It's late. The kitchen has closed, the last covers cleared, and somewhere in Melbourne a group of Dutch and Korean chefs are pulling chairs around a table at a Korean restaurant. The soju arrives. For one of them — a young Dutch chef still finding his feet in Australia — it's the first time. He doesn't know it yet, but this table, these people, this city, will change everything.
I. The Making of a Chef
Max didn't set out to become a chef. He studied hotel management — the front of house, the business of hospitality. But somewhere in a classroom, a teacher noticed something. You're talented, he said. Think about cooking school.
The passion was already there — it just needed someone to name it. Max finished his degree and pivoted toward the kitchen. His first real posting said everything about his ambitions: Château St. Gerlach, in the south of the Netherlands. He was eighteen years old.
"Starting at a high level early — it opens doors. It shapes the way you see everything that comes after." — Max, Founder
From the château to London. Specifically, 1 Lombard Street — a celebrated brasserie in the heart of the banking district. Max worked in the basement. Twenty-five chefs. Fourteen-hour days. An hour's commute each way, arriving home in the middle of the night, dirty and exhausted, five days a week.
His chef was Tim Richardson. Despite the relentless grind, Richardson left a mark. When Max eventually moved on, Richardson wrote him a letter. Max has never forgotten it. "That letter meant everything," he says. "It's one of those things you carry with you."
II. The Sterklas
Back in the Netherlands, Max set his sights on the Sterklas — the highest culinary credential in the country, attended by only a handful of cooks each year. He got in. While studying, he cooked at Ciel Bleu, the two-Michelin-starred restaurant atop Amsterdam's Okura Hotel, and at the Amstel Hotel, which held its own Michelin star.
"We learned classic methods, but what stayed with me was being surrounded by my classmates," Max says. "They all came from the best restaurants across the Netherlands. Everyone brought their kitchen with them. That exchange — that feeling of being around that level of talent — was its own education."
- 18
- Age at first professional kitchen
- 2★
- Michelin stars, Ciel Bleu Amsterdam
- 7
- Years of Restaurant Iluka, Jeonju
III. Melbourne, Rosetta & Tin
The path to Australia came through a network of chefs — the quiet industry of people who know people. Max arrived in Melbourne and, through a chef he'd worked with, landed an interview at Rosetta: Neil Perry's restaurant inside Crown Casino, one of the most high-profile dining rooms in the country. He got the job. There were other Dutch chefs already in the kitchen. It felt, a little, like home.
It was at Rosetta that he met Tin — the pastry chef. She had lived in Australia for over fourteen years, between Melbourne and the Gold Coast. Friendship came first, built around a shared circle of Dutch and Korean colleagues who, after service, would find themselves around a late-night table at a Korean restaurant. Soju. The particular warmth of people who cook together for a living, unwinding in the small hours.
"We used to go to Korean restaurants after service. Many times. It was my first time drinking soju. I didn't know then that Korea would become my life." — Max
From Rosetta, Max moved to Byron Bay. He worked at The Farm and at Elements of Byron — produce-driven, unhurried, a world away from London's basement kitchens. Three years in Australia in total. Then Tin made a decision. They were going to Korea.
IV. Three Months to Opening
The plan was simple: one year in Korea. See how it felt. But finding work without speaking the language proved harder than expected — and then an opportunity appeared that wasn't a job at all. It was a restaurant of their own.
"We were young," Max says. "And it was a good opportunity." Three months after arriving in Jeonju — Korea's food capital — they signed the building. A few months later, Restaurant Iluka opened its doors.
The name comes from Australia. Iluka is a small coastal town where Max and Tin used to camp together. In the local Aboriginal language, it means near the sea. It carries their whole story — Australia, the beginning, the water.
Jeonju received them warmly, but it was new territory. "People didn't know much about western food at that time," Max says. "We were introducing something new." Then COVID arrived, just as they were finding their footing. "We weren't ready for it. But we survived. And we're still here."
V. Welcome, First Time Korea
Seven years into life in Jeonju, Max had become something rare — a foreign chef so deeply woven into Korean food culture that the country's national broadcaster came calling. In 2025, MBC aired Welcome, First Time Korea, a five-episode series following Max as he brought three of his old chef friends from the Netherlands to experience culinary Korea for the first time.
They were colleagues from his Melbourne days — all now cooking back in the Netherlands — reunited on the other side of the world by a man who never went back. For five weeks, the show ran on national television. Max was their guide, their translator, their proof that Korea gets under your skin and stays there.
On Screen — MBC, 2025
Welcome, First Time Korea — 5 episodes, national television. A Dutch chef in Jeonju brings his European colleagues to discover the food, culture, and people of culinary Korea.
The highlight came at the temple. The group traveled to Chunjinam at Chunghakdong to meet Jeong Kwan — the Buddhist monk whose temple food philosophy made her one of the most celebrated culinary figures in the world, known to millions through her episode of Netflix's Chef's Table. She cooked for them.
"Sitting at that table, in that temple, eating food she prepared for us — that was something truly special. I'll never forget it." — Max
It was, in its way, the ultimate expression of everything Max had built over seven years in Korea. Not just a restaurant, not just a brand — but a genuine belonging. Deep enough that he could bring his friends from the other side of the world and show them what he had found.
VI. A Bottle from Samos
Two years ago, Max's father traveled to Greece — to the island of Samos, in the eastern Aegean. There he met the Markou family, olive farmers whose groves had been producing oil for generations. They were warm, generous people. And their olive oil was something special.
"Maybe it would be nice to send you some to Korea," someone said.
The oil arrived. Max tasted it in his kitchen and understood immediately that this was not an ordinary product. His first instinct was to keep it for the restaurant. But that felt wrong.
"That's not fair," he says. "Something this good — I should share it with the rest of Korea."
"I learned everything myself. Importing, distribution, the website, the marketing. The same way I've always learned — by doing it." — Max
And so Gaia Iluka was born. No prior experience in importing. No background in branding. Max taught himself everything — from international distribution to building the website, from Korean import regulations to the brand's visual identity. It now reaches home cooks, restaurants, and hotels across the country.
It is entirely consistent with the rest of his life. The hotel management student who found his calling in Michelin kitchens. The European cook who opened a restaurant in Korea three months after arriving. The man who came for one year and stayed for seven. When a door opens, you walk through it. You figure out the rest.
VII. What It Tastes Like
Gaia Iluka — the name joins the Greek word for earth with the Australian town where two people fell in love near the sea. It is, unintentionally, a perfect summary of everything that brought it into existence.
The oil comes from the Markou family's groves on Samos. Cold-pressed, single-origin, produced with the kind of care that makes the difference between a commodity and something you remember.
When asked what he wants someone to feel the first time they open a bottle, Max doesn't hesitate.
"That they just discovered what olive oil is supposed to taste like," he says. "And that they'll never go back to supermarket olive oil again."
Single-origin extra virgin olive oil, produced by the Markou family and brought to the world by a chef who took the long way round.