I first met Dave a couple of years ago when I went into Embla for a chat. It would have been one of the first conversations I did and I loved every minute of it. Back then, Dave was running between Town Mouse and Embla and doing an excellent job at both. And here I have a confession to make. I ran into Dave a few months ago at a restaurant opening with his now fiancée, Narani. She introduced me to Dave and I didn’t recognise him. The shame. But, now, get on board with me on this…have a look at the photo from my previous chat and you will see a different man. Same drive, same genius with food and same heart for the hospitality community, but Dave Verheul in 2019 is a happier man and that happiness is palpable. I still asked the same dumb question about his cooking style and I love that Dave has now put me in my place twice about how much chefs hate being asked that. But I’ll tell you something else, when I arrived at Lesa at 4pm at staff mealtime, Dave’s first question was, Are you hungry? This is a man who is the epitome of hospitality and I'm not the only one happy that he’s cooking for us in Melbourne.