Words: Richard Cornish Images: Supplied
The ideal of a chef picking the fruit and vegetables from the garden for the kitchen is mostly a fiction. Only a small number of restaurants worldwide have the luxury of space and labour to set up and set out a dedicated space of earth to grow produce for the kitchen. Those restaurants that do are some of the world’s best such as the 30ha farm and restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns, New York State; Simon Rogan’s 4ha farm at L’Enclume in the UK’s Lakes District. In Victoria we punch above our weight with a small coterie of high level chefs who have targeted locations with fertile earth in which to grow much of what they use in the kitchen on a daily basis.
Montalto
It is a misty morning in Red Hill South. The ground is wet with dew, and the leaves on the vines have turned yellow to gold, falling to the ground. “I love the change of seasons,” says Executive Chef Matt Wilkinson. “It has been a mild autumn, so we’re still picking beans.” He and his team at the Mornington Peninsula winery restaurant are part of many regional restaurants that are tilling the soil to grow a lot of what they need in the kitchen. “For us, the number one thing is the connectivity the chefs get with the earth,” says Matt. “There are generations of chef who have grown up without a sense of seasonality. Produce is at its best and most flavoursome when grown and ripened at the right time of year. Many chefs have no idea when a pumpkin is in season.” Matt works closely with head gardener Julie Bennett to make sure they are growing the right varieties of potato, Jerusalem artichoke, and greens to serve the different food outlets on the property.” One of the proudest things that we share is having a mix of salad greens, around 10 or 11, freshly picked that day, on the plate every day,” says Matt. “With a little salt, lemon, and extra virgin olive oil, it is a dish in itself.” There is a goal at Montalto for zero food waste. Julie will use a WhatsApp chat group to report back what will be ripe in the kitchen garden or the market garden across the creek with its greenhouses. The chefs work on their menu and place a picking order. If there is an excess, chefs will preserve vegetables for later use. One of Montalto’s signature dishes is a straightforward plate of vegetable crudites, perhaps some fine chicory leaves and radishes. This is served with a warm anchoiade paste, a nod to the traditional Italian bagna calda.
We never print on the menu what we are serving on any one day,” adds Matt. “As soon as you define what will be served, you’re committed to it. Instead, we let the garden tell us what we should serve every day.
Montalto, 33 Red Hill Shoreham Road, Red Hill South.
montalto.com.au
Tedesca Osteria
On the crest near Red Hill, a short drive from Montalto, is a historic weatherboard house surrounded by rows of vegetable gardens and fruit trees. This is Tedesca Osteria, recently awarded the best restaurant in Australia by Gourmet Traveller and the brainchild of Brigitte Hafner and business partner Jamie Broadway. An architect-led revival of the building gives it a solid old European feel, the wood fire, and oven dominate the wall at one end of the light-filled dining room. “We’re just putting our summer rows to bed for the winter,” says Brigitte. “we farm using biodynamic techniques and have sown a green manure crop. Our winter beds across the way will feed the kitchen over winter and spring. Brigitte’s background is German, but she trained under Guy Grossi in Melbourne and Stefano de Pieri in Mildura. The menu is about a little bit of seafood, a little bit of meat, some pasta and glorious seasonal fruit and veg.” Brigitte and her garden team plant in long narrow strips and will sow heirloom seeds specific to the Mornington Peninsula in staggered plantings. This allows a gradual and continuous harvest throughout the season. “In summer, we plant a lot of vegetables that enjoy direct heat from the woodfire, so we plant a lot of peppers,” says Brigitte. “We also grow plants that ferment well, and we are working with Sharon Flynn from The Fermentary on pickling mustard leaves,” says Brigitte. “There is something very elemental, very basic, very human about connecting with the earth. The produce we grow here is exceptional. It is picked in the garden in the morning, and a very short time later, it is on the plate. The flavour is exceptional. This is the unfair advantage any chef with a kitchen garden has over other chefs. It comes down to quality that freshness gives.”
Tedesca Osteria, 1175 Mornington-Flinders Road, Red Hill.
Tedescaosteria.com.au
Brae
Dan Hunter stands in the grounds of Brae at Birregurra, 90 minutes west of Melbourne. It’s an old farm that now supplies much of the produce in the multicourse degustation meal and bread, beer, and whisky.
“This is a working farm. We have 10 acres under grain, a grove of 120 olive trees, and 80 citrus trees, both exotic and native,” he says. Dan founded the kitchen garden at the Royal Mail Hotel (see below) and made a name for himself when he arrived from Spain after cooking with Andoni Aduriz at renowned restaurant Mugaritz in San Sebastian. Mugaritz is famed for its extensive plantings of herbs and leafy greens. The farm at Brae is 23 acres in total and supplies 90% of the kitchen’s vegetables. He buys high-quality onions and carrots, for example, for stock. “Yes, it is a source of inspiration, and it inspires the menu, and yes, it is an excellent way to get the chefs close to the source, but you can’t diminish the science, experience, and skill contained in our head gardener Nina Breidahl,” says Dan. “It is so important to get the soil, watering, infrastructure, and systems in place,” he says.
If we were a market garden, we would be supporting a small town with the hundreds of kilos of food we grow and harvest each week
Dan looks out over the near 1km of beds. “I love this transition season. Autumn was mild so we still have tomatoes and eggplants,” he says. “Now I am looking forward to the winter veg. The brassicas, the bitter leaves.”
Brae, 4285 Cape Otway Rd, Birregurra.
braerestaurant.com
Wickens at Royal Mail Hotel
The rock face of Mount Sturgeon looms over ordered rows of fruit and vegetables at the Royal Mail Hotel’s Dunkeld gardens three hours west of Melbourne. A high brush fence protects the plants from the westerlies and the town’s kangaroos. There is almost a hectare of gardens and two paddocks where 70% of the kitchen’s fruit and veg come from. It is an organic system of gardening and cooking where the ducks do the snail patrol, and all the waste from the kitchen gets composted to make new soil. Even the fish carcasses are fermented to make a liquid tea. The plants are as diverse as juniper to make gin, wasabi for a bit of Japanese heat and bananas grown in the greenhouse.
The garden really directs what we do in the kitchen,
says Executive chef Robin Wickens. “At present we are heading into pea and broad bean seasons. We have been raising veg for over 12 years now so there is a good knowledge about what will be ready when,” he says. There are three full-time kitchen gardeners with other grounds staff commandeered at peak times. Robin and his team head into the gardens every morning with their pick list and harvest what they need for the evening service. They have input on what is planted in the garden and work with the garden team to have a range of varieties to spread the harvest across the season. “We are working on the asparagus now to ensure we have enough for spring,” says Robin. “This means having 450 plants of different varieties.” Robin says the garden looks after itself financially, and the menu is supplemented with snails grown in the gardens for escargot and locally shot venison. Beef cattle are raised on the farm associated with the hotel. A mobile abattoir, Provenir, visits the farm throughout the year to ensure a steady supply of Angus beef, wagyu, and lamb from the rare English meat breed Hampshire. “There is always a story to tell, and guests are invited to come on a kitchen garden tour,” adds Robin.
Royal Mail Hotel, 98 Parker Street, Dunkeld
royalmail.com.au
Other great restaurants with kitchen gardens
O.My
In Melbourne’s outer sprawl of Beaconsfield is this oasis of great food and wine from the Bertoncello brothers cooking with produce supplied from their nearby farm.
70 Princes Hwy, Beaconsfield.
omyrestaurant.com.au
Du Fermier
In Trentham, Annie Smithers prepares a set menu lunch from vegetables she grows nearby on her farm Babbington Park.
42 High Street, Trentham.
anniesmithers.com.au
Sault
The team at Sault near Daylesford has been expanding their kitchen garden over the years, basing their seasonal menu on what is growing in the garden.
2349 Ballan-Daylesford Rd, Sailors Falls.
sault.com.au
Lake House
Alla Wolf Tasker and her team have always championed local produce and, since the development of their nearby Dairy Flat Farm has been able to grow a large portion of their own produce.
King Street, Daylesford.
lakehouse.com.au
We wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land and to pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.
