Peter’s bringing the tastes of home to his “second hometown”
When Peter Son returned to the Colour City to launch his very own cafe back in 2019, it was the fulfilment of a dream he’d had for many years. Now Peter is seeing another dream come true: the launch of a new restaurant serving his very own food creations and takes on classic Korean favourites.
Born and raised in South Korea, Peter came to Australia on a working holiday visa in 2007 and fell in love with life down under. It was in Australia that he discovered he had a knack for hospitality and a real passion for food. Enrolling in cookery courses, Peter worked in cafes and restaurants across Sydney before finding himself managing the People Cafe here in Orange from 2011 to 2013.
Orange became like a second home, said Peter, who swore he would return one day. Seven years later, Peter made good on his pledge, settling down in Orange with his wife and young family.
“And then I had a dream about making my brand,” says Peter, who slowly began introducing some Korean flavours into his cafe menu.
With encouragement from his satisfied customers, Peter opened a small takeaway shop in Glenroi Avenue back in March to sell his own carefully created recipes of fried chicken along with a selection of Korean cuisine favourites.
“We started from the Glenroi. It was a little kind of takeaway shop and people wanted me to keep going and said, why don't you open the North Orange area?” says Peter, standing in the spacious dining room of his new North Orange restaurant, PFC Orange, last week.
“We had many customers actually living on the North side, so we’ve found much demand here.
“And then I just tried to extend and then challenge myself to provide liquor service and then slightly more Korean food as well, not only chicken.”
Peter is on a mission to introduce the flavours of his home-country cuisine to his second home here in Orange. He has plans to extend his menu and has even brought in Korean beers and spirits for his restaurant.
“I'd like to introduce the authentic Korean, even beer or some other things,” says Peter, “I’ve just put a variety, not much, but little by little… For now we are still settling down a bit. everything is still in the beginning, so I don't want to let my customer down. Firstly, we need to do a good job and then, once we're getting confident, then we can keep going forward, providing for other dishes.”
Launching the new seven-days-a-week restaurant while keeping his Leaf Cafe in the Orange City Centre running smoothly has been a challenge both mentally and physically, says Peter, but it hasn’t stopped him from dreaming of bigger things like a second restaurant or even his own franchise chain.
“I'd like to keep going. I don't want to stop,” says Peter. “I don't know what's the end of my journey, but while time allows me to keep going, I'd like to.”