Brendan Pratt on restraint, purpose and building Wayfinder

For Brendan Pratt, Wayfinder represents a return to the kind of cooking that has always suited him best, food shaped by a clear purpose.

After more than two decades in kitchens, including six years leading Vasse Felix and a broader role as creative culinary director at Parker Group, the Perth-born chef is now executive chef at Wayfinder, overseeing its Dunsborough restaurant and the new winery and farm operation in Cowaramup.

Brendan says guests are expected to begin experiencing the new restaurant from early September. At its centre is an acre of kitchen garden, alongside an orchard, the estate’s wines and a project designed to connect what is grown, poured and cooked.

That connection was central to his decision to join.

“I’m one that’s really driven by purpose,” Brendan said. “It just feels like you’re part of something bigger.”

From Fremantle to London

Cooking was not Brendan’s original plan. At school he studied art and music, had a music scholarship and thought he would eventually become an architect.

His route into kitchens began while working at a supermarket, where a regular customer, chef Dave Stewart, repeatedly sought him out before eventually offering him work at Royal Fremantle Golf Club.

The food was relatively simple, but Stewart’s approach stayed with him. Brendan remembers a chef who cared where his beef and eggs came from and refused to put poor winter tomatoes on a steak sandwich simply because customers expected them.

He started washing dishes and helping with prep before Stewart suggested an apprenticeship. Rather than keeping him at the golf club, he introduced the 17-year-old to Chris Taylor at Frasers.

Brendan loved it immediately. He recalls spending his first day peeling around 30 kilograms of prawns and three cartons of Jerusalem artichokes, then going home convinced he had found what he wanted to do.

Taylor became an important mentor, pushing him towards competitions, stages and opportunities outside Western Australia. Through Appetite for Excellence, Brendan reached the national stage, met chefs including Luke Mangan and Tetsuya Wakuda and extended a trip to Sydney to stage with Tetsuya.

London followed. His time there included a position at The Ritz with John Williams, time at The Fat Duck, a stage at The Waterside Inn, The Ledbury and eventually Le Café Anglais, where he says he spent around two-and-a-half years and progressed to junior sous chef.

Back in Western Australia, Vasse Felix became another defining chapter. After leaving in 2023, Brendan co-founded Coffee Heads, a drive-through coffee and sandwich shop in Vasse, before moving into Parker Group and taking on a wider strategic role across its venues.

The experience broadened him as an operator, but it also reinforced how much he missed being close to the kitchen.

Restraint, wine and the garden

One of the biggest lessons Brendan took from Vasse Felix was restraint.

“As you mature a bit, you kind of understand that restraint is a really clever tool,” he said.

Cooking around wine forced him to work within boundaries. Instead of building a dish independently and finding a wine to match, the wine helped determine what the food needed to do.

It shifted his focus from putting more elements on the plate to building more flavour within fewer elements.

“The end result looks very simple,” Brendan said. “It still needs to be clean and neat and considered and thought out.”

At Wayfinder, that thinking becomes what he describes as a “wine first, garden first” mentality. A dish might begin with the acidity, texture or oak in a particular wine, then move to what is coming from the garden.

If an acid in the wine needs protecting, for example, fresh lemon juice or vinegar might be too aggressive. Brendan might instead cook or burn the lemon, increasing its sweetness while retaining enough acidity to support the wine.

It is trial and error, but he likes the discipline it creates.

The garden adds another set of boundaries. Rather than writing four fixed menus around the calendar, Brendan wants the food to change whenever the produce does.

“The seasons don’t work like that,” he said.

Artichokes might be at their best for a few days. Corn could arrive for two weeks and appear across snacks, starters, mains and desserts before disappearing again. A dish described as braised winter greens might change composition between services depending on what is ready to harvest.

“You might come on Tuesday and then the menu will be different on Thursday,” Brendan said. “It will be fluid and we’ll just move with what’s good.”

Preservation will help the kitchen carry that produce further. Soon after Brendan arrived, a late-season glut of cucumbers was too mature for the restaurant’s normal use. Rather than defaulting to pickles, the team turned the crop into cucumber vinegar to use when the new restaurant opens.

For Brendan, that is where having a genuine connection to the garden becomes interesting. Summer’s green tomatoes, strawberries and other surplus produce can be preserved so they continue to shape the menu months later.

Building the kitchen differently

The same thinking applies to the culture Brendan wants to build. He describes collaboration as essential, particularly for younger chefs who enter the industry because they want a creative outlet.

At Wayfinder, a kitchen whiteboard will give the team space to put forward ideas and think about which wine, crop or season they might work with. Some ideas may never leave the board. Others might contribute one element to a dish or eventually make the menu intact.

The point is making people comfortable enough to contribute.

Leadership, for Brendan, also means being prepared to admit when he gets something wrong.

“I really like being vulnerable and being like, ‘Hey, I made mistakes. We all make mistakes.’”

That does not mean removing accountability. He believes chefs still need clear standards and leaders need to hold people to them, but those expectations have more weight when the person setting them applies the same standard to themselves.

There are practical changes too. The team is planning rosters months ahead where possible, prioritising consecutive days off and rotating weekends. Senior chefs from the Dunsborough restaurant will also spend time in the farm prep kitchen, keeping them connected to the produce while giving them time away from constant service.

Brendan is not suggesting hospitality can avoid long days altogether. There will still be events, busy services and periods when the team has to push. What he wants to remove is unnecessary hardship as a measure of commitment.

“If it’s a day where you don’t have to get in early just to be the first there, don’t be the first,” he said. “Let’s just balance our life.”

What success looks like

Ask Brendan what success at Wayfinder looks like 12 months after opening and his first measures are not reviews, awards or booking numbers.

He wants a happy, creative team that feels it is learning and progressing. He wants staff retention and a strong relationship between front and back of house, alongside customers who return because they want to see how the restaurant is evolving.

For Brendan, those things are closely connected. Creating an environment where the team feels supported, engaged and invested in what they are doing ultimately shapes the experience guests receive.

And when another chef comes through the door, Brendan hopes they notice the details.

“If you’re looking after all those one percenters, then they’ll add up and you’ll be all right in the end.”