Sweet taste of success

This is the 19th year of the Kelso High Decade Award which publicly recognises students who graduated from the school 10 or more years ago. 

The award celebrates students who completed their secondary education at the school, and have gone on to achieve outstanding success or excelled in their chosen field. 

Mr Saxby is currently the chef and owner of Russo & Russo in Enmore.

Throughout the year Mr Saxby has given lessons and provided recipes to the local, Stanmore Public School, and cooked for three of the most renowned Italian chefs in Sydney for their book launch. 

He has written articles for magazines including Gourmet Traveller, Qantas Inflight, Food Service, Men’s Style, Delicious, newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and The Australian, and the Broadsheet Sydney Cookbook.

He has also spoken on ABC Radio about using locally-sourced and in-season produce and given tips on how to forage. 

Mr Saxby started at Kelso High in Year 8 in 1999. He was known for being friendly, funny and not taking things too seriously. 

Prior to Year 12, Mr Saxby aspired to be an architect, however, during that year he opted to channel his creativity into constructing flavours and textures.

“I realised I could still create and still build something and still make beautiful masterpieces as I would if I were an architect designing a building, except I didn't have to sit at a desk all day,” he said.

In 2005, while completing his Certificate 3 Hospitality at Orange TAFE, Mr Saxby

competed in the World Skills cooking competition, winning the regional final.

This earned him a spot in the national finals competing against winners of other regions. He just missed out on being placed in the top 10 young chefs in Australia. 

He then began an apprenticeship with the Crowded House restaurant (where the Church Bar is now), before moving with head chef Brett Melhuish to 9inety 2wo in Bentick Street. 

In 2006, at the age of 20, Mr Saxby became the head chef at the Absolutely Delicious Cafe.

He moved to Sydney in December 2007, where he quickly fell in love with Italian cuisine working for Allassandro Pavoni at The Park Hyatt Sydney on Circular Quay. 

Starting off at the bottom of the ladder as a commis doing food preparation work and basic cooking under the supervision of a section chef, Mr Saxby rotated through sections such as sauce, vegetables, fish and butchery roughly every six months.

He worked 14 hour shifts and moved up the ladder to become a chef de partie. 

Mr Saxby spent 2009 learning about Sardinian cuisine from award winning chef Giovanni Pilu at his signature restaurant at Freshwater.

In 2010, Mr Saxby moved on to join one of Australia’s most well known chefs, Peter Gilmore, at Quay Restaurant in the Overseas Passenger Terminal at The Rocks. At the time it was ranked 24th best restaurant in the world. It is still in the top 100. 

In 2010 he was invited to cook for the Council of Italian Restaurants of Australia in their National Cooking competition against all of Australia’s best young Italian chefs. He took out second place.

In 2011, he was nominated for The Sydney Morning Herald Josephine Pignolet Young Chef of the Year Award. He won. This award gave him $20,000 and the opportunity to travel and work anywhere in the world. 

He was also selected as one of five young Australian chefs to cook for an annual event known as The Young Chef’s Dinner at Rockpool Bar and Grill. As part of his prize Mr Saxby worked at Per Se Restaurant in New York, ranked number six in the world.

In 2011, he began working for Australian-born chef Brett Graham at The Ledbury, in London. In 2012, he finished work at The Ledbury and left to work for Jason Atherton at Pollen Street Social, another of the UK’s best restaurants.

When London Olympics fever hit the UK in 2012, Jason joined the hundreds of chefs who cooked for the Paralympians and Olympians. 

On his return to Sydney in 2013, Mr Saxby began working for Ross Lusted at The Bridge Room, a busy two hat restaurant. Mr Saxby met Mark Russo while working at The Bridge Room and together they decided to open their own restaurant.

At age 28, Mr Saxby opened Restaurant Osteria Di Russo & Russo in Enmore with front of house manager Mark Russo. By 2014, they were awarded their first chefs hat by the SMH’s Good Food Guide. The restaurant was also named in the top 50 restaurants in Australia by The Australian. 

In 2014, Mr Saxby’s dish fregola cooked with prawns, squid ink, mussel butter, garlic, chilli and basil was named the best dish in Australia by The Australian.

Russo & Russo were again awarded a prestigious hat in the 2015 SMH Good Food Guide.