Eating With Julia Zemiro

The TV personality on her family’s Bondi restaurant, hosting Eurovision, and her love of smørrebrød.

What are your memories of food growing up? My French father bought a business on Bondi Road called Home Cooking Restaurant. It was the early ’70s, so a three-course meal was $1.20. It wasn’t fancy. It was English home-cooking: vegetable soup, a roast of your choice with potatoes and vegies, and a dessert of say, tapioca and rhubarb, or steamed pudding with custard. We lived upstairs. It was in a stretch of street where we had Greek, Czech, Chinese and Hungarian businesses around us. It was a lovely community.

What was in your school lunch box? Dad made “English” food for the restaurant, but we had French food with way more flavour. Dad gave me artichokes with little jars of vinaigrette and soup in a Thermos, even though I secretly wanted a devon sandwich.

Did you ever cook for your parents? My parents divorced when I was nine. Whether I was staying with Mum or Dad, I made excellent cups of tea, coffee and toast with jam. Mum was a great cook, and was very keen on healthy eating. I would often cook for the two of us. Whereas with Dad, I talked a lot about food. Once a week, we’d see a movie and have dinner, and we would talk through the cooking process, the ingredients, the taste. It was the best of both worlds really: practise with Mum, theory with Dad.