Zach Meads says growing up with 11 siblings helped shape his life as a chef

Growing up in a farming family of 12 in Whakarongo, near Palmerston North, gave chef Zach Meads an early education in cooking for a crowd. Now 30, he is at the helm of Lottie’s, a restaurant opened by Josh and Helen Emett inside Auckland luxury department store Faradays. Meads began with simple lessons at home, learning to make scones with his aunt and Nana using the Edmonds Cookery Book when he was about nine or ten. In a large household, preparing dinner was less like cooking for one family member and more like catering for a small gathering, he says. “Being a big family, we cooked a lot, and learnt to cook,” Meads explains. The experience also taught him to stay organised in a busy kitchen, where every person had an opinion on how much seasoning a dish needed. He remembers making sourdough twice a week with his brother Jono, using a recipe from the original French Cafe cookbook. He credits the women in his family with helping steer him towards a career in food. His mother insisted he learn to bake bread before leaving home, while visits to his Nana meant pikelets or scones, Sunday roast and dessert. Meads jokes that family members now feel pressure when a chef visits, though he says he is happy to leave the cooking to them. After being homeschooled, he joined a U-Skills programme at UCOL in Palmerston North, which helped him recognise cooking as a career. He worked at the fine-dining restaurant Amayjen in Feilding while studying and training for competitions, where he says he learned kitchen basics and how to multitask. A move to Auckland followed, including a role at Peter Gordon’s The Sugar Club. Meads says connections made through competitions helped open that door. He and UCOL lecturer Mark Smith won gold in a category at the 2018 New Zealand Hospitality Championships, while another cooking competition in the Chatham Islands also brought the pair a trip there.