Julian Wu

Julian Wu is Melbourne’s foremost rock chef, with a long history straddling Melbourne’s rock and street food scenes from the 1980s to the present day.

Always a keen amateur chef, his first gig after completing high school was working as a short order cook in a suburban pizza parlour in the early 1980s. Shortly after that, he met and befriended influential Australian band The Triffids and joined their road crew for a couple of tours in the mid 1980s, later joining the band on stage as a guitarist when the band reformed in 2006 and played with them on their “A Secret In The Shape of a Song” shows in Australia and Europe between 2008-2010.

In the 1990s he worked as a freelance Sound Recording engineer and music producer, and in the years from 1998 to 2001 he worked as the in-house sound recordist at Melbourne’s now defunct but much missed Continental Cafe. Some of the artists he has recorded include The Blackeyed Susans, Dirty Three, Kieran Kane and Kevin Welch, Ron Sexsmith, The GoBetweens, and most recently the Primitive Calculators.

Since the late 1990sm, he’s become known for his barbecue cooking skills, preparing themed barbecues to complement the bands playing at Raoul (now Pure Pop) records in St Kilda, and later at The Tote, in Collingwood.

He worked on the writing team of the SBS TV show RocKwiz for the first 4 seasons. His cooking has been featured in American barbecue guru Steve Raichlen’s book Planet Barbecue. He also co-ordinated the food for 3RRR’s Melbourne Barbecue Day for the first five years – from its inception in 2001 on the old Triple R rooftop to its relocation to CERES.

Julian presented two events (Game On and Stranded) for the 2012 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival at Ponyfish Island. He is currently formulating plans to open his own restaurant bar in the upcoming year.