The salmon, barramundi and snapper he ordered for 9 am has only just arrived and his lunch guests are already rolling in.

There is no time to prepare his fish. Javier stamps his foot in annoyance and, just for a nanosecond, wishes he were back in Spain: "In Europe, everything is so much better organised. You call the supplier at midnight and the product is there in the morning.

"Suppliers over there know that if they don't give that service, you'll call somebody else," he says.

After five months in Brisbane, the 29-year old chef and co-owner of Gianni Vintage Cellar Bar and Restaurant, Edward Street, is still coming to terms with his adoptive city. Having worked in the fine dining rooms of Barcelona, Poitiers, San Francisco, London and Hayman Island, Javier felt he was ready for almost any contingency - except, of course, Brisbane's relaxed pace. Not that he is unhappy in his adoptive city. Indeed, Javier's food, a blend of traditional Spanish and French cooking with modern Californian cuisine, has been well received by critics and public alike.

He has made concessions to the local palate - or, rather, the local appetite - by increasing the size of portions. All in all, however, his food remains much as in the beginning: light, flavoursome, memorable.

His first menu, he says, was a learning experience. And one thing he learnt was that, in Brisbane, some diners book into a sophisticated restaurant in the expectation of eating plain food.

As a result, Javier has included veal chop among the main courses in his forthcoming bill of fare, albeit given special treatment - pan-fried with tomato compote, sage glaze, soft polenta, brussels sprouts and white sauce.

"I knew from the start that I would have to adapt but, at the same time, I would have the opportunity to bring some new concepts," he says.

For Javier, cooking was always his vocation. His mother fed her family on traditional Spanish dishes: paella, Spanish omelette, tapas and deep-fried whitebait. His grandmother, who is 97, looked after the pastries.

"At home, Thursday is always paella day. I grew up around the kitchen table.

"My parents raised chickens and rabbits and slaughtered them at home. When it rained the entire family went hunting for snails.

"By the time I was 14, 1 knew that I wanted to be a chef. I spoke with my parents who sent me to a highly reputed cooking school where I studied for five years and learnt traditional Spanish, French and Italian cooking."

At 21, Javier realised he was fond of French cuisine but spoke only broken French, so for two years he worked in an up-market catering company in Poitiers, an industrial city in central France, honing his linguistic and culinary skills.

When Barcelona hosted the Olympic Games, he returned home and found work in the kitchen of the luxurious Hotel Arts, a new American-owned establishment featuring mainly Californian cuisine.

"I discovered new flavours, new sensations," says Javier. "Amazingly, I discovered Californian cuisine in my own city. The hotel chain brought out their best chef, Gary Danko, to open the hotel. I was so lucky.

"After the opening in Barcelona, I told Gary: 'I want to work for you in California.' We kept in touch. Two years later I was promoted to the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco.

"It was fantastic. I worked in The Dining Room and it opened my eyes. Suddenly I was given an opportunity to match my classical education with conceptual cuisine from the other side of the world"

So it went. Javier transferred from one Ritz Carlton property to the next, learning and researching as he went.

On his way back to Spain, he took a job at the Chewton Glen Hotel in Hampshire, outside London, where he met his "spiritual father".

Javier worked for executive chef Pierre Chedellard for two revelatory years. At this point, his girlfriend, Sylvia, who had followed him around the world for nine years, decided she had waited long enough to settle down and issued an ultimatum: marry me, or else.

Soon afterwards, the newlyweds arrived at Hayman Island, where Javier had been appointed chef de cuisine.

There he met Gianni Greghini, who was managing the resort's premier restaurant, La Fontaine. They hit it off and decided to open Gianni together.

Javier and Sylvia, 27, have moved into an apartment at Newstead. Sylvia, he says, is his guide and his balance. Around the apartment, she prepares traditional Spanish meals. Javier says she is "a great cooker" and also his most trenchant critic.

My life has been very exciting," he says. "I consider myself a lucky person because I'm happy with my life. I just want to make happy my guests now."

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