Love on the Line

They say couples that slay together, stay together. But, when working in the fast-paced, thin-skinned, all-encompassing hospitality industry is hard enough as an individual, what about when you face every booking, every service and every tax return with your life partner? What pressure could that add to the relationship and how might the personal dynamic fizz – and flare – in the workplace? These hospitality duos spill on how to make it through to knock-off drinks, and beyond – the ups, the downs, and how to continue after a breakup.

Chef Thi Le and front-of-house Jia-Yen “JY” Lee have been a couple since 2012. Together they’ve run hatted Vietnamese restaurant Anchovy in Melbourne for the past 11 years, opened Ca Com banh mi bar next door and in 2025, they co-published cookbook, Viet Kieu. 

Jia-Yen: We met online; Thi had just moved to Melbourne and joined Cumulus Inc. I was working for a tech company and was looking for someone to dine out with. Apart from having similar values, I really liked that Thi worked a lot because in my life then, I worked a lot too.

Thi Le: JY knows how committed and focussed I am as a chef, but she didn’t realise how serious I am in the kitchen until we worked together. In the kitchen, we clash. To the point we just don’t work in there together, so it was a bit of a culture shock for her. 

Jia-Yen: When I was writing our business plan I said to Thi, “One of the risks is: we break up”. And we were like, “Let’s just not break up.” The first five years at Anchovy were very turbulent because we’d either be home or at the restaurant; there was nowhere else to go. 

Thi Le: Because JY is neurodiverse, she’ll come across as quite direct and she can’t read people’s body language. If we continued without JY being diagnosed, maybe the relationship would’ve ended. But now, everything makes sense and we’ve created an environment that supports neurodiversity. It’s helped me communicate better so she can understand and doesn’t get stressed out, and I plan my day so she knows what’s happening. It’s a two-way thing.

Jia-Yen: One advantage is that we don’t work the same space – Thi’s in the kitchen, I’m on the floor. Thi does ‘rockstar shifts’ in the dining room and because we know each other’s movements so well, it’s almost intuitive. I realise how important a role I have in articulating her intentions with the food. But one of the hardest things in service is when we don’t get along. 

Thi Le: It’s not a great environment when two partners fight. The restaurant is so small, you can feel the tension. JY likes the service sequence to be followed to the T. But if we’re in the shit, my main priority is to ensure the customer experience is number one. So I might have a chat on the floor or give some service, and if I do that, it doesn’t matter if we stuff up, because people are engaged and happy. 

Jia-Yen: Just before lockdown, we bought a campervan and converted it. It gave us an outlet to exercise our thoughts relating to the business without being trapped in the walls of the business. We also go out for breakfast once a week to decompress and have a quick business meeting, during work hours, without the team. 

Thi Le: We’ve also put in boundaries. We try not to talk about restaurant stuff outside of the workday anymore. The team might message me later and they’ll say: “You didn’t talk to JY”. I’ll say “No, because it’s my day off. If you want to get something to JY, you talk to JY.” 

Jia-Yen: There’s quite a bit of trauma in Thi’s past. I learnt about it as our relationship progressed and a big part of me felt very protective and responsible when things happened in the restaurant. That strengthened our personal relationship.

Thi Le: I spent 30 years in silence about the violence and domestic trauma that was happening in my family when I was growing up. When I met JY I found someone I was comfortable talking about these things to. But with the pressures of the restaurant, I started to fall apart. JY picked up all the pieces. So we’ve gone through stuff with her, and now stuff with me, and it’s made our relationship so much stronger. 

Jia-Yen: I’m glad we don’t have a child together – that would’ve added another dimension of stress – but I’m very happy we have a dog together. We give each other feedback via the dog. It’s the dog that says, “You’re being an asshole today, stop it,” and that comes across way less spiteful.

Thi Le: If we closed the restaurant tomorrow and we were in $500,000 debt, we’d still choose to be together. To throw it all away because of a fight or financial reasons: is it worth it? That’s the thing people need to ask themselves. I have 110 per cent trust that JY will have my back. When you have so much trust in each other, you can kind of do anything. 

Paul “Yoda” Iskov and Stephne Pronk met in Steph’s native South Africa 14 years ago. Together – he as head chef, she as event and hospitality manager –  they run Fervor, a native food restaurant experience popping up in Western Australia’s national parks, islands and forests, often with their six year old son, Tau, in tow.

Steph: I was working from when Tau was about two weeks old, I just had him in a sling as I did emails and things. We did a multi-course dinner at The Karijini Experience a month later. Our child health nurse was supportive and arranged for Tau’s six week injections to happen nearby, in the Pilbara town of Tom Price.

He was four months old when I first returned to full service at our dining events, for Truffle Kerfuffle in Manjimup. My dad and my aunt looked after him, and I took breaks to feed him behind the equipment truck. They say it takes a village.

Yoda: After Tau arrived, not all that much changed. We surrounded ourselves with a great team, so it was [as] easy as possible to focus on the events we’d committed to, but also on Tau and ourselves. We’re really glad we decided he’d be travelling with us and he’d be a big part of it.

Steph: Since we’ve had Tau, we’ve definitely had to be more selective about the travelling route we take. There’s an added logistical element and we keep school holidays in mind. The 12 hour drives were easy when he was little, but he can still go for 6-7 hours now, and we play lots of games, like eye spy. At home he’ll hang napkins on the washing line for pocket money. He helped set tables at Pair’d in Margaret River recently. I hope he’ll waiter for me one day.

Yoda: When the business was fresh, we realised how good it was to travel to new places, meet new people and try new native ingredients. I could take Steph through all of WA and show her how beautiful it was. Now we run the business from home (and travel for events) and it is tricky. I have to be able to stop what’s happening in the kitchen and sit down and discuss an email, quote or idea. There’s a lot of admin and queries that we have to do on the fly.

Steph: We have periods where we’re quite tired because we’re trying to split ourselves between things. We want to give Tau attention and at the same time we’ve got meetings and deadlines. The flexibility of the business is enjoyable, it’s just a constant balance. There are mistakes along the way.

Yoda: If we do have a day off, it can end up being unpacking the truck, cleaning or organising the kitchen. We’ve gotten better at taking time to stop and leave the kitchen or put the laptop away. We have conversations and they often circle back to the workspace, but we’re quite mindful of that now. When we’re away from home we can switch off and spend personal time together.

Steph: For us, it’s easier to work together because we’re together. And as our lives have evolved, the business has shifted in parallel. Tau’s adapted so well and he learns so much from us. When we go out on Country, he gains so much from the Traditional Owners we work with. That’s how we want to raise him.

Hospitality guru James Broadway and chef Brigitte Hafner were a couple when they started Fitzroy’s Gertrude Street Enoteca. Their relationship ended, but the duo’s working partnership endured, transforming to open Tedesca Osteria in Red Hill on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. James shares their story.

James: It doesn’t really matter how long we were a couple (six or seven years). The fact that we broke up because there were a lot of stresses on us – me in particular – is what really matters. And I was probably a terrible partner. 

Brigitte and I continue to work together because it feels inevitable: there aren’t other people either of us wants to work with. We have a shared vision of hospitality that is all-encompassing. We see it as the intersection of everything: art, architecture, wine, food, music, people. It is where sociology and philosophy manifest and we hardly know anyone else we enjoy having that conversation with as much as each other – and essentially and luckily – our new partners.

We are generally the last people we talk to at the end of the day, and we usually make our first phone call to each other on the morning of our days off. We nearly always have something to talk about.

Yes, we often annoy each other too, but more like siblings now. Brigitte drives me crazy because she lives in the clouds; she’s creative and is removed from politics and social media. At the same time, that’s what I love about her. I am the opposite. I am obsessively political and spend hours doomscrolling to keep abreast of what is happening in the world. 

The split wasn’t about seeing other people, so we didn’t have to navigate that, at that point in time. I imagine that if the break occurred because of affairs or new loves we wouldn’t have kept working together. That would be way too hard.

Staying together through work has helped us both grow emotionally to the extent we are a bit like an extended family now. Our respective children are like cousins, and we are there for each other and for each other’s partners. I’m not suggesting that’s easy or plain sailing. Sometimes partners get jealous – it’s inevitable because we often spend more time working together than we spend with them.

I can’t say I’d recommend it to other couples. You need to suspend so much emotion and anger and almost create a magical reality. I don’t see many people having the level of respect and connection required to ride through that.