If you want to understand Kya Knights, the new Head Chef at Archie AMPM, the best place to start is probably not in a commercial kitchen. It’s on her grandmother’s farm.
Kya grew up in a big family, with four kids at home and a big extended family around them. Food was never just food. It was how people gathered, how they spent time together, and how they showed care. Some of her strongest memories are of cooking from scratch with family, especially out at her grandma’s place on the farm.
Her grandparents even transitioned to a plant-based diet, which, as Kya describes was 'pretty cool'
There was bread dough left overnight under a tea towel to rise by the heater. There were family recipe books with handwritten notes in them. There were cookies made with her mum and long, happy stretches of cooking together just because that’s what everyone did.
That love of food stuck early and never really let go.
As Kya puts it, “I love cooking food. I love serving food to people. I love it when people love my food.”
As a teenager, Kya and her sister delved deeper into cooking, teaching themselves to make sushi and even getting up at five in the morning before school to make fresh rolls for a teacher at school. Later, the two of them worked through a vegetarian cookbook recipe by recipe, making it their mission to cook their way through the whole thing. It was part creativity, part obsession, and part bonding ritual.
Kya was so keen to get into hospitality that she counted down the days until she was legally old enough to work. On the very day she hit 14 and three quarters, she went straight to a local vegetarian café named Ganesh - and got herself a job. From there, she learned every part of the game: front of house, coffee, dishes, cooking, whatever needed doing. It was a small place, but it gave her something important early on: good mentors, good habits, and a real feel for what it means to feed people well.
Later, after a stint washing dishes in a hotel kitchen to save for overseas travel, Kya found herself pulled deeper into the kitchen world. What began as a practical job turned into something much bigger. She came back from Europe with a cooking role waiting for her at a winery in the Bellarine, then stepped into more serious chef work and eventually into fine dining.
From there, things moved quickly. She trained under chefs who answered her “1,000,010 questions”, sharpened her skills, and helped her build confidence. Then came one of the biggest opportunities of her career: to continue her apprenticeship at Brae - a top-tier Victorian restaurant where the day started out on the farm, picking vegetables and herbs fresh each morning, and ended with preparing and serving them to a small group of patrons later in the day. Excursion that formed part of the learning process included beach foraging and forest mushrooms. Brae was intense, technical, and a crash course in the kind of food culture that values detail, freshness and respect for ingredients.
What stands out most, though, is that Kya has never lost the joy in it.
For her, food is still about people. It’s about bringing care, memory, skill and joy together on a plate. That makes her a brilliant fit for Archie AMPM, where people matter most - and good food culture is how we care for our customers and enrich the lives of our team.
As Meliora grows our supported employment café in Carseldine, Kya brings not just experience, but the kind of warmth and curiosity that makes people want to pull up a chair and stay a while.
More about Kya's journey in the food industry and stepping into a support role with our disabled workers, is coming soon.
We’re very glad she’s here.