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Lisa Cam

“We’re going to play a game of hide-and-seek.”
An otherwise fun activity for any five-year-old turned out to be one that saved Sierra Leone-born Australian chef Brian Cole from being abducted and recruited as a child soldier 28 years ago.
The chef de cuisine at Hearth, the signature fine dining restaurant at Perth’s Ritz-Carlton, in Western Australia, still vividly remembers that harrowing moment.
His mother told him and his cousin, another boy, to hide under the stairs of the house and wait to be found. However, Cole could feel something was wrong. The adults were running around scared, and there were sounds of people screaming all over the neighbourhood.
Soon after, there was a loud banging on the door, followed by a booming voice asking, “Where are the boys?”
“There are no boys here,” his mother said defiantly.

It is estimated that between 100,000 and 140,000 children fought between 1991 and 2002 in Sierra Leone’s civil war, mostly abducted from their families by the Revolutionary United Front rebel group. In 1997, Cole and his two-year-old cousin could easily have been part of that statistic if it were not for his mother’s quick thinking and a bit of luck.
After the rebel soldiers finished ransacking and pillaging the neighbourhood, Cole’s mother took the children and ran to a shelter where refugees were being airlifted to Guinea.
“I will never forget the helicopter ride,” Cole, 32, says. “There were no doors and it was loud, but war is loud.”
Peace did not last long in Guinea as the rebels made their way north and rounded up the family. Cole, his mother, two aunts and two cousins were held in captivity for seven days. Luckily, friends and family in the United States sent them some money, which they used to pay their way out of prison and escape to Ghana.
A long wait at a refugee camp ensued, before Cole and his mother were granted asylum to go to another country.

It was quite a shock when they found out they were heading to Australia, instead of the US where they had family.
“My mother couldn’t even pronounce Australia,” Cole says. “Every few months, the names of those granted asylum were put on a notice board and we all wanted to go to America, but we were expecting it because we had family there.”
Cole and his family landed in Perth when he was 11 years old, six years after they fled their home. As Sierra Leone was an ex-British colony, the family spoke English, but the largest culture shock for Cole was not the environment, the city or the culture, but the food.
“There was fast food everywhere,” he says. “Back in Africa, fast food chains were a special-occasion restaurant – we would get burgers and fries only on our birthdays. They were fancy restaurants to me and it felt like there were these nice restaurants everywhere. To see ice cream at a supermarket was a shock – by this time I’d only had ice cream twice in my life.
“Tasting a giant ice cream sandwich for the first time was mind-blowing to me.”

The family finally settled into the inner city suburb of Victoria Park in Perth. Cole did well in school, excelling in art, English, social studies and home economics.
“One of my goals was to become an artist, but I also got an A in home economics,” he says. “Back then, being a chef wasn’t a proper job for the African community.”
The pivotal moment that made Cole decide to become a chef was a cooking competition at school, for which he prepared a three-course menu of mini chicken pizza, black pepper beef and a chocolate souffle for dessert.
“The chocolate souffle did not work out, but at 16 years old, I was given credit for trying. I won the competition,” he says.
Part of the Year 10 curriculum in Australian high schools is for students to do two weeks of work experience. Having caught the eye of the school principal with his skills, Cole was placed at the Crown Perth, one of the most prestigious hotels in the state.

Cole performed so well that he was offered an apprenticeship at the hotel, but that meant dropping out of school.
“I loved my time there. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had and I couldn’t wait to start,” Cole says.
However, his mother was against it.
“Not only did I choose a career path that she did not like, I was not completing high school either. It took my apprenticeship manager to convince her that this was a good experience for me and that I could always return to school afterwards if it did not work out for me.”
Cole started in the kitchens at Crown Perth and went from strength to strength. After the three-year apprenticeship, he stayed on to become the youngest senior chef de partie at the hotel’s French restaurant, Bistro Guillaume. From there he moved to the city’s Subiaco Hotel as a junior sous chef and eventually became a sous chef at a traditional Italian restaurant.
I really struggled with the myrtles. Australian herbs are quite strong. It’s either really salty, bitter or sour, and balancing them in a dish was quite difficult
Brian Cole
After the Covid pandemic hit, the opportunity to work at Hearth opened up. The talented chef jumped at the opportunity. The modern fine dining restaurant holds three chef hats from the Australian Good Food Guide – the country’s answer to the Michelin Guide – and is considered one of the best restaurants in the country.
“They could only offer me [the role of] junior sous chef at the time, which meant a small step down. While I told them that I would think about it, I was really excited on the inside. I just wanted to work at Hearth,” Cole says.
He was later named young chef of the year by the West Australian Good Food Guide in 2024.
As a testament to Cole’s talent and work ethic, he was promoted to chef de cuisine after only a year and a half at Hearth. But it was also where he faced one of his biggest challenges.
“The first menu change took me three-and-a-half months [to create],” he explains. “I was struggling to work with the bush herbs.”

Hearth is known for showcasing indigenous ingredients that, given the uniqueness of Australian fauna, have a very different flavour profile to the herbs and spices common in the Italian cuisine he was used to.
“I really struggled with the myrtles. Australian herbs are quite strong. It’s either really salty, bitter or sour, and balancing them in a dish was quite difficult.”
But as the saying goes: the greater the struggle, the greater the reward. By the third menu change, Cole was getting compliments from diners about how amazing his creations were.
“By the third menu, I received a lot of positive feedback about my beetroot and black rice with kimchi and lemon myrtle. People really liked how the acidity and spice worked together,” he says.
Having mastered the use of Australian bush herbs, Cole was able to better focus on a passion project of his.
Over the years, he has played with the West African flavours of his family and homeland with an aim to use them in a fine dining setting. Recently, he had the opportunity to showcase them during a kitchen takeover of Tamba in Singapore during the Kita Food Festival, an event celebrating the flavours of Southeast Asia that was held from March 12 to 17.

Olele is a West African pudding made with black-eyed peas; for our hosted meal at Tamba, Cole stuffed it inside a barbecued chicken wing, creating a wonderful first course to introduce the flavours and textures of his home country. The texture of the olele was smooth and worked well to enhance the smokiness of the chicken.
Gron is a savoury cucumber soup from Sierra Leone. Cole served it as a base to some cured scallops, which became a diners’ favourite that night. The refreshing flavours enhanced the brininess of the shellfish and were very suitable for the Singapore weather.
However, it was the confit pork belly, tomato stew and jollof rice that was the dish closest to the chef’s heart.
“The tomato stew and jollof rice is a staple at my family gatherings,” he says.
With a television appearance due sometime later this year on SBS’s The Cook Up with Adam Liaw, Cole has come a long way: from almost becoming a statistic of war to refugee to star chef at one of Australia’s best restaurants. And he is hungry to do more.
“I’m still practising and learning something new in my trials with West African cuisine,” he says. “My next goal is to open a West African restaurant. I’m ready.”


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How Brian Cole, one of Australia’s best chefs, was so close to becoming a child soldier

Chef Brian Cole serves diners at Hearth, the signature fine dining restaurant at Perth’s Ritz-Carlton, in Western Australia. Photo: The Ritz-Carlton, Perth - Hearth Restaurant

Olele stuffed barbecue chicken wing by Brian Cole at Tamba in Singapore, served during the 2025 Kita Food Festival. Photo: Lisa Cam

Cole joined Hearth during the Covid pandemic. Photo: The Ritz-Carlton, Perth – Hearth Restaurant

Cole’s beetroot and kimchi black rice with lemon myrtle oil at Hearth. Photo: The Ritz-Carlton, Perth – Hearth Restaurant

Cold was named young chef of the year by the West Australian Good Food Guide in 2024. Photo: Lisa Cam

Hearth at The Ritz-Carlton, Perth. Photo: The Ritz-Carlton, Perth – Hearth Restaurant

Cured scallops with cucumber gron soup at the kitchen takeover by Brian Cole at Tamba during the 2025 Kita Food Festival. Photo: Lisa Cam

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Brian Cole’s childhood could have been tragically different. Instead, the star chef of Hearth in Perth is going from strength to strength


Brian Cole’s childhood could have been tragically different. Instead, the star chef of Hearth in Perth is going from strength to strength.


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Profile | How Brian Cole, one of Australia’s best chefs, was so close to becoming a child soldier

Brian Cole’s childhood could have been tragically different. Instead, the star chef of Hearth in Perth is going from strength to strength