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Apart from Red Lantern, Mark has conducted cooking classes at the Sydney Seafood Food School for the last fifteen years.
Mark was 27 when he started in the kitchens in Bryon Bay, surfing in the morning and washing pots at night. He moved back to Sydney to work in Matt Moran's kitchen at the Paddington Inn Bistro, and after three years with Matt, moved to the Bennelong Restaurant at the Sydney Opera House, under the tutelage of Janni Krystis. With a new found love of his craft, Mark went out on his own and opened the dining room at the Olympic Hotel in 1995.
Not long after, Mark was approached by his brother in-law Luke Nguyen to head up the kitchen brigade at his new restaurant, Red Lantern. He received intensive training from 'Sifu' Li, a Vietnamese master chef. Apart from Red Lantern, Mark has regularly appeared as a guest chef on Network Ten’s Ready Steady Cook and has conducted cooking classes at the Sydney Seafood Food School for the last fifteen years. He is also invited regularly to hold cooking demonstrations at prestigious cooking schools and events across Australia.
After the huge success of his cookbook 'Secrets of the Red Lantern', in which Mark, in collaboration with Luke, contributed recipes, Mark has released his own book about ethical eating, sustainability and the carbon footprint we leave through our food production - a subject he is most passionate about - called The Urban Cook: Cooking and Eating for a Sustainable Future.
