Shaun Hergatt is the executive chef of Juni, a boutique restaurant which celebrates the height of the season. An intimate affair between the guest and Chef Hergatt, the 50-seat restaurant offers an evolving menu that showcases the bounty of the seasons and ingredients when they are at their freshest and finest. Each element of the unique dining experience is Chef Shauns creation, from the restaurant design and tablescape to the composition and presentation of his distinctive dishes. Growing up in a culinary-oriented family in Cairns, Australia, Chef Hergatt was enamored with cooking from a young age. He was exposed to a unique combination of impassioned and professional cooking by way of his Scandinavian grandmother and his father, a professional chef. At 17, the ever-ambitious Hergatt, who has always felt that cooking was in his blood, pursued a four-year apprenticeship at Crystal Twig, a fine dining restaurant in Cairns where he was trained in classic French cooking. In 1997, at the age of 23, he became chef de cuisine of The Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton, Sydney, where he quickly earned international accolades including an AHA Best Young Chef award in 2000, while the restaurant was named Top 5 Up and Coming Restaurants in the World by Condé Nast Traveler and received a Gold Medal from the prestigious International Salon Culinaire. This program has been sponsored by Whole Foods Market. You have to know where your food is coming from. Its about the understanding that youve grown and fed this animal, and that was an important lesson for me. [8:30] I wanted to be an all-rounded guy that knew the quality and consistency of every part of the business. [20:10] -- Shaun Hergatt on Chefs Story