Speaker Profile

Michael is the Director and ‘Dough Raiser’ of Brooklyn Boy Bagels, an artisan bakery that specialises in making the most authentic New York bagels in Australia. He launched Brooklyn Boy as a small bar pop-up in 2013, the grew it to farmer's markets and had a small bakery in Matraville. He now has a bustling bakery and cafe in Marrickville, a new bagel shop in Surry Hills, and wholesales bagels to hundreds of cafes, as well as Harris Farm, David Jones and Coles Local.

Before he became a bagel baron, Michael had a long career as a professional food and travel journalist. He has contributed to many of Australia’s top food and lifestyle titles, from delicious magazine to Vogue Entertaining + Travel, GQ Australia, MasterChef Magazine, NZ's Cuisine and others. He also worked as a restaurant reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide, Good Cafe Guide and Everyday Eats Guide, and prior to that The Age Good Food Guide and Restaurant & Catering NSW’s food awards. Michael also helped pioneer food blogging in Australia as the Chief Epicurial Officer of top-rated Australian food blog, Gosstronomy.com, once named among the world’s top 100 food Twitterers.

His last time being chained to a company desk was as the Mobile Product Manager for Lonely Planet, where he helped launched LP's travel guides to mobile phones. He previously dedicated two years of his life as chief sub-editor of Delicious magazine, and also launched one of the first mobile food applications in Australia – the nationwide yourRestaurants and yourBars websites and mobile guides – during his tenure as Head of Restaurants & Bars for HWW.