James Mussillon learned his craft under heavyweights like Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White before moving to Canberra in 1999 to make it on his own.
But the Courgette executive chef couldn't have foreseen his greatest culinary challenge being cooking three-course meals with a prison sandwich press and kettle.
"I wasn't the best at school," Mussillon says, reflecting on his 15-year-old self.
On his dad's orders, the teenager washed dishes at the local RSL club in a lesson meant to show him what a life without good grades looked like.
"It backfired," he says, grinning.
"I actually loved it. I was washing dishes but then I started learning to make cakes and do other things."
More than three decades and multiple restaurants later, Mussillon would find himself arrested, charged and imprisoned, in a lesson that would again change his life.
"I need to rebuild my reputation," he says, acceptingly.
'I made a mistake'
It's Thursday afternoon inside Courgette's private dining room.
The Civic eatery has held a prestigious Good Food Guide Chef's Hat for many years and been a staple of Canberra's fine dining scene since opening more than two decades ago.
"This restaurant is my life," Mussillon, who just turned 52, says.
As the lunch rush ends and a handful of patrons clean their dessert plates, Mussillon sits down with The Canberra Times two years after being marched into Civic police station by two officers.
He's sporting his usual chef jacket and unmistakeable goatee beard, a familiar face in Canberra thanks to restaurant reviews and the unyielding coverage of his criminal proceedings.
Last year, the Sydney-born youngest of three pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including money laundering, perjury, fraud, general dishonesty and making false evidence.
Among other crimes, Mussillon laundered more than $360,000 for a drug dealer, lied to a court to help secure the man's bail and misled police in a failed attempt to regain a seized six-figure sum of cash.
In April, Justice David Mossop sentenced Mussillon to three years and 11 months in jail and ordered the offender to serve 12 months of the term behind bars.
The chef, on bail at the time, was once again ripped from his beloved kitchen and forced to switch his chef whites for the drab grey tracksuit of the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
He would serve a further four-and-a-half months in prison to complete the custodial portion of his sentence, before the rest was suspended.
When it all hit home
Mussillon seems somewhat nervous at first, describing the past three years of his life as "up and down".
He stumbles over certain words and, perhaps understandably, speaks initially in a rehearsed manner.
But he quickly drops his guard with moments of deep laugher, like when he explains that despite time in jail: "I wouldn't allow myself to eat spam."
He again changes pace when his words become heavy with the emotion of how his criminal actions affected the restaurant staff he repeatedly praises.
"I wouldn't wish it on anyone," he says about his time in custody.
Mussillon recalls doing laps around the yard on New Year's Eve during the first of his two stints in Canberra's prison.
"I've been in New York for New Year's Eve, I've been in Sydney for New Year's Eve ... now I'm in the AMC and that's when it hit home," he says.
"That was the bottom for me."
He describes spending time in a cell with an ice addict as "the scariest thing that I've ever done".
He shares a couple of other stories about the difficulty of his time behind bars but asks for their details not to be published.
"Bringing a story to Canberra, where so many people have supported me over the years, has really upset me deep to my soul," he says.
"There were days where I was emotional, upset, suicidal, about the impact I had."
You might be forgiven for struggling to reconcile Mussillon's multiple crimes of dishonesty and deception with his repeated expressions of regret.
The chef admits he "didn't gain anything" from his offending.
From an outside perspective, other than perhaps a criminally fabricated friendship, that seems to be true.
A neuropsychologist reported a "sensation-seeking" desire to address social isolation led Mussillon to clean the drug dealer's dirty cash using Courgette restaurant.
According to the offender: "I got trapped and I didn't know how to get myself out."
Mussillon's remorse, at face value, appears genuine.
'They're all pinned and chained down'
Despite public perception, Mussillon says prison food was surprisingly good and nutritionally balanced.
"I think it's above average. I would say it's a little bit better than hospital food," he says.
"The desserts are pretty good there. The bakery is good."
While the chef's sentence wasn't long enough for him to apply for a role in the jail's kitchen, he was able to dish up meals for himself and other inmates.
"You'd cook eggs in [a kettle]. You're not allowed to, but you would," he says.
He cooked stir-fries, bacon and eggs and apple pies on a sandwich press, and managed to whip up caramel slice with a kettle and ingredients from the prison store.
"You'd use the lids of food trays as a spatula," he says.
"You get a few items but they're all pinned and chained down."
Now, the man is back in the Courgette kitchen he describes as his "happy place".
"It's easier cooking here than on the Breville [sandwich press]," he says, while dishing up a cumin and fennel crusted tuna dish from the restaurant's spring menu.
Moments later, he calls out from the kitchen, pointing to a chef's knife that wouldn't be allowed within 100 metres of his former custodial home, saying: "I just remembered something I missed in prison!"
'Chopper Read'
Insolvency and restructuring experts Slaven Torline took over J Mussillon Pty Ltd, which trades as Courgette Restaurant, in April, when the restaurant found itself in debt troubles.
"[The restaurant] was trading profitably. It didn't owe its employees any money, it didn't owe its suppliers any money, it didn't owe its landlord any money," Aaron Torline, who was appointed as an external administrator, said.
"It just had a tax debt."
The restaurant, which owed the Australian Tax Office approximately $949,000 with interest, is set to square up its debt using a payment plan within the next 12 months.
The business is out of administration and, according to Mr Torline, out of trouble.
It is now in the hands of Mussillon's brother and father, letting the chef focus on the kitchen rather than management.
The restaurant's tax issues were not connected to Mussillon's offending.
However, the chef says reports about the external administration hurt Courgette's business more than those about his crimes.
Perhaps ironically, announcements of the chef being arrested and sentenced actually increased patronage, Mussillon says.
As he put it, it was like having "Chopper Read" cooking in the kitchen.
'I didn't stage that'
The last remaining table watches Mussillon being photographed in the restaurant's main dining room.
"He's beautiful when he smiles," a man at the table says, like he knows the chef personally.
And perhaps he does after eating Mussillon's food and having likely read the sordid details of the chef's offences and court proceedings.
"I'm smiling because I'm out," Mussillon responds, sending the table into raucous laughter.
The chef assures this reporter he didn't stage another group of elderly patrons leaving the restaurant, each shaking his hand to thank him for their meal.
The trio of customers pat him on the shoulder, like a son, before returning to Sydney after another Canberra trip headlined by a Courgette visit.
"It's lovely to have you back," one man says, with genuine affection.
Mussillon says he's not asking for forgiveness but hopes that people believe in second chances after the time he spent in prison.
"I'm sorry for what I did. I want to move on with my life," he says.
The chef will remain under the watchful eye of ACT Corrective Services until his suspended sentence is completed.
He should know the drill after being subject to similar supervision in 2018, when he was sentenced for hitting a Queanbeyan police officer with a car door during an attempt to evade arrest.
But despite Moussillon's most recent troubles, Courgette never closed its doors and the restaurant looks to have survived relatively unscathed.
It's now up to the acclaimed chef to rebuild his reputation after a very public lesson.
