Miguel Maestre on ocean swimming, his role as King of the Good Food and Wine Show, and the Manly restaurant where it all began.
Before Miguel Maestre became one of Australia’s most recognised celebrity chefs, he was the head chef at El Toro Loco, grinding out ninety-five consecutive double shifts in a Manly kitchen. Eighteen hours each. No Instagram, no mainstream TV profile – just a brigade to run and a fish market to hit at 5am.
“The Manly restaurant was the big bomb,” he says. “My social media, all my big gigs – it all started there.”
The road there had a few detours first. His initial TV break came while working under head chef Ed “Fast Eddie” Halmagyi at Cru restaurant at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Fast Eddie was a presenter on Better Homes and Gardens, and the show filmed where they worked. A producer spotted Maestre in the kitchen and asked if he’d give Fast Eddie a hand on camera. He made a pizza. They had a good time. More followed.
Then came Boys Weekend alongside Manu Feildel, Gary Mehigan and Adrian Richardson – sold to 120 countries – and Miguel’s Tropical Kitchen on Foxtel.
Around the same time, a chance meeting in Spain was shaping what came next. While working under Tony Bilson, Maestre was introduced to Ferran Adria at El Bulli, then the most celebrated restaurant in the world. Adria stopped the whole kitchen to welcome him. He came home and opened El Toro Loco.
When it launched on the Manly beachfront in November 2009, the kitchen was loud, open, and packed from night one. Media people started turning up for dinner and watching what happened behind the pass.
“Before I opened El Toro Loco, I was a professional chef – I was actually cooking,” he says. “I didn’t have an Instagram account. I didn’t take photos. I was really full on.”
The restaurant’s momentum brought more: catering for the Emirates Melbourne Cup and eventually The Living Room on Network Ten. He left El Toro Loco in late 2010 – with a young family arriving, by his own account the kitchen lost the argument. The restaurant was later renamed El Poco Loco and eventually closed. There’s more to that story but not for today.
The career it launched has made him, by some margin, the most prolific performer at the Good Food and Wine Show. Over 11 years he has logged 126 sessions across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. The second-most experienced chef on the circuit has done it 20 times.
A showman: Maestre practising for Good Food and Wine.
“When you are there and 1,000 people are sitting in front of you, that spontaneity is impossible to harness, create or manage,” he says. “It just happens, and it’s something amazing when it happens.”
He looks relaxed on stage, but it takes its toll. “I’ve trained really hard for each session. When I finish, I’m always exhausted – it’s like a truck has run over me. Sometimes I lose two kilos.”
The Sydney show runs 19-21 June at the ICC, bringing Australia’s top culinary experts, winemakers and producers together with tens of thousands of food lovers. In 2026, it adds two major new experiences to its program: Baker’s Alley, a dedicated bakery precinct, and an intimate hands-on Cooking School.
When Miguel is not on stage, he is in the water. The Manly to Shelly Beach ocean swim is a regular fixture – he has dived with sharks in the Maldives, Fiji and South Africa and never lost much sleep over them. Then the summer shark bites started locally, and he found himself less certain.
One morning, in the weeks before Christmas, he was swimming the Shelly course with a fast group – falling behind, as he freely admits – when a large shark appeared. He reckons it was around three metres. It was following slowly.
“We need to stop and look at the shark, because when you stop, the shark will go away,” he told his swimming partner. It did. But the next day someone else had a close call. And the day after that, someone else again.
For the following two weeks, Maestre swam the Manly stretch with a diving knife tucked into his shorts.
“Everybody was laughing so much,” he says. “If he attacks me, what am I going to do?” He paused and laughed. “I thought, what an idiot. But it’s psychological.”
He eventually talked himself back into the water without it. He’s good with a knife, but that’s in the kitchen.
