Paula has been in Hospitality all of her career. She started out as a kitchen hand in a busy restaurant before starting her chef apprenticeship at 16. She worked as a chef for 10 years before deciding that a Front of House role suited her better. Paula loves customers & front of house service. Busy restaurants and great pubs with multiple sections to work at once make her happy. Paula loves making people feel at ease and making sure they are personally looked after every time they dine. She has worked in large and small hotels with functions of up to 600+ people & silver service restaurants of 50pp.

She has worked in hotel groups, wineries, restaurants, gastro pubs, regional pubs, catering companies & cafes. With a lot of these venues on both sides of the pass.

20 years ago she decided to make a change when she was offered a role as a Cheese Merchant in SA. She worked as a merchant for 7 years. Gaining a great understanding of the global cheese market and a wider variety of chefs from fine dining boutique restaurants, chain hotels, local restaurants, cafes and retailers to winemakers in the vineyards who loved to eat cheese at vintage time amongst the vines. She got a deeper understanding for what makes great service and her how to speak to chefs on a different level.

Gaining those great relationships in SA and listening to what chefs had to say, she decided to start her own Food Distribution company in SA in 2009. For the next 10+ years, she ran Mise en place. A specialised wholesale food service that was very different from everyone else out in the marketplace. Instead of asking the normal question like all the others “This is what I have“ she asked “What are you looking for ?” – she was a personal shopper for chefs. Whatever they needed, she found, servicing more than 220+ establishments all over SA. Paula was the go-to for 80% of Adelaide’s hospitality industry.

In short, Paula loves chefs, front of house and the hospitality industry as a whole. This has been her life and she has made fabulous relationships for so many that she calls her hospitality family.
This is such a perfect role for her as now a Hospitality Recruiter as she has such a great understanding of so many aspects of hospitality from a 360* view.