Craig Will
It’s easy to be conditioned into thinking hospitality and tourism stand only as stop-gap jobs with little room for job progression or job satisfaction. For Craig Will, executive chef and co-owner of Stillwater Restaurant and Stillwater Seven Rooms boutique hotel in Launceston, he sees the industry differently. Through his ongoing passion for produce, menu building and camaraderie in the kitchen, he reflects fondly on a career that has come full circle.
Growing up, Craig remembers the positive influence that food held for his family and found that he was unknowingly drawn to it from an early age.
“We had a large garden that we drew upon as kids. I did a lot of the cooking with my brothers as Mum and Dad worked a fair bit, so we made the family dinners. It sort of rolled on from there.”
It was his natural ability, paired with exposure from family members and mentors who worked in various cheffing roles, that allowed him to see potential in pursuing a career in the industry.
“I chose a career in hospitality purely because one of my cousins’ was a chef at the time. He's nine years older than me, so I got a good insight into what being a chef was actually like, and I thought it was a really cool, kind of rock star job,” he laughs. “Also, a teacher I had at school was an expat chef who got me interested in food and cookery. We did some functions and that sparked that love for cooking.”
Launching his career at the age of 17 as an apprentice chef for a large hotel, he has since experienced invaluable personal and professional development through different sectors of Hospitality and Tourism. From interstate work in bistros; fine-dining restaurants around Hobart, to buying into the Black Cow Bistro in Launceston, each role, as Craig reflects, has set him up with fundamental skills to go far in the industry. The irony of landing back where it all started, in a hotel, doesn’t get lost on him either.
“Originally when I started my career as a chef, I didn't imagine to be in the position where I am, where I am a co-owner of a restaurant and a hotel. I always had my sights on being my own boss and running my own restaurant, but to be here and have the hotel that compliments the restaurant is next level.”
“When I entered my first kitchen, it was a bit of an eye opener. You leave school and go straight into hospitality, into a commercial kitchen – it was big, it was busy. But I clicked with a few people from the first day and I'm still friends with them; now it’s 23 years later,” he says. “And funnily enough, a month after I started, my now wife started as an apprentice. And we've known each other for over half our lives. So, it's more than a career. It's a life.”
The people Craig has met and the support he instantly felt in these environments is second to none, something he feels those in the industry can attest to.
“The camaraderie in the kitchen, you know, we're all like-minded people. We've all got that passion for cooking, otherwise you probably wouldn't be there. So you've always got that one thing in common. We all get along and make friends quickly.”
“The life skills I’ve learnt and developed over the course of my career in hospitality have mostly been becoming a bit more of an extrovert. So it's taught me the skills to be able to converse and to talk to people better. It’s also taught me to be more understanding of people's personal lives and situations as well.”
“Hospitality doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be working in a kitchen for your entire life – you can diversify, you can change, you can do different things. It can go in all sorts of different directions. It opens the door to so much more than just cooking.”
Craig encourages that Hospitality is a career that is always evolving so has great longevity. He speaks highly of never feeling stuck in one position.
“Hospitality doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be working in a kitchen for your entire life – you can diversify, you can change, you can do different things. It can go in all sorts of different directions. It opens the door to so much more than just cooking.”
“For someone who's considering a career in hospitality, I would say to them, just give it a go. Just get a feel for the industry… it's a fun industry to be in.”
