I’m Goutham. I love to cook and serve delicious food. I came to Australia to do my masters, and worked at HF as a dishy for about a year, before quickly moving up the ladder. A year after that I ended up at Panizzi pumping out 500+ coffees a day. Thanks to the team there I fell in love with Wollongong and its hospitality industry.

Coming from a completely different social environment in India, I had the, “a degree and a career defines a person” kind of attitude. That really changed. I learnt the humility of the service industry and that once someone walks into a place where we provide food and drinks, they are my customers; my life line. They’re not an accountant. They’re not a plumber. They’re a customer. Their money is how I get by. After a brief stint as an accountant I switched back to hospitality, working in every inch of the restaurants I was a part of. The highlights were Panizzi, and Yachties Cafe (where our first 100 reviews were 5 star), Lime Leaf Cafe (where we won Best Cafe in the 2019 Local Business Awards) while I was working as a sous chef, working with some of the greatest chefs in illawarra like Dane Tobias and Julian Cincotta, and finally at Little Prince I met my wife. Let’s just say she won my heart with salt and pepper.

Now here we are at Figtree with our brand new venture, SAUCE. We’ll be starting off as a breakfast and lunch venue with a mixture of cafe favourites and international dishes, but intend to expand into evening dining, where we’ll bring back the burgers all you Culture Sauce fans know and love!

Our team includes my wife (the boss) Nishi, Peter our barista, Dylan the young cook, and some more young local Illawarra talents (hopefully soon).

Please find us on Insta and Facebook as “Sauce Figtree.” Our restaurant is the culmination of our blood, sweat, tears, and life savings. Literally. Our whole fitout was built by hand by ourselves and some of our much loved friends. It’s not perfect but we hope you’ll see it as a homely space that’ll grow and change as we do.

Please come and try out your local Sauce people. We’re excited to show you what we can do.