Alex Herbert, Bird Cow Fish

Alex Herbert was born in Sydney, October 1967. Alex gained her love of cooking from watching her mother, aunts and grandmother in the kitchen.

After three years studying History and Italian at Sydney University, Alex decided to follow her heart and began cooking professionally in 1989 when aged 21, she commenced as an apprentice chef at Berowra Waters Inn, under the direction of Gay Bilson and Janni Kyritsis.

Since then, over her twenty seven year career, Alex has worked alongside some of Australia’s finest chefs and restaurateurs; Maggie Beer, Christine Manfield, David Thompson, Martin Boetz, all whom influenced her understanding and the importance of good produce.

Alex has owned several highly successful restaurants of her own, the most recent being Bird Cow Fish which opened in Surry Hills in 2006 and which was immediately awarded “Favourite Bistro” and its first hat which it maintained over the next six years until it closed in February 2012.

Alex’s career in food has always had an emphasis on seeking out and supporting new food producers. Her Food Producer dinners at Bird Cow Fish in Surry Hills were ahead of their time and unique in that she often visited every region to meet the growers prior to each event.
A member of Slow Food Alex attended Terra Madre in Turin as a Cook Delegate in 2008 and has been a NSW judge for the Delicious Food Produce Awards since 2011.

Between 2008 -2016 Alex (Bird Cow Fish) ran a stall “Breakfast and Stuff” at Eveleigh St Market (Carriage Works) in Redfern every Saturday morning. Her stall was unique in that it focused on using only produce from the Farmers Market producers wherever possible.

Now with neither a restaurant or the market stall to consume her time Alex holds the occasional special event dinner and works as a Consultant. This covers a broad range of activities from Curating the food for the 2015 Barangaroo Giant Picnic Festivals for Gill Minervini Creative to managing food strategy projects to the public and private sector for Brain & Poulter.
Alex’s latest project has been as Editor of Matthew Evan’s latest book For The Love of Meat due to be published by Hardie Grant in October, 2016.
This project included the curation of Chefs recipes and stories for inclusion in the book alongside Matthew Evan’s recipes as well as managing the social media campaign #fortheloveofmeat to coincide with the airing of his new 3 part series of the same name due to go to air on SBS late October 2016.