pack up his family and go camping at Goolwa, a historic holiday town near the mouth of the Murray River. If the kids behaved and helped pack the tent, Chris would buy them a Berliner from the old Goolwa Bakery. Years later, when the century-old bakery went up for sale, Chris bought it.

Chris lives with his wife and five children in McLaren Vale, one of Australia’s oldest and most acclaimed wine regions. A short drive from Adelaide, the town is a melting pot for all things culinary and vinous.

McLaren Vale is a long way from Birmingham, England, where Chris grew up and trained at the esteemed Birmingham College of Food. Nonetheless, he feels a sense of balance in the country and enjoys being able to blend modern, high-end dining with classic country fare.

Food has always been his passion. His mother was a great cook and he enjoyed being in the kitchen from a young age. While he admits he prefers eating to cooking, Chris knew he’d end up in a kitchen.

“I lived in Greece and was eating all that beautiful food, all the slow braised lamb, feta, oils, and lemons. Then there were beautiful flavours like chorizo when I lived in Spain.”

“I was travelling and eating out every night and thinking, ‘I like this – this is where I want to be’.”

Chris has racked up a wealth of cheffing experience over the years, working with some of Australia’s top restaurants including Bondi Icebergs and Rockpool, as well as the Adelaide Casino and the Royal Randwick Racecourse. He has cooked for prime ministers at Radisson Blu Plaza and was events chef for Serafino, the biggest winery in McLaren Vale.

More recently, he gained a reputation at the Adelaide Club for his pies. Using classic French techniques, he’d make all kinds of pies, from rabbit and venison to lamb shank. It was a glimpse into what would later become his signature product.

Chris had, as he put it, “been around a few kitchens with a few of those big hat chefs” and wanted to go out on his own. While he had worked in high-end restaurants, he wasn’t sold on owning one.

“Restaurants are so hard, financially. The labour costs are so high, there’s a high turnover rate, they are unpredictable, and you must have a lot of staff. They’re almost impossible to make money out of,” he said.

Entering the baking business

Chris outside Goolwa Bakery

Chris focused on crunching the numbers – something he was good at. Earlier in his career, he had trained to be an accountant before being pulled back into the kitchen. He saw more sustainability and profit in a bakery than in a restaurant.

“A friend of mine owned some nice bakeries and I started looking at the numbers. I could see that it’s more of a simple business, in one sense, because you’re baking and then catching up. You can put stuff in the fridge. It’s a different set-up to a restaurant because you roughly know what you’re going to do each week,” Chris said.

“This means you can put all your energy into production. If you know you’re going to have thousands of customers a week, you need to make a certain number of every item. It can be quite predictable.”

Then, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. When he heard the famous Goolwa Bakery was up for sale, he knew it was ‘the one’.

Standing at the corner of Dawson and Loveday Streets, the Goolwa Bakery was originally built for the Lukeman family. After 110 years, it is one of Goolwa’s oldest established and longest-running businesses.

“Everybody’s got a memory of the bakery. Everyone has been there with their grandparents or parents,” Chris said.

Chris and his talented team of bakers have their hands full keeping up with demand. They serve modern and high-end flavours, offering the same quality ingredients and techniques that Chris used in restaurants, but for a fraction of the price, alongside the more traditional  bakery favourites such as vanilla slices, doughnuts and custard tarts.

“There are two types of French cookery: paysanne and haute. We were all taught that haute cookery is what posh people cook and paysanne is what peasants cook. Peasant cooking is what we do in bakeries’ – it’s country style,” Chris said.

For pie fillings second cuts like chuck and shin are used, with Chris focusing his attention on building flavour bases. He works with all sorts of ingredients such as Vegemite and soy sauce, building umami flavours with a certain ‘tang’.

“We use mirepoix as a recipe base, so there is real flavour in there. That’s what you use in traditional French cooking – it’s the holy trinity of onions, celery, carrots, garlic, and dried herbs. It all goes in then you stew off the meat like a proper French stew,” he said.

The bakery has 110 years of history behind it

Team work makes the dream work

However, Chris is quick to point out that the bakery is far from a solo act. Rather it’s a full team affair, from front-of-house right through to those working with him in the kitchen. It’s a vital point of difference that he said he learned from his time in hotels.

“If we make nice pies out the back but then it’s all moody out the front then it’s not going to work. It has to work all the way down the line,” he said.

“You’re only as strong as your weakest link. We have a great person out the front called Clare Cutler Stradiotto, and she’s super friendly. At the end of the day they’re the ones selling all the products for us.”

Chris dedicated a lot of time building a talented team around him, and currently works closely with two bakers because, as he points out, that’s not his area of specialty.

“I’m not doing all the work here. I’ve got good bakers because that’s not my area of specialty. My area is cooking, so I make the braises, and I’ve got two really good bakers who work for me – Josh McInerney and Mark Heinrich,” he said.

“That’s how it works; that’s where we’ve got synergy going. Josh is better at the pastry work than I am because that’s his trade. But I would say I’m better than he is at cooking the filling – that’s how it works. Then Mark is looking after sweet, primarily.

“When you combine someone with the skills to cook the braises really well and build the flavour profiles with someone who can make a really nice pastry, then you get a really good product.”

The results speak for themselves, and business has been booming. In turn, Chris and his team place a large emphasis on supporting their local community.

“We do this by celebrating local ingredients and supporting local producers. But we also help those who are less fortunate. We team up with charities who come at the end of the day. What we don’t sell, we give to them,” he said.

“I think all bakeries should do something like this with their leftovers. There’s no point putting it in the bin when there are hungry mouths to feed.”

Chris is happy with the way the bakery is going. They have a lot of repeat customers and every member of the team brings something special.

“We’ve got nice service and really good product that’s had a bit of care. As soon as somebody comes in, we hook them, we’ve got them,” he said.

“It’s always been this way. Back when I’d go to Goolwa Bakery with my kids, there would always be a queue of customers out the door.

“There are a few bakeries in town, but it’s the one with the memories.”