King of Breakfast Bill Granger dies from cancer in London

Poached eggs with Avocado and Coriander at Bills restaurant Bondi (Photo by Axel Ritenis / Sydney Times Archives) 

The menu at Bill’s restaurants comprised his  favourite dishes for every occasion, from lazy breakfasts to late-night suppers to lunch for a crowd. In choosing them, Bill drew on all his fondest food memories, including dishes from a variety of different countries.

“From lamb tagine to prawn laksa, Thai beef salad to chocolate brownies, chicken burritos to creme caramel, this is the repertoire that every home cook wants to master. The recipes for all his dishes were published in his best selling book Bill’s Basics which quickly became the essential book that all home cooks still turn to time and again.”

Bills restaurant Bondi (Photo by Axel Ritenis / Sydney Times Archives) 

Granger spent his childhood in the back of his father’s butcher’s shop in Melbourne, yet “food wasn’t that important,” in his family, he says. “For my mother’s generation, cooking was a domestic chore to rebel against.”

In the late 1980s, Granger relocated from Melbourne to Sydney to study art. He worked as a waiter while he studied art. His interest moved from art to food. In 1993, he opened a restaurant called Bills in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst. Breakfast, and, more specifically, creamy scrambled eggs, brought Granger to the public’s attention. A second restaurant, Bills Surry Hills, opened in 1996. Bills Woollahra was his third restaurant.^[2]

In 2008, he opened the first Bills restaurant outside Australia in Japan, where he had lived for half a year. Since then, he has opened eight restaurants in Japan, in regions such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Kamakura, Fukuoka and Osaka.^[3]

In 2011, Granger opened his first UK restaurant, Granger & Co, in London’s Westbourne Grove.^[4] In the spring of 2014, Granger opened a second London-based Granger & Co in Clerkenwell and a new Bills restaurant in Hawaii.In that same year, he also opened his first restaurant in Seoul, and had two restaurants in the country.

Media work

In 2004, the six-part series, Bill’s Food, followed Granger for a week. It was well received in Australia and subsequently screened on BBC2 in the United Kingdom in 2005, drawing an audience of 2 million. The series was repeated on BBC1 and was shown in 22 other countries. In June 2006, Granger appeared on GMTV to present a week-long barbecue special filmed in the South of France. A second series of Bill’s Food was aired on various networks. In 2009 a seven-part television series, Bill’s Holiday, was released featuring Granger’s travels exploring the varying regions and produce of Australia.

In 2011, Bill Granger became The Independent on Sunday’s weekly food columnist.^[10]

A ten-part television series bringing Granger’s food to West London, Bill’s Kitchen: Notting Hill, aired from June 2013 on BBC Lifestyle in Poland, South Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Nordic Region; on BBC HD in EMEA and LatAm; and on BBC Entertainment in Latin America.^[11]

Personal life

Granger was born to a vegetarian mother and a father who worked as a butcher.

Granger spent his childhood in the back of his father’s butcher’s shop in Melbourne, yet “food wasn’t that important,” in his family, he says. “For my mother’s generation, cooking was a domestic chore to rebel against.”His parents separated and he says: “We never sat down together as a family, so for me food was a way of bringing the family together … Food is a conduit to good relationships.”

Books

Granger wrote Bill’s Sydney Food (Murdoch Books, 2000) which included information about the food in his restaurants. That book was followed by Bill’s Food (2002), Bill’s Open Kitchen (2003), Simply Bill (2005), Bill Granger Every Day (2006), Holiday (2009), Bill’s Basic’s (2010), Bill’s Everyday Asian (2011), Bill Granger Easy (2012), Bill’s Italian Food (2014) and Australian Food (2020).