Behind The Scenes: Chef Taylor Cullen on Cooking, Craft, and the Studio Enti Table

Studio Enti tableware for Sugarloaf by Flockhill
Photo credit: Jason Loucas

Chef Taylor Cullen

Perfectly Imperfect

Sugarloaf's cooking is shaped by a landscape that refuses to sit still. "Today's radish isn't tomorrow's radish," Taylor explains. "The sweetness of a carrot changes with the weather. The seasoning of a dish shifts almost daily because we're responding to what the soil is giving us, not forcing it into consistency."

It's a mindset that runs in parallel with handmade ceramics, where no two pieces are ever quite the same. Taylor and his team call it "perfectly imperfect"; a philosophy that takes some rewiring for chefs who've come through kitchens built on exacting repetition. "It's pretty wild having to untrain, or retrain, our team... I really admire that discipline. However, at Flockhill, we don't look at the land that way."

Living and working together at the lodge, high in the alps, means the whole team experiences the same shifting conditions in real time. "A Sunday in summer might be 25°C with beautiful sunshine, followed by 9°C and rain on Monday. We cook to that rhythm, lighter flavours and produce on the warm days, followed by richer, more comforting dishes when the weather turns." That shared environment, he says, builds an instinctive understanding across the kitchen, a way of reading direction together, because everyone is living inside the same story. “We harness that connection to create a dining experience that genuinely reflects the place we’re in.”

High in New Zealand's Southern Alps, Sugarloaf by Flockhill is a restaurant built entirely around its surroundings: the weather, the land, the produce grown just metres from the kitchen door. At the helm is Head Chef Taylor Cullen, whose approach to food is as unpredictable and considered as the high country itself. We asked Taylor to talk about how Studio Enti's handmade ceramics found their way onto his tables, and why, for him, cooking and craftsmanship have always been part of the same pursuit.

A First Encounter

Taylor's introduction to Studio Enti came years before Sugarloaf existed, during his time as Head Chef at Chiswick in Sydney. "The designer brought in some Studio Enti plates for us to look at, and I fell in love immediately," he recalls. "The soft colours, the matte, rustic feel of the clay on the underside, balanced with the beautiful glaze that makes the eating surface smooth, it all felt incredibly considered."

That first impression has stayed with him. Now at Flockhill, he says the fit simply makes sense. "Our brands share the same philosophy: rustic, thoughtful undertones balanced with pure luxury." At Flockhill, everything is made from scratch: vegetables harvested from the gardens, livestock raised on site, summer produce preserved for the cooler months. Handmade ceramics, Taylor says, are a natural extension of that same care. "Plating food you've grown yourself on plates designed by artists you admire is one of the most inspiring things you can do as a chef."

Photography Credit: Lisa Sun

Craftsmanship Worth Holding Onto

Sugarloaf is, above all, a restaurant of place. "Everything about Sugarloaf is about a sense of place. It's actually very difficult for me to use something that isn't from here," Taylor says. The exception he makes is for craftsmanship he simply can't source on his doorstep; relationships with ceramicists built up over years and across different kitchens.

"There are ceramicists I've admired for years and worked with across different restaurants throughout my career. I've built genuine relationships with these potters, and there's a real sense of mutual understanding." Alongside a local potter who visits the restaurant to pick plants for pressings and harvest clay from the station, Taylor has kept faith with the makers who've been part of his journey from the start.

At the centre of the table sits a familiar piece. "We use Studio Enti's medium cream dinner plate as our staple plate. I genuinely believe it's the perfect plate. Its soft, natural colours sit beautifully within Sugarloaf, and I honestly don't think I've ever seen a more perfect plate."

Photography credit: Jason Loucas

Where Art and Craftsmanship Collide

For Taylor, the connection between food and ceramics goes deeper than aesthetics. "It's important to understand where art and craftsmanship collide. With food and ceramics, I think that point is exactly the same," he says. "You might design a plate, or create a dish, and the first idea could come to you in seconds and feel perfect. Or it could be like pulling teeth for weeks before you finally get there. From that point on, the craft takes over. That's where repetition, discipline, and skill come in, allowing you to execute that vision over and over again."

It's a philosophy that extends to how he chooses who he works with. "Ceramics and restaurants aren't just jobs, they're lifestyles. To be good at either, you have to be completely committed. You need drive, ambition, and a genuine love for the craft. The most important thing for me is finding people who feel the same way and choosing to work with them. That exchange of energy is incredibly rewarding and inspiring."