Food & Beverage

Think local, think fresh

Customers at McCafe in Nambour on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast are now asked “would you like Maleny Dairy milk with that?”

Offering fresh local produce is not something you’d expect from a McDonald’s – once synonymous with junk food and obesity in the public’s eye.

Maleny Dairies co-owner Ross Hopper said Nambour and Coolum McDonald’s licensee Greg Biggs approached his staff with the idea earlier this year and have been delighted by the customer response. Hopper said the move made sense because customers were “emotionally disappointed” that farmers were missing out and local farms were closing down.

One only has to witness the huge turnout at farmers’ markets across the nation to realise that people want fresh, local produce rather than the supermarket “cool store, trucked around Australia” fresh.

Dining establishments across the country recognise the importance of using locally sourced produce on the menus. And the principal reason is because it is fresh. No need for the chef to “doctor” a salad to make it look fresh… it is fresh!

Some Australian restaurants push the local theme better than others. Many pay lip service by using lavish descriptions that means drizzling an item with appetising adjectives about being “local” and “fresh” when the items were, in fact, delivered by the wholesaler over a week ago from its base 200km away. Others are genuine in their menu offerings and these usually get nation-wide acclaim and feature highly on diners’ must try bucket lists.

Take The Stackings at Peppermint Bay near Hobart. It’s likely to be the most southern restaurant in Australia, as well as one of the finest in Tasmania. The Apple Isle, of course has a reputation for great local produce from whisky to whitebait. The Stackings has been cropping up on plenty of must-do lists recently for both food critics and the public at large. The Stackings is all about promoting the local produce that is found in Tasmania, which means a mixture of lamb, beef and some of Australia’s freshest and richest seafood.

The menu was developed by chef David Moyles, a former protégé of Andrew McConnell, and anyone who has eaten out in Melbourne will recognise such names as Cumulus Inc and Cutler & Co — just a couple of McConnell’s restaurants. To top it all off, the views at The Stackings are perhaps unparalleled by any restaurant on the mainland, thanks to a glass back wall that overlooks the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. This view alone should have diners lining up all the way to the Derwent, but it is the fresh local produce that gives the restaurant its reputation.

In a move to bring local and seasonal produce to its clientele, QT Hotels & Resorts recently appointed Georgie Neal to the new role of “forager”. He was hired to bring seasonal, local and specialised produce to the young crowds that stay at QT; in the Gowings Bar & Grill in Sydney, the 1950s and 60s surf style QT Gold Coast, the New York styled Hamptons-designed QT Port Douglas, the lakeside QT Canberra and the Victorian ski fields at QT Falls Creek.

QT boasts that it has been the place to hang out for the fashionable crowd since 2011. The young and trendy followers that QT aims to attract come, it says, for the chic glamorous style and art, bars to be seen at and restaurants “you have to eat in”.

But Neal says he is passionate about the importance of supporting local growers. “I’m thrilled to be able to develop a long lasting and mutually beneficial network with growers nationwide who are as passionate about food freshness and great produce as we are,” he said.

He is establishing a close working relationship with farmers and growers throughout Australia to source fresh and seasonal produce for QT’s empire. “With suppliers and supermarkets embroiled in ever-increasing price wars, this new arrangement means that the growers are receiving a better price for their produce,” he believes.
Just last month Collins Kitchen revealed a new season at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne, with the launch of an innovative new menu. With an emphasis on fresh seasonal and locally sourced produce, this new menu showcases what Victorian flavour is all about.

Executive chef Jason Camillo shows off new signature dishes with this inventive à la carte menu launching with his passion for local fare, honest and real food, these creative dishes invite guests to immerse themselves in the flavours of Victoria.

Originally from the Barossa Valley, Jason began his career with Hyatt Regency Adelaide as an apprentice nearing 20 years ago, and has also spent time at both Park Hyatt Melbourne and Park Hyatt Sydney. Jason is dedicated to using only the finest local produce stems from his Italian heritage and upbringing in one of Australia’s best known food regions. This devotion ensures that each menu he designs offers outstanding quality.

We’re not talking just up market here. The NSW north coast has always been something of a pilgrimage for backpackers and those with a barefoot attitude to life. Byron Bay is the spiritual home of, well, spiritual living. It’s Australia’s hub of hippy culture, where anyone who doesn’t live green, eat organic and celebrate all things sustainable is seen as an outsider. It might be tough to make all those elements work for a fine dining experience, but Harvest Café at Newrybar does it with style.

Harvest Café has built its reputation upon using food from the surrounding farming communities. They even have a farm out the back of their property, so no matter what you’re having, you’ll be tasting the seasonal flavours of northern NSW.

And it is not just in the cities and tourist meccas that fresh local produce is paramount. Rural Victoria is awash with high-quality fresh food restaurants, like Brae at Birregurra.

Brae sits on a 15ha acreage, growing all its produce on the property while sourcing all its meat from surrounding regional farms. There are not many places that can boast that they grow all the food on their menu, and what it means is that the chef/owner really understands the flavours the land produces, with seasonal varieties making for a truly unique menu. It means that the fare is constantly changing from week to week, so diners can come back multiple times and have a unique experience every time.

InterContinental Hotels Group also shows it can be achieved on a brand scale. It recently added two new star chefs to its growing Culinary Panel, an initiative that sees renowned chefs develop an array of signature dishes for guests dining in IHG’s hotels across the world – based on largely fresh local produce. The culinary ambassadors include one based on Modern Australian by Ross Lusted – one of seven used by IHG to create a range of signature dishes that its guests can enjoy. Each culinary ambassador has created 20 recipes ranging from appetisers to main courses and desserts. Guests can enjoy a selection of these dishes in select restaurants at InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn hotels and resorts in the region.

But don’t think that poetic licence menu engineering can create a fresh local produce fare that will fool diners. A refreshed salad will never look or taste the same as a truly fresh one. First and foremost, the taste of the food is the most important ingredient. Then there is the design the of the plate because, after all, we do eat with our eyes. A salad sullied by wilted lettuce, wrinkly-skinned tomatoes and soggy capsicums all smothered in some sort of oily substance will never convince any diner of freshness.

Lyric licence rich, descriptive language may also be used indiscriminately in a hard sell, with the result that a whole menu can become peppered with sensual adjectives such as wholesome, hyphenated alternatives: ”all-natural”, ”hand-gathered” and ”farm-fresh”. In their determination to romance the description, menu engineers embed brand names and link dishes to homely, relatable folk who evoke nostalgia, like ”grandma’s”, “as your mother made” or some fictional “Thomson’s own original recipe”. And it works for some. It doesn’t fool many.

But, as Churchill evoked, You can fool some of the people some of the time

Why bother? Australia grows some of the finest produce and it is readily, if seasonally, available. So get with it.

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