New Hire: Head Chef Craig Lunn Brings His Michelin Cred to Ten Minutes by Tractor

Ten Minutes by Tractor is one of the best restaurants in Victoria. For the past six years, the Peninsula fine diner was led by chef Hayden Ellis. But last month, Ellis left his post and now the team has welcomed new head chef Craig Lunn.

Lunn previously worked in England at the three-Michelin-starred Restaurant Gordon Ramsay for two years before joining Michelin-starred The Dining Room at Whatley Manon in Malmesbury as a senior sous-chef and then becoming head chef at Lunar in Wedgwood. 

The chef, who grew up in the southwest of England, says, “The Peninsula reminds me a lot of home, with its endless fields and beautiful countryside. The southwest is also known for its incredible produce and strong agricultural drive, which feels very similar to the Peninsula.”

We caught up with Lunn to find out what he has in store for Ten Minutes by Tractor. 

 What can people expect now that you’re leading the kitchen?
I want to take the guests on a culinary journey where I get to showcase some of the ingredients and techniques I’ve learnt throughout my career – a style of cooking that’s new on the Peninsula. I want to create someone’s happy place. That’s the greatest of compliments. Somewhere they can go, relax and enjoy knowing that the standard of food, wine and service will be so high and the hospitality so welcoming that they can rest completely at ease and enjoy the experience.

Is there a dish you’re particularly excited about?
I love the first few bites, they’re the first expressions of my food and the start of the experience. They’re a spanner crab choux bun, aged beef tartare with miso crème fraîche and black potato crisp, and a tuna tart with nori and finger lime. They also happen to pair perfectly with a glass of sparkling at the beginning of a meal.

How do you and sommelier Noah Rozenfeld work together?
We’ve been working closely to shape a clear philosophy for how food and wine speak to one another across the menu. Our approach is simple: each pairing should reveal something about the dish, the wine, or the place they both come from. With Noah’s depth of knowledge and the heritage of the cellar here, there’s a huge opportunity to explore nuance, site and season in a way that feels natural to the Peninsula and to what we’re cooking.

Can you tell us about the bread and butter on the menu?
I originally went and met Jason Cotter from Tuerong Farm just to get some samples of flour. However, I ended up walking around endless fields of wheat and barley and staying there for over two hours. Speaking with Jason and hearing his story, I knew straightaway I wanted to use his product. People like Jason, who are so passionate about their product, are why I love cooking. Telling their story in the restaurant to our guests while they are enjoying the food is really important to me, and finding these connections is what makes the dishes special.

After eventually leaving the farm with the samples, I started to create our sourdough bread. We use a starter that is over 25 years old and a combination of two different flours from Jason to get the taste that I want. I’m really pleased with the result. We serve it with some cultured butter from St Davids that’s been dusted with some burnt allium powder to give it an amazing umami hit. Hot bread, tasty butter. Simple but delicious. 

What’s inspiring your cooking at the moment?
Creating a new dish is always a response to what’s around me: the season, the landscape, and the ingredients we grow or source through producers who share the same ethos. I don’t like overcomplicating things. I’d rather let the main ingredient tell its own story.

What’s new for me here is the chance to shape dishes with the wines in mind from the very beginning. Knowing the vineyards and the sites opens a different kind of creative process. The dish becomes another way to express the same landscape, and that’s where the cooking and the wine program really come together.