About Tanita

Tanita was born in Thailand to Australian / Thai parents and was raised into Thai culture until the age of twelve. Her Education stared in Bangkok within the Thai school system where cooking was part of the curriculum from grade one !

Her love affair with exploring different and interesting foods began at a very young age where her daily school pocket money allowance of 20 Baht per day would cover breakfast, lunch and snacks. This would guarantee a daily adventure in culinary exploration and experimentation form the local street food hawkers.

Tanita grew up surrounded and inspired by a family of amazing cooks. From her mother, aunts and nannies. Later in life back in Australia, Tanita was personally guided by her stepfather, a qualified European trained chef who was instrumental in establishing COTAH (College of Tourism And Hospitality) in Queensland. Mike’s mentoring combined with her tertiary studies in Business and Hospitality Management where Tanita learned the technical aspects of western cooking techniques began her experimentation with fusion-cooking or as her family jokingly refer to as “Confusion cooking”.

Her professional career began within the five star casino industry as a VIP Host. She spent 14 years catering to the needs of the richest and most discerning clientele in the world, the Asian high rollers. Here she consulted with some of the SE Asia & Australia’s best chefs to coordinated meals and entertainment plans whether it was in private gaming rooms, penthouses or on board private jets. She embraced every opportunity to learn from these culinary greats. Those chefs taught her the more technical aspects of the ultra high end meal planning and preparation.

Throughout her extensive travels, Tanita has made it an important part of her holiday to further enhance her learning and discovery through cooking classes and food tours in various countries. For her, the journey and the destination is all about the food!

Following from being a natural entertainer hosting regular dinner parties for her circle of friends has come the decision to turn her love of food and entertaining into Tanita’s Kitchen.