Kiwi chef Al Brown's tribute to friend AA Gill

Al Brown has described A.A. Gill as "an extraordinary man who I was lucky enough to get to know." Photo / Getty Images/Supplied

Kiwi chef Al Brown remembers his good friend A.A. Gill as one "out of the box".

The 62-year-old British journalist and author will be remembered around the world for his talent and quick wit. He lost a short battle with cancer yesterday.

"He was an extraordinary man who I was lucky enough to get to know," Brown said.

The pair first met in 2011 when Brown interviewed Gill when he was in Auckland for the Readers and Writers Festival.

"It was the longest 90 minutes of my life. I'm a chef, I'm not an interviewer."

They quickly became "great friends". Brown took Gill on a fishing trip for kahawai a few days after the interview.

The men kept in touch over email and caught up twice more in person.

"He was dyslexic so his emails were always kind of wonderful to decipher," Brown said.

They met up at Margaret River in Western Australia a few years after the interview and Brown visited Gill in London in 2015.

"He was that type of person who touched thousands of people. He was such a caring guy and really sensitive as well, even though he could give out a tongue lashing.

"He just had an incredible turn of phrase. He had the sharpest wit I had ever come across. He was a storyteller. One of those people you would just sit and listen to and laugh or smile."

Learning his mate had terminal cancer was a "massive shock", Brown said.

"I emailed him straight away and wished him all the best."

Gill dealt with his diagnosis using his usual sharp wit, he "tried to turn it into a humorous situation", Brown said.

"I've got an embarrassment of cancer, the full English.There is barely a morsel of offal that is not included. I have a trucker's gut-buster, gimpy, malevolent, meaty malignancy," Gill wrote in the Sunday Times in November.

"The world's lost a very entertaining, wonderful man," Brown said.