Eating Local
Article by Alex Mitcheson Photography by Luke Burgess
A while back, I sat down to a set menu at a well-known and admired restaurant somewhere in Australia. Between the beautiful setting, whip-smart service and innovative flavours I’d read about, I was, as you’d imagine, excited. The first dish came and left with precision and brilliant flavour – yet the second dish caught my attention: Hokkaido scallops. These plump molluscs were utterly delicious. But with each slice and sauce smear, my mind wondered. Surely we have scallops just as tasty within Australian waters? Or am I missing something here?
“I bet they were delicious”, laughs Jason Barratt, executive chef of Bar Miette and Supernormal Brisbane, “but the truth is they were likely sat in a deep freezer for over a year!”
And he isn’t wrong. At the helm of what is arguably Brisbane’s most significant restaurant opening for 2024, Barratt’s choice of what to serve is big. This once-city slicker made the Northern Rivers his base the last few years and, as of writing, is now on the precipice of overseeing stellar metropolitan dining in one of the country’s burgeoning dining scenes. The excitement around chefs such as Barratt and their menus is now fascinating a wider chunk of the public than ever before. But do these people and their ideals have the power to change people’s perceptions of what local produce means?
“Chefs are driving the narrative forward, without a doubt. TV, social media, editorial: all of it is positive. This said, unfortunately, if the quality is good and the price is right, people will disregard how local something is. Everybody loves the idea of eating local, yet when it comes down to it, there’s a lot of grey area. I think most of the time – especially in our current financial climate – it comes down to cost.”
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported a 3% decline in food services from March 2023 to March 2024. Iconic restaurants have buckled and closed their doors. Petrol and diesel continue to rise. Ironically, the big two supermarkets continue to rip off their lifelong customers. And let’s not even scratch the surface of a misaligned and overpriced property market. For the average consumer, driving to work, paying rent/covering an inflated mortgage and putting food in the fridge have all become more challenging. There’s little expendable income at the end of the week. All the while, spending on health care and household services creeps upwards. Little wonder your Friday night reservation has become a quandary, not a given.
In the context of the inner city – and even larger town dining the paddock-to-plate ethos begins to slip into murky water. Out of sight, out of mind, you might say, with a pinch of logistical intricacies, all begin to have an effect. Chefs are forced to work harder and smarter if the provenance is essential to what ends up on the kitchen pass.
“Working with an inner city beekeeper, we received a honeycomb frame from about 600 metres away sourced from rooftop hives,” smiles Barratt. Then there’s also that pecan tree he’s purchased on a farm just outside of Brisbane, which means his two venues will have a steady supply of pecans and pecan oil. This may be a small part of what they will do, but pecans and honey are somewhere to start. He couldn’t agree more.
“It gets cooler. Because our building is covered in flowers that are yet to bloom, when they do flower, these bees could be feeding from them and then producing our honey. For me, that takes paddock-to-plate dining to a whole new level for inner-city dining.”
Diverse diets have been repeatedly proven to benefit a person’s overall health. Under the microscope, certain minerals work with particular vitamins and create wholly unique chemical and biophysical interactions. Turn your plate into an array of colours, textures and flavours, and you’ll reap the reward. We all love to eat things we enjoy, but the conscious understanding of what we put in our bodies leads us to choose a crunchy green salad over a delicious plate of fish and chips. But how far has the Oak leaf lettuce you find before you travelled? The distances can be vast. It’s believed the average Australian shopping basket has travelled a combined 70,000 kilometres to be in your hands – nearly twice the world’s circumference.
The impact on the environment and sustainability is undoubtedly grim, but it’s also at a cellular level that damage is being done. From the moment they are picked/harvested/ gathered, all fruits and vegetables continue to respire and methodically break down organic materials such as proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Everybody’s favourite macronutrient, vitamin C, degrades rapidly after harvest and this degradation continues during storage. Vitamin C losses in vegetables stored at 4°C for 7 days can range from 15% for green peas to a shocking 77% for green beans. Those tomatoes you buy look bright red and feel firm, but when you consider seasonality and the fact that we can access food entirely out of season for our geographical location, red flags should begin to appear. Nobody wants to eat a vegetable that has leeched its goodness. And nor should we.
Southeast Queensland’s Scenic Rim region provides produce up and down the East Coast. Its alluvial valleys teem with a plethora of farmed goods. Jack Stuart is the chef and owner of the lauded eatery Blume, in the sleepy township of Boonah. Although he’s positioned slap-bang in the middle of a venn diagram of incredible food and produce, his outlook is thought-provoking. “People think we strictly only serve produce from the surrounding area, which isn’t true. We use the best produce we can get – and, in turn, that just happens to be local to where we are.”
But it’s not a negative stance. For example, he isn’t getting beetroot shipped up from Victoria – No, Stuart takes the leisurely ten-minute drive to grab it from a neighbouring farm before sharing a quick chat and returning to his kitchen. His scope is broad and defined not only by desire but also by supply: anything is a consideration, including produce out of the ordinary.
“It has to do with availability, too. We’ve just gotten hold of some truffles grown in the Scenic Rim for the first time. The farmer has a rare microclimate up on a hill, meaning they’re hyperlocal. Essentially, they’re a one-off.”
From experience, a languid lunchtime reservation at Blume is fantastic. Unhurried and bursting with flavour. And even though you’re a good hour and a half from the nearest stretch of beach, you’ll discover inventive and paired-back seafood plates pride of place on the menu. But do Stuart and his hospitality peers have a responsibility to educate and promote farm-to-fork eating?
“It’s all about having an open and honest conversation. For example, a lot of chefs now are very vocal about what they cook across social media. The power here lies in how this can transcend menus and make diners and the greater public more aware of what they eat.”
The power dynamic between suppliers, restaurants and diners is beginning to shift. The supplier has
to have the demand and the confidence to stock local produce, the restaurant has to be firm and resolute to drive its ethos of locality and then the customer has to read the menu with an open mind and accept it might cost a little bit more sometimes not – but what they are getting, ultimately, is a superior meal.
Stuart muses, “I’m happy because I feel the contemporary ideology of eating locally isn’t a phase. I’ve seen a few trends come and go over the years as a chef and we’ve reached a great point now where basics like fermentation and cooking over fire are in vogue. It’s ironically a sort of regression because these techniques are as old as time, but in turn, we’re pushing things forward.”
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