Pioneering TV chef Peter Russell-Clarke dies

Jul 07, 2025, updated Jul 07, 2025

Source: X/Australian Kitsch

Renowned cook Peter Russell-Clarke, who became of one Australia’s first celebrity chefs in the 1980s, has died peacefully aged 89.

Chef, artist, writer, illustrator and author Peter Russell-Clarke is being remembered as a pioneer of television cooking after his death at age 89.

Russell-Clarke died on Friday – surrounded by his wife of 65 years, Jan, and his children Peter and Wendy and their families – from complications following a stroke.

Best known for his 1980s cooking show Come and Get It, Russell-Clarke was born in Ballarat​ in ​1935.

The son of an Anglican minister father and dressmaker mother, he was renowned for his Bohemian style of dress​ – ​complete with signature neckerchief and artist’s smock.

Russell-Clarke was a creative director in an advertising agency ​i​n the 1970s and a political cartoonist for The Melbourne Herald.

He appeared alongside journalist Derryn Hinch in the 1983 film At Last​ …​ Bullamakanka: The Motion Picture and ran an unnamed pop-up restaurant in Carlton decades before they became a thing.

The author of almost 40 recipe books, Russell-Clarke was also a food ambassador for the U​nited Nations and cooked for dignitaries including the Duke of Edinburgh and the then-Charles, Prince of Wales.

​His relaxed and informative five-minute cookery show on the ABC – peppered with “g’day”, “ripper” and “you beaut” – notched up 900 episodes and spawned his distinctive ​catch-cry “come and get it”.

He was also a familiar face on commercial television thanks to his “where’s the cheese?” advertisements for the Australian Dairy Corporation.

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