Phil Wood joins Lucas Collective four months after Ursula's
The chef behind Paddington's Ursula's takes a senior kitchen role at Chris Lucas's group, which runs Chin Chin and Kisume, while keeping Cafe Cressida.
Phil Wood, the chef who closed his Paddington bistro Ursula's in May, has joined Lucas Collective, one of Australia's largest hospitality groups, in a senior executive chef role.
Lucas Collective runs more than 20 venues under restaurateur Chris Lucas, including Chin Chin, Grill Americano, Kisume and Maison Batard. Wood's hire was confirmed in late September by Broadsheet Sydney, four months after Ursula's held its final service in the Paddington site he had run since leaving Rockpool, the fine-dining kitchen where he first made his name.
Why Phil Wood left independent ownership
Running a small independent restaurant the way it should be run has become increasingly difficult, and that is pushing chefs toward bigger kitchens.
Wood opened Ursula's as a bistro after years cooking at Rockpool, building a following around produce-led, unfussy cooking in a converted Paddington site. He closed it as his lease ended, telling Broadsheet that "running a small independent restaurant the way we believe it should be run has become increasingly difficult."
He keeps Cafe Cressida, his day-focused venue in Woollahra, alongside the new Lucas Collective position. The move keeps him cooking in Sydney while shifting the financial risk of the operation, rent, staffing, supply, onto a larger company instead of his own business, after five years carrying that risk alone.
A group built for scale
Lucas Collective has expanded steadily since Chris Lucas opened the first Chin Chin in Melbourne in 2011, adding sites across Sydney and Melbourne built around high-volume, design-driven dining rooms rather than the smaller-format bistro model Wood ran at Ursula's.
Wood's move fits a pattern already visible elsewhere in fine dining, where chefs increasingly trade independent restaurants for roles backed by larger hospitality groups, trading some creative control for budget, supply chains and a wage that does not depend on nightly covers.
What Wood will cook inside the group has not been announced. Lucas Collective's kitchens tend to share a loud, maximalist register across Asian and Mediterranean menus, a different register from the quieter plates he served at Ursula's, and a bigger test of how far his style travels.
