Jock Zonfrillo always makes sure he has enough time to get away from it all with a dive.
“My mum and dad worked incredibly hard and holidays were precious. I remember us driving to Cornwall once, waking up and going to sleep again in the back of the car and us never seeming to be there yet.
“Madeira and Tunisia were another couple of places as well as the old Yugoslavia, before all the conflict. Looking back, the thing I always remember about places is how different the food was compared to back home.
“My mum’s family was the Scottish side and my dad’s the Italian side so I always had two very different food cultures. It might be mince and tatties or smelling fresh focaccia coming out of the oven.
“My mum found some of my old childhood diaries and, where other kids might talk about football or playing on their bikes, mine were always about food.
“As a chef the hours are so long it can be really hard to get away for any length of time. You grab a few days here and there and my way of relaxing is diving.
“When I was filming Nomad Chef I’d try and save enough time to get into the water. I managed it in Japan and the Faroe Isles and if I get a day’s diving I feel like I’ve been off for a week.
“There’s no phones ringing, no one asking you questions and you’re just in this totally different world under the sea. My perfect holiday would be to pick a handful of countries, do a bit of a tour and go diving in each of them.
“Australia has become my home but I’m still learning about it all the time. A lot of people come to the big cities like Sydney with the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.
“But if you go to Uluru and have a look at Ayers Rock you’ll find the Aboriginals love to stand and have a yarn about their people. Being Scottish, you can go anywhere in the world and spark up a conversation in a bar.
“That’s what I do and I’ve learned so much about Australia that way. It really is the sort of country that you should get out of the big cities and have a bit of a mingle. And the beaches are just out of this world.
“The diving and surfing is amazing and the fishing’s phenomenal. The coastline is so vast that you can walk for hour after hour and not pass a single person.”
Scots chef Jock Zonfrillo did his apprenticeship at Ayrshire’s Turnberry Hotel. He then worked in London restaurants under Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White.
Jock, 38, moved to Australia in 2000 where his career continued to blossom and he now runs two highly acclaimed restaurants.
Now he’s hitting TV screens with a new series Nomad Chef (Quest, Monday, October 13) which sees him foraging and cooking in some of the world’s most remote communities.
China, the Philippines and Belize are a few of the places visited. Jock has two kids, Ava, 13, and Sofia, 8.
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