PROFILE

Phil Wood is the Culinary Director at Pt Leo Estate on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. The two restaurants at Pt Leo Estate, Laura and Pt Leo Restaurant, were together named Victoria’s No. 1 restaurant in the Sunday Herald Sun 2018 Delicious 100.  Laura was awarded New Restaurant of the Year and Two Hats at the 2019 Good Food Guide Awards, New Restaurant of the Year at the 2019 Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Awards, Hottest Regional Restaurant in The Weekend Australian’s 2018 Hot 50 Restaurants and Best Regional Restaurant at the Time Out Melbourne Awards. Laura is one of only four Relais & Châteaux properties in Australia – the only in Victoria. Pt Leo Restaurant was awarded One Hat at the 2019 Good Food Guide Awards.

Phil was previously Executive Chef of Sydney’s Rockpool est. 1989 and Eleven Bridge. Under his leadership, Rockpool est. 1989 was awarded Three Hats by the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide, Three Stars by Australian Gourmet Traveller and, in 2016, it was named the magazine’s Restaurant of the Year.

Born in New Zealand, Phil won the Josephine Pignolet Award for best young chef at the 2007 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards while working at Tetsuya’s Restaurant in Sydney and then worked at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry in the Napa Valley.