Mr Wuestner has met and married a Kiama girl in the UK and it didn’t take much convincing from Conny Wuestner for him to want to live and work in such a beautiful coast location. Their first son Marty (Martyn) had already been born and the then North Beach International Hotel was just being opened by the Corban family. Since then he has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of meals. But he works so hard behind the scenes his face may still not be known to regular guests at functions or diners in Windjammers. “I started her as a casual in the coffee shop doing the night shift as a short order cook. I did that for a couple of weeks and then I went full time and I have been here ever since”.

Mr Wuestner has been executive chef for over a decade and works with other kitchen staff who had been at the hotel more than 20 years. They all worked together like a well oiled machine. “It is just a good team environment here. And that is one of the reasons I am still here. They are a great group of people who know what they are doing and just do it”.

Mr Wuestner overseas around 20 kitchen staff and said the main change at the hotel during his time had been its growth.

He said it just got bigger and bigger and kept getting busier and busier.

“There were all houses here when I first came. I think when the Corbans were here there were something like 80 rooms and now there are more than 200,” he said.

“I probably worked under about eight different head chefs here. I always used to fill in for the job every time one left. Then I put my hand up for the job and have done it ever since. I do work with a great bunch of people. It is a great place to work.”

Mr Wuestner did his apprenticeship at the Savoy company in London. But Wollongong is as busy as anywhere. Last weekend he oversaw the preparation of more than 1500 meals at more than half a dozen functions at the Novotel. He said the other big change is the number of people now with special dietary requirements was larger than it had ever been.