In 2007, after watching a few too many episodes of River Cottage, Rodney Dunn and Severine Demanet moved to their new home in Lachlan, Tasmania just 36kms North West of Hobart. Sight unseen for Severine, the city girl from the Inner West of Sydney, didn’t really seem phased to leave her great stable job and her family behind, to pack up their six week old baby in pursuit of their dream of building a life in country Tasmania. The road has often been rocky but Rodney and Severine have defied the odds, redefining what paddock to plate really means and playing a key role in Tasmania’s emergence as a leading cultural and culinary destination.

While country life was a new experience for Sev, it certainly wasn’t for Rod. Having spent many of his young- er years in the Riverina. Starting his career as a chef in Griffith before moving to Sydney to work as part of the team at renowned restaurant Tetsuya. After establish- ing himself as a chef, Rodney took a turn into the world of food media. Working for Better Homes & Gardens before a stint as the Food Editor at Gourmet Traveller Magazine.

It was a quest for flavour and great food that led the pair back to the country, and the move was centred around a hunch that an upcoming grant from the State Government would surely be theirs. A punt that paid off and funded their first Tasmanian venture, the Agrarian Kitchen Cooking School that has since successfully run for 12 years. “The first thing was to move to Tassie, the second was to figure out what the hell we’d do down there. The cooking school was our answer to that. When searching for our new home we looked for a property that would cater for a cooking school and the farm. Be- fore we left Sydney we knew there was going to be a new grant announced from the sale of one of the Spirit of Tasmania boats. We left everything behind, our place in Sydney, our jobs and just hoped the grant would come through. It never really occurred to us that we wouldn’t get it!” shared Sev.

To the unfamiliar eye this might seem like an immense leap of faith but for Rod and Sev the opportunity was obvious and seemed to be a natural move for them, a natural progression to take on this ambitious culinary and cultural challenge of reshaping the way we all interact with produce. While the Tasmania we know to- day is a far cry from the Tasmania that Rod and Sev found themselves in way back in 2007, when they first made the move, the potential for something extraordinary was already evident. “We were mad enough to see this as something we could do. Tasmania has this energy that tends to draw you in and we could see the potential back then for what Tasmania could become, what it has become. So we decided to move down and be a part of making that happen. We could see that this place could be an amazing food destination but it takes people to do it, you can’t just sit back and wait for it to happen. Tas- mania was incredibly under utilised but it was also just this beautiful place we wanted to be. There was no blue- print, we just wanted to raise animals, make cheese etc. and there was nowhere else in Australia you could really go, as an individual to immerse yourself in that kind of experience. It’s the experience I wanted for myself and I knew others wanted it too, so we created that with the cooking school.” says Rod.

The cooking school quickly began to build acclaim within the Australian cultural scene, winning a string of awards in the early days that set things in motion and started to build recognition for the venture within the industry. But it wasn’t until 2010 that things really took off, after a feature on the television show Getaway. “It was crazy. We were flying to Europe for the Slow Food Festival the same week the show aired. Back then I didn’t have an automatic booking system yet, still just handling all of our inquiries manually myself. I remember being at the airport and it all got so out of control I just had to shut the booking system down. We’ve been booked out nine months in advance, or close to that, ever since. It was incredible.” says Sev.

Some might still tell you the pair are a bit nuts for ta ing on such an endeavour but the long term vision of building the Agrarian Kitchen into something iconic has never waivered. Holding enough belief in them- selves and their purpose to make it work. Even if they often encountered some push back, mostly from the lo- cal community who had never seen something like this and perhaps misunderstood the powerful impact Rod and Sev’s presence would continue to have on the local community of New Norfolk as well as the Tasmanian tourism ecosystem. “My point of view has always been that you create something that’s a destination, you go out on your own, build it and they will come. That old idea of going somewhere because it’s a big tourist town isn’t something people want anymore. So us moving away from that was really about creating something special that really made people go off the beaten track. That was the thing that was misunderstood when we first moved here. Others misunderstood people’s passions. I thought back on my own experiences, say I was in France or Italy and someone tells me about an amazing restaurant on top of some mountain somewhere. I’m there, I’m on that beaten goat track, driving up this perilous road to that place. That was my mindset and over the last 12 years we’ve proven I’m not the only one.” says Rod.

If the establishment of the cooking school wasn’t enough, Rod and Sev embarked on another challenge in 2015. Taking on a long abandoned building in the township of New Norfolk with the intention of transforming the space into a fine dining experience, now known as their Eatery. It was not your average derelict old bank or department store, rather the mental asylum with a torrid history. Originally built in 1827 and functioning as the Royal Derwent Hospital for the Insane until 2001. The institution carries a long history of the horrific treatment of the mentally ill and for some very valid reasons, many believed the building should be condemned. After being invited to tour the building with the town’s Mayor, Rod and Sev had other ideas.

Though they never thought they’d ever want to have their own restaurant, once they’d seen the space the seed was planted and it didn’t take long for them to decide they wanted to bring a new era of life to this beautiful but complicated building. “We’d already thrown the dice and won the gamble with the cooking school, if that had all gone wrong we might not have had such an appetite for a big challenge like this one. We were eager to roll the dice again and it was a bit of a matter of circumstance. I think we were the right type of people at the right time. We just couldn’t let go of the possibility once we’d envisaged what it could become, that it could play such a role in our long term vision for the Agrarian Kitchen. We want to be here in 100 years, to create something last- ing, something multigenerational that becomes so much more than just us. We were at the point where we could see the limitations of the cooking school and knew it was time to take the next step.” Shares Sev. The history was important to us, you’re getting something that is so unique that you could never afford to build. While modern buildings can be lovely, both of us just love and admire the authenticity that an old building brings. You may have noticed we like a challenge so taking on a building with such a difficult past, an old mental asylum, was right up our alley. The building blew our minds from the moment we walked in. It had been locked away for such a long time, and as outsiders we didn’t hold such an emotional tie to the dark history of the place. We just saw it as the amazing space that it is, we love eating in amazing spaces and knew that other people would too. It was also important to us to continue the legacy of this place, to respect the history and the stories of those that were here before us.” Says Rod on their dedication to the building.

Both of these ventures were only ever made possible because of their location. While the pair’s talent and determination play a major role in the resounding success of it all, these experiences wouldn’t exist in the city. Rod and Sev have built their business around embracing what only a country location could give. The community garden across the road, being able to call on the local electrician two streets down, access to the Mayor or the General Manager of the Council to directly advocate for positive progress within the community. It’s quintessentially country and while that connection to where you live is good for business, it also brings with it much joy and fulfilment. The Eatery has since gone on to be equally as successful as the cooking school, solidifying itself as a ‘must do’ experience for the sophisticated tourist Tasmania has now become renowned for. Something that the Agrarian Kitchen has undeniably played a role in cultivating. This long fought for success is a true testament to Rod and Sev’s sheer willingness to reshape the future for the better. But the rough road was not yet behind them, as a mysterious virus from abroad was about to devastate both the tourism and hospitality industries.

Murmurs of said virus and its potential disruption were gaining momentum in the early moments of 2020 but it wasn’t until David Walsh announced the cancellation of Dark Mofo that the enormity of the situation started to surface. “It was the first time the alarm bells really went off. My first thought was about how we could get through winter without Dark Mofo, let alone the actual two years of real disruption to our business. Very quickly after that social distancing and reduced seating numbers came into play, it became apparent it was going to get much worse. We shut the following weekend. Initially keeping our staff was the main objective. We’d worked so hard to build a fantastic team and they were all so pivotal to the business.” says Sev.

[ Sidebar - If you’re not familiar with David Walsh, Mona or Dark Mofo, please take a break from this regular programming for a quick google. Your life might just be for- ever altered. ]

The pandemic threw unimaginable challenges over its two year reign but this dynamic duo were no strangers to overcoming that which seemed impossible and they set to work, fighting tooth and nail to keep the Agrarian Kitchen alive. Which saw the team open a Kiosk, reimage the Eatery’s menu which involved transitioning to a set menu only something Rod had been wanting to do for a long time, and start to transition the cooking school from Rod and Sev’s family home to the Eatery. Leading to the development of a very impressive new addition to the Agrarian Kitchen’s repertoire, a one acre vegetable garden in what had previously been an exercise yard for patients of the asylum.

“We knew we needed to make some big changes to stay viable. At the time they felt like such big risks but we were brave enough to try and its meant that we’re still here today. People said those choices must have been difficult but they really weren’t because the alternative was extinction. The only choice for us was the one towards change. Facing covid, the only thing I thought about was how to make sure we were still here at the end of it. We’d all sacrificed so much, I wasn’t going to let it crumble because of a pandemic. We made it through the Glob- al Financial Crisis when we first opened, we survived working together 24 hours a day, and we raised two children with no family support here. How can a pandemic come along and stop everything, I wasn’t going to let that happen. We had to be strong and find ways to keep going, we kept looking for the opportunity and put one foot in front of the other. All that mattered was that we could keep going. We did the hardest thing when we left Sydney and moved down here and opened the cooking school. That was the hardest thing, we’d done the hardest part, been through the hard times. Covid was just an opportunity for us to reevaluate and to do things differently.” shares Sev.

All of this has seen Rod and Sev solidify their philosophy for life, business and the enduring legacy they have created. Seeing them emerge from the pandemic hav- ing weathered the storm, ready to continue as the steady hand that guides this ship.

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