Blumenthal’s Australian restaurant – the only one outside the UK – is owned by Tipsy Cake Pty Ltd, which is registered and incorporated through a post office box and office suite on Nevis. Loading It is linked to Morning Star Holdings, Nevis's oldest registered agent, which specialises in the creation of companies for multinational clients. The same post office box and suite was mentioned hundreds of times in the Paradise and Panama papers. All Tipsy Cake’s directors are based on the tax haven of the Isle of Man, located in the Irish Sea, and shares directors with its ultimate owner Lowenthal Corporation, also based on Isle of Man.

Fat Duck and the group's other UK restaurants are routed through a separate Nevis-based company and are also ultimately owned by Lowenthal Corporation. Detail about the Blumenthal-linked business network comes as leaked rosters reveal that chefs at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal regularly work 25 hours of unpaid overtime weekly. While a meal for two at his high-end Australian eatery can cost hundreds of dollars per head, payslips and other records indicate permanent mid-level skilled chefs could be earning, in effect, as little as $15 to $17 an hour, well under the award minimum. A Dinner by Heston Blumenthal spokeswoman said the company did not believe there were any underpayment issues to address but said it is now undertaking a "thorough review’’. Any issues uncovered would be "dealt with immediately,’’ the spokeswoman said.

The underpayment is similar to what was uncovered at Neil Perry’s Rockpool Dining Group empire and at prominent chef Guillaume Brahimi’s restaurant businesses by investigations in The Sunday Age and Sun-Herald. Rockpool recently agreed to back pay staff $1.6 million after the investigation. That backpay covered just one year of underpayment. Heston Blumenthal with Neil Perry and Guillaume Brahimi. Credit:Simon Alekna The revelations through 2018 point to endemic exploitation in the Australian hospitality industry, and especially in upmarket restaurant kitchens. Even the restaurant industry association now concedes a widespread underpayment problem exists in the nation's eateries. Blumenthal, a regular on Masterchef in Australia, is famed for his "multi-sensory’’ cooking and unusual food pairings such as white chocolate with caviar, bacon and egg ice-cream and snail porridge. The Michelin-starred The Fat Duck, the eatery for which he is best known, was voted the world’s best restaurant in 2005.

Corporate records show that since it opened in Australia in 2015, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal has, on paper, been loss-making and has paid no company tax. In 2017 the business reported turnover of $15million but a loss of $308,526 after paying large "joint venture fees” of $733,584. The year before, "joint venture fees" of about $800,000 were recorded as revenue, not as an expense. Dinner by Heston restaurant in Melbourne. Heston Blumenthal with chef director Ashley Palmer-Watts. Credit:Justin McManus Limited financial records show that parent company Tipsy Cake enjoys an interest-free loan of $750,000 from Crown Melbourne. It also has a separate, unsecured loan from a related company on Nevis that charges no interest and has no set repayment date.

A Dinner by Heston spokeswoman did not directly answer a series of questions about the use by the group of tax havens or about its record of paying tax. The Caribbean island of Nevis is one of the world's most notorious tax havens. "The group operates internationally within an existing trading structure, in a way that allows the business to work efficiently in its chosen markets,’’ she said. The spokeswoman said its Melbourne restaurant was "fully registered’’ in Australia. She did not answer questions about why it was set up in Nevis. Accounting experts said the use of inter-company loans and shifting expenses to related offshore entities was a common tax avoidance tactic by multinationals. University of London tax avoidance expert, Professor Richard Murphy, said it was "utterly unacceptable’’ in the 21st century to set up businesses through tax havens.

"It is extraordinary that businesses and people in the public eye still think that it is acceptable to hide their affairs behind tax haven secrecy,’’ he said. It is not illegal to set up a business operating in Australia in Nevis. Employees at the Australian restaurant are hired through the Nevis-based company, Tipsy Cake. Permanent chefs are paid for a 40 hour week, according to staff contracts obtained by The Age. However leaked rosters show permanent chefs are regularly rostered to work 60 to 65 hours.

The chefs say they often work even longer than their rostered hours, sometimes in excess of 80 hours per week. A regular work day can start at 11am and end at 1am the following morning. United Voice secretary Jess Walsh said there was an industry wide ''scam''. Credit:Ken Irwin As a result, many chefs would be underpaid hundreds of dollars a week. Many of the staff are on temporary visas and from Asia and Europe. United Voice Victorian secretary Jess Walsh said there was an industry wide ‘’scam’’ where staff work many more hours than they are actually paid. "You'll pay about $300 a head to eat at Dinner By Heston,’’ Ms Walsh said. "Yet somehow, they can’t find the money to pay their staff for all the hours they work. We’re talking about low paid workers having to give their boss a Christmas bonus worth tens of thousands of dollars.’’

This year United Voice set up its Hospo Voice offshoot to start organising hospitality workers. The Andrews government made an election promise to make wage theft a crime, punishable by up to 10 years jail. The laws are yet to be enacted. Loading The hospitality industry has a culture of long and unsociable hours, and the restaurant award allows management to "buy out" penalties and overtime for a 25 per cent higher hourly rate. However, workplace law requires that under any such buyout, permanent workers are still paid more than the award overall. Tax Justice Network Australia spokesman Dr Mark Zirnsak said that employees "should not be left guessing who their ultimate employer is.

“It looks very suspicious when a business is owned through a company in a secrecy jurisdiction like Nevis.’’ He called on the Australian Tax Office (ATO) to undertake a thorough audit of the business. Nevis, part of the federation of St Kitts and Nevis, charges no corporate, withholding or capital gains tax for non-resident companies on their worldwide earnings. It has no public database of corporate records. The Fat Duck restaurant, west of London. Awarded world's best restaurant in 2005. The Dinner by Heston spokeswoman said Mr Blumenthal had sold his shareholding in his business more than a decade ago but remained its chef patron and "integral’’ to its operation.

The ownership of companies incorporated in Nevis is never disclosed so there is no way to know who is behind companies created there. An ATO spokesman said St Kitts and Nevis was on its list of "specified countries’’ where there was greater risk that transactions are "non-compliant with the law.’’ "The ATO regularly reviews and updates what attracts our attention. From an international tax perspective, we focus on income or profits generated in Australia that are not being subjected to domestic tax due to non-arm's length conditions of international related parties.’’ Do you know more? Contact us securely via Journotips Follow Ben Schneiders on Facebook