mathew trim restaurant catering april 2011

RestaurantCatering

April 2011 $6.95 GST incl.

Matthew Trim has turned The Manse, an Adelaide institution, into one of the state's best restaurants

Official Journal of

Restaurant & Catering

Chards of class: the reinvention of Aussie chardonnay, page 40 How to go into business with your family (and not go mad), page 19 Are machines better than apprentices? Design for tiny kitchens The business benefits of healthy menus

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The shock of the new

“Don't be swayed by trends—but do trust the weather”

Wisdom from Lauren Murdoch

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See the reader’s survey page 24

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The power of the passion History meets invention in a South Australian restaurant that looks locally in delivering award-winning dining style

Cover story

In this issue ...Upfront6 From the Association:

John Hart on the rewards of the Awards, and Brien Trippas on what the Association is doing (and is planning) for Tasmania

8 News and events The IR battle is biting, Lifetime Achievers are honoured; and more...

Wisdom18 All in the family

Successful families working alongside each other share their insights—and warnings

20 Fringe dwellersHow do you attract customers if you’re out of town?

22 What I’ve learntLauren Murdoch of Felix on trusting yourself, trusting your staff and trusting the weather

27 It’s only naturalPeople who have made their mark thanks to their healthy attitudes

stuff33 New products

The latest and greatest stuff

29 A good signCan other brands really benefit your business?

31 Kitchen syncWith commercial kitchens, it’s not about size, but what you do with it

34 Rise of the machinesHas technology advanced to the point that we no longer need chefs?

36 Chards of classThe welcome re-invention of Australian chardonnay

38 Star AniseHow interior design anchors quality in this WA restaurant

Contents

RESTAURANT & CATERING 3

Win an iPad!

See the reader’s survey page 24


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Well, it’s that time of year again when our fax machines, emails and post boxes are jam-packed with entries for the Awards for Excellence! It is great to see so many restaurants, cafes and caterers keen to show what a good job they are doing.

The Awards really are the centrepiece of our promotion of the industry. With the plate ratings and the awards judging, the industry has set the benchmark for the promotion of high-quality businesses to Australia’s restaurant consumers. Restaurant & Catering has a consumer strategy now in place to promote the awards and ratings to the community at large.

We now have a strong database of consumers that we will communicate with each month, to get them to eat out more often, and spend more when they do! This is an important role for R&C to play. Generating additional demand for the industry is part of making restaurants, cafes and caterers more viable.

There is also a real push to have the Savour Australia™ Plate Ratings part of the Australian Tourism Quality Program, TQUAL. This program was recently launched by the Minister for Tourism, the Hon. Martin Ferguson AM. We are now working to include the Savour Scheme under this banner. Good luck to all the entrants in the Awards—judges will be visiting your business some time soon!

John Hart CEO, Restaurant & Catering

Restaurant & Catering Restaurant & Catering’s mission: To lead and represent the Australian restaurant and catering industry.

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Savour successBy the volume of mail we can tell its awards season again, and we’re working to make awards more rewarding

from the association

7,732 - CAB Audited as at September 30, 2010

6 RESTAURANT & CATERING

Restaurant & Catering Suite 17, 401 Pacific Highway, Artarmon nSW 20641300 RCAUST (722 878) Ph: (02) 9966 0055. Fax: 1300 722 396,Web: www.restaurantcater.asn.auRestaurant Guide: www.restaurant.org.auCaterers Guide: www.caterer.org.auEmail: [email protected]

President: Brien Trippas (nSW)Senior Vice President: Kevin Gulliver (QLD)Junior Vice President: Terry Soukoulis (SA)Treasurer: Richard Harper (vIC)Chief Executive Officer: John HartR&C is a federation of the following associations, working together on national issues on behalf of their members.

Restaurant & Catering NSWPh: (02) 1300 722 878. Fax: (02) 1300 722 396Email: [email protected]: Ian Martin

Restaurant & Catering QLDPh: (07) 3360 8888. Fax: (07) 3252 7554Email: [email protected]: Peter Summers

Restaurant & Catering ACTPh: 1300 650 646. Fax: (02) 9211 3800Email: [email protected]: Fiona Wright

Restaurant & Catering SAPh: (08) 8351 7837. Fax: (08) 8351 7839Email: [email protected]: Terry SoukoulisChief Executive officer: Sally neville

Restaurant & Catering TasPh: (03) 6224 7033. Fax: (03) 6224 7988Email: [email protected]: Phil CaponGeneral Manager: Steve old

Restaurant & Catering VicPh: (03) 9654 5866. Fax: (03) 9654 5286Email: [email protected]: Matteo Pignatelli

Restaurant & Catering WAPh: (08) 9328 7266. Fax: (08) 9328 7366Email: [email protected]: Paul Buckman

Restaurant & Catering magazine is published under licence on behalf of Restaurant & Catering by Engage Custom Media, Suite 4.08, The Cooperage, 56 Bowman Street, Pyrmont nSW 2009 www.engagemedia.com.au

Editorial Director: Rob Johnson Creative Director: Tim Donnellan Sub-editor: Lucy Robertson

Contributors: Sharon Aris, nicole Azzopardi, John Burfitt, Ben Canaider, Kellie Morle, Kerryn Ramsey, Danielle veldre

Commercial Director: Mark Brown Sales Director: Steve Flatley

Direct: (02) 9660 6995 ext 502Fax: (02) 9518 5600Mobile: 0422 208 566Email: [email protected]

For all editorial, subscription and advertising enquiries, ph: 1300 722 878

Print Post approved PP: 2255003/06505, ISSn 1442-9942©2011 Engage Custom Media. views expressed in Restaurant & Catering maga-zine are not necessarily those of Restau-rant & Catering or that of the publisher, editor or Engage Custom Media.

Southern lightsTasmania’s restaurants are booming, and your Association is looking for more ways to help members down there

Another trip to another part of the nation—this time, I’m off to Hobart to measure how the Association and the industry are fairing on the apple isle. By all accounts, Tasmania has started 2011 in as strong a position as other states. They are 11.9 per cent up in

turnover terms. In contrast, on average, national total January and February 2011 revenues were only 4.5 per cent up on the same period in 2010. From a tourism perspective, visitation to Tasmania last year (to December 2010) was 904,000 visitors, down from 912,100 for the previous year. Given the strong revenue result for restaurants, this suggests that, like the rest of the nation, the majority of demand is local consumers eating out more.

There is a need to provide greater focus on members in Tasmania. Membership numbers have fallen below where they should be for a State that is performing relatively well. The Association will be committing more resources into promoting into Tasmania in coming months. We will continue to work with the THA and will promote programs to restaurateurs and caterers in Tasmania.

The Association’s service offering is continuing to grow and, as a result, membership is more compelling than ever. We must ensure that every restaurateur and caterer has access to improve their business.

Brien TrippasPresident, Restaurant & Catering


Foundation Associate Members, and Associate Members: ALSCO • AON • APRA • Bartercard • Crown Commercial • H&L Australia • Luigi Bormioli

Platinum Associate Members: American Express International • Fosters Group • Westpac Banking Corporation

Gold Associate Members: Diners Club International • Fine Wine Partners • Goodman Fielder Food Services • Lion Nathan • Meat & Livestock Australia

Diamond Associate Member:

HOSTPLUS

Restaurant & Catering has released industry benchmarking data that shows restaurants and caterers spend 44 cents of every dollar earned on wages and salaries. In a survey of members designed to establish industry norms, the

Association has found that staffing costs are the greatest barrier to business development. Costs of wages (including on costs) have grown from 35.7 per cent to 44 per cent of turnover in the past five years.

Restaurant & Catering CEO, John Hart said, “These in-creases in wage costs are not sustainable when a very large number of businesses are making very slim margins. Restau-rant, café and catering businesses have lost any flexibility in their employment practices and now have very few options but to cut hours or reduce staff numbers to stay afloat.”

According to Hart, the number of restaurants nationally fell one per cent last year, from 36,900 to 36,531. In 2010, there was an exit rate from the industry of 19 per cent, while new operators coming in to the industry only accounted for 18 per cent.

The Association contends that the increase is a result of both wage pressure, brought about by skills shortages, and Federal industrial relations reforms, the result of which have

been significant increases in wage levels in the industry.Other data contained in the report includes: 85 per cent of

businesses are licensed (compared to 59 per cent in 2005); around half of restaurant, cafes and catering businesses are companies (with 18 per cent operating as trusts and 23.5 per cent as sole traders); only six per cent of businesses are fran-chised; and 25 per cent of respondents turned over between $5 and $10 million—continuing the trend toward consolida-tion in the industry.

The industry is calling on policy makers to reduce non-wage labour costs (rather than increasing the through-in-creases in the superannuation guarantee levy) in an attempt to keep the industry sustainable.

New benchmarking data has shown restaurants around Australia are being crippled by IR legislation

Restaurants crippled by wage explosion

News&events


New data shows staff costs are up

Lifetime achievers celebratedR&C has recognised and celebrated six individuals at its annual Lifetime Achievers presentation dinner on March 1 2010. The eighth annual awards night, since the program was launched in 2003, was held at Parliament House in Canberra. The recipients of the awards were: Alfredo Bovier, OAM, of Alfredo’s Sydney; Andy Georges of Il Centro Restaurant in Brisbane; Pomi & Amrik Sandhu of the Tandoori Oven Restaurant Adelaide; Jacques Reymond of Jacques Reymond—Cuisine du Temps, Melbourne; and Lieta Acquarola of Romano’s Restaurant Nightclub, Perth. This year’s Young Achievers are Carolynne & Hadleigh Troy of Restaurant Amusé in Perth. All six Lifetime Achiever winners had been hon-oured at their state Awards for Excellence event in 2010. Senator Nick Sherry MP congratulated the award recipients when he ad-dressed the audience and said that: “one of the defining features of modern Australia is our world-leading, innovative restaurants, cafes and catering businesses”.

Jacques Reymond, one of R&C’s Lifetime Achievers for 2010.

News&eventsDiners dig deep

Nearly two thirds of Australians are willing to dig a little deeper to offset the flood-driven hikes in the cost of fresh produce used in restaurants, according to new research from American Express.

The American Express Dining Insights Report, conducted by Galaxy Research, reveals that Australians are prepared to pay an extra 3.3 per cent on the price of a restaurant meal in the wake of flooding in Queensland and Victoria.

The national survey found that in the aftermath of the flooding the majority of diners are prepared to pay more for meals, with 55 per cent prepared to pay a two per cent increase, and 11 per cent willing to stomach a greater than five per cent rise in prices. “It is heartening to see that most Australians aren’t prepared to let the increased cost of fresh produce become yet another hurdle to dining out,” said Geoff Begg, vice president merchant services Australia at American Express.

The floods have led many of Australia’s largest producers of fresh fruit and vegetables to cease production and have resulted in increased prices across the board.

“Restaurateurs must keep a balance between keeping meals affordable and dealing with seemingly unrelenting cost increases. This problem has been further exacerbated as fruit and vegetable wholesalers have been forced to increase prices,” said R&C CEO, John Hart. “The input cost of fresh produce is predicted to rise between five and 15 per cent. This has a profound effect on restaurants that are already hav-ing their margins squeezed. It is reassuring to see that in the face of all this destruction, Australians are prepared to say ‘fair is fair’ and put their money where their mouth is.”


Here’s to the BCEC, which will expand this year.

Appetite for successApplications have opened for the Electrolux Appetite for Excellence 2011 national awards program for young hospitality professionals. The Awards have garnered firm support from Australia’s culinary heavyweights with a highly acclaimed panel of judges, supporters and mentors including Guy Grossi, Chris Taylor, Peter Gilmore, Mark Best, Christine Manfield, Philip Johnson and Luke Mangan.

“Every year the judges work together to develop new program features, increasing the support and encouragement for young professionals working in the hospitality industry. The program does have a competition focus but it’s more than that. It’s about giving these young people the opportunities to expand their knowledge, boost their confidence and give them recognition. This will hopefully help them in their careers as well as grow Australia’s hospitality industry from strength to strength,” said Luke Mangan.

Application forms and further details are available online at www.appetiteforexcellence.com.

BCEC expandsHaving established its position among the top three convention centres in the world and as the catalyst for Brisbane’s growing share of the lucrative business events market, the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre is about to embark on an exciting new era with the launch later this year of the much awaited boutique expansion of its convention facilities, BCEC on Grey Street.

The 24,000 square-metre, five-level expansion will give the centre an additional 52 per cent more convention space. It has been designed specifically to meet the market demand for smaller and medium sized meetings and will confirm BCEC as Australia’s most flexible meetings and events venue.

Last year’s Appetite for Excellence winners.

April—May 2011

Jazz lovers flock to the town of Rhynie in SA’s Clare Valley to appreciate saxophones while sipping semillon at A Taste of

Good Things festival. Visit www.visitvineyards.com

17Rick Stein brings his passion for food and travel—along with a

few guest chefs—to the stage of the Sydney Opera House for his Food Odyssey performance. For

tickets, visit www.showbiz.com.au

18Forage—a 3.5km walk through vineyards of the Orange district with six food and wine stations

on the way—is a new event for F.O.O.D. Week in Central West NSW.

www.orangefoodweek.com.au

16Rockpool Bar & Grill took the gong

in 2010. Tonight the Australian Interior Design Awards announces

the 2011 winner. Visit www.australianinteriordesignawards.

com

Apr15

Mix Anzac Day with Easter Monday and a pinch of school holidays and you get a healthy

financial spreadsheet this quarter.

25Easter celebrations continue

with today’s Strategem Bendigo Winemakers Festival in Victoria. Visit www.bendigowine.org.au

24SA’s Barossa Vintage Festival

(www.barossavintagefestival.com.au) and Brown Brothers Easter

Festival in Milawa, Victoria (www.brownbrothers.com.au) both

start today.

23Steam the fish and pass the hot-

cross buns—it’s Good Friday.

2220The 2011 S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards is announced in London today

(Monday night in the UK). Visit www.theworlds50best.com

19

Manu Feildel of My Kitchen Rules launches the Grampians Grape

Escape with a three-course feast under the marquee: www.grampiansgrapeescape.com.au

30The South African Cheese Festival “will wow you with their daring

use of cheese”, so be warned! Improve your dairy intake from April 29-May 2 in Durbanville;

www.cheesefestival.co.za

29Brent Savage of Sydney’s Bentley

Restaurant & Bar is one of the masterchefs at Singapore’s World Gourmet Summit on April 25-May 8. Visit www.worldgourmetsummit.com

27Join the Australian pavilion at the

Seoul Food & Hotel 2011 trade show (www.seoulfoodnhotel.co.kr). Contact Export Solutions

on (08) 9481 8699 or visit www.exportsolutions.com.au

26

Applications open today for the South Australian Premier’s Food Industry Awards. Awards presentation gala dinner will

be on November 25.Visit www.safoodawards.com.au

4More than 200 teens pitch their

tents in a farm and become eco-gastronomic experts at the inaugural Slow Food Canadian Youth Terra Madre meeting on May 3-4 in Stratford, Ontaria.

3R&C SA’s Sally Neville was a 2010 finalist for Telstra Business Women

Awards for her Chefs in the City program. For the 2011 awards visit

www.businesswomensawards.telstra.com

2Applications close for the

Electrolux Appetite for Excellence awards, and winners will be announced on August 8. Visit www.youngchef.com.au for

program updates.

May1

Latin-style cuisine in the Mission district and dinner at The French

Laundry are taste treats at Accoutrement’s food tour of San

Francisco on May 5-12. Visit www.accoutrement.com.au

9Keep all the mums happy on Mother’s Day with restaurants and cafes offering sumptuous

cupcakes, sparkling wine and tea that ranges from English breakfast

to peach sencha.

8The heat is on at the Moree on a Plate festival all weekend in northwest NSW with sizzling barbecue dishes on offer. Visit www.moreeonaplate.com.au

7Pastry chefs are in high demand

today—it’s International No Diet Day. Visit www.eskimo.com

6Wild abalone, black truffles and

leatherwood honey can be tasted at the Unique Tastes Fine Food

Pavilion, all part of Launceston’s Agfest. Visit www.agfest.com.au

5

Culinary trends, latest techniques and nifty gadgets are all on

offer at the SIAL trade show in Toronto on May 11-13.

Visit www.sialcanada.com

12Restaurant technophobes can be enlightened at the Asian

Hospitality Technology Education Conference, a highlight at Hong

Kong’s HOFEX trade show on May 11-14. Visit www.hofex.com

11Nominations close for the Food Challenge Awards; go to www.foodmag.com.au/awards.aspx for more details. Awards will be

announced in July.

10

Seven chefs from the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants cook the

Best Dinner in the World at Noosa Food & Wine Festival. Visit

www.celebrationof-australianfoodandwine.com.au

1514Meet cooking queen Margaret

Fulton and her daughter Suzanne Gibbs at the Harvest Celebration

in Beechworth, northeast Victoria, on May 13-15. Visit www.harvestcelebration.com.au

13


what’s on

Don’t keep it a secret! Nominations for the delicious. Produce Awards close in exactly one month’s time

(May 20). Give your producer the accolades they deserve at

www.taste.com.au

The legendary Lovedale Long Lunch in the Hunter Valley

can be treated as a two-day progressive dinner. Visit www.

lovedalelonglunch.com.au

cover story

History meets invention in a South Australian restaurant that looks locally in delivering award-winning dining style

n South Australia, the old often sits along-side the new: rich indigenous history meets a thriving modern culture; historic build-ings share space with contemporary design; generations-old vineyards rub up against hip organic breweries.

The same can be said for one of the State’s best fine dining institutions, The Manse, where old-world charm meets a new-world menu to produce

truly timeless results. A Victorian mansion built in the 1880s and immaculately preserved ever since houses the restaurant that was voted the State’s best fine dining option in Restaurant & Catering’s 2010 Awards, and for owners Matthew and Olivia Trim, the combination was always a winning formula.

“It certainly isn’t a typical ‘shop-front’ site,” Matthew says about the decision to take over the long-running restaurant in the building in 2005.

“There were a lot of restrictions to renovating as it is a heritage listed building, but that was part of the charm of the space too.”

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“The fact that this was an existing restaurant with an already great

reputation meant that we considered it could be easily

updated for a more modern market.”

Matthew Trim, The Manse, Adelaide

Despite the obvious chal-lenges, the Trims spent six months renovating, with a view to creating an elegant, provincial-style space that reflected their modern French cuisine.

“We loved the building instantly, and we’ve always

loved renovating period buildings,” Matt ex-

plains. “We have renovated heri-

tage houses and other venues in the past and found they have such charm and character.” Indeed, push-

ing back the heavy wooden door into the

building reveals a sophis-ticated world of towering ceilings, vintage pieces, clotted cream furnishings and a network of five spa-cious dining rooms that

have the potential to serve as intimate private areas or a single restaurant space.

By Matthew’s own admis-sion, such a historic res-taurant space could easily become stuffy in the wrong hands, but from the outset, the pair wanted to develop something modern, with a strong food focus.

“When we took over the restaurant, we already owned a pub in North Adelaide at the time, and wanted to do something with a bigger emphasis on food,” he says.

“The fact that this was an existing restaurant with an already great reputation meant that we considered it was something that could be easily updated for a more modern market.”

It also meant restaurant staff were already part of the package.

Matthew Trim, owner of The Manse: he wanted to create something very modern in the restaurant’s elegant space.


“Most of the existing staff stayed after we took over, and we briefed them on our ideas from the start so they knew they also had to be ready for change.”

While change can be a challenging hurdle to negotiate for many staff members in a change of ownership, for the Trims there was a greater leap of faith: it involved handing over the reigns to key people in the business.

“We told our head chef to be as creative as he could be,” Matthew says, admitting that allowing him room for his own expression has paid off.

Head chef at the time, Tim Montgomery, went on to create modern-French cuisine that won him a Chef of the Year award at the Adelaide Food Awards the year after the Trims took over ownership of the restaurant.

After he left The Manse to travel, his replacement, Ayhan Erkoc, continued to carry the kitchen, putting his love of French-inspired molecular gastronomy into practice with a light touch.

“We are very passionate about cre-ativity and perhaps that’s what attracts talented chefs to the Manse,” Matthew explains of his kitchen’s strong performance.

For the Trims, the overarching aim of not allowing their res-taurant to become stuffy or pretentious meant allowing their staff to shine without too much direction.

“Nobody knows better than them what they’re able to do with food, and we love seeing what comes out of the kitchen when the sky is the limit.

“If it works, then that’s great, and if it doesn’t, then it changes,” he says simply.

“In the early days, we made sure we researched what the benchmark was interstate and overseas for the type of res-taurant we wanted, so we were 100 per cent clear on where we needed to be.”

It’s possible many restaurateurs outside of major capital cities might caution against compar-ing themselves to dining institutions further afield in this way, but Matthew says it was an important early step in the process.

These days, however, constant comparisons offer little benefit.

“We never compare ourselves to other restaurants in Melbourne or Sydney,” he says. “We just try to be the best we possibly can be and give customers a great experience.”

He also says their location in a city that flies under the foodie radar much of the time is part of the journey.

“Because there is such a high standard of restaurants all around Australia, Adelaide is probably slightly overlooked on a national scale. That said, some of our regional areas like the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale do get some well-deserved attention, which certainly helps drive local tourism and

cover story


“I think wine and produce are two of the best attributes

South Australia has to offer so it would be crazy for us not to feature the best

produce we can find locally.”

Matthew Trim, The Manse, Adelaide

bring people in the door.”Being in the vicinity of some of the nation’s

best food and wine-producing regions is an obvious boon for Adelaide restaurateurs, and The Manse pulls no punches when

it comes to favour-ing local produce. “I think wine and

produce are two of the best attributes South Australia has to offer so it would be crazy for us not to feature the best produce we can find locally,” Matt says.

And, in line with what’s arguably becoming best practice in the sourcing of produce for commercial kitchens, seasonal adapt-

ability is also a major focus for the Trims.

“We change the menu extremely frequently, which helps us change with what is available.”

What seems obvious now, however, might have been considered an overly progressive approach a few years ago, and both Mat-thew and Olivia were keen to let the food evolve after they took over the restau-rant, rather than end up confronting diners with too much, too soon.

“We weren’t sure our Adelaide customers were ready for what we wanted to do straight away,” he explains. “So we thought that ramping it up over time was better than scaring

The outside old-world charm of The Manse is in contrast to its award-winning modern French cuisine.

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popular. Then there’s the array of stunning new attributes, such as the electronic thermostat control

and the ability to hold 20 preset programs. Built to broil, bake, roast and hold anywhere you want to

take it, the E31D4 simply delivers the very best in good-to-go performance.

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everyone off at the start.” For example, Matt and Olivia have long believed that diners receive a better experience from a carefully constructed degustation menu, rather than the more variable a la carte options. But, in consultation with their chef, they decided to introduce the idea slowly, to give customers time to adapt.

“Now we do degustation menus on Saturday night, and it’s been received really well. I think that, if we did that when we opened, it would have been a lot harder to convince our customers that it’s the best way to dine.”

It’s here that wait staff and other key people like sommeliers and chefs come into their own in a restaurant, with the role of explaining a dish or menu concept to a diner usually falling into their hands.

For the Trims, finding the right people for this important task is about choosing people who share the same goals.

“I think it comes down to everyone sharing a common inter-est in good food, or, as the case often tends to be, a common obsession,” Matt grins.

“Staffing hasn’t always been smooth, and we’ve had our fair share of interesting characters over the years.”

Boosting morale is also important here, and Matt says the recognition that comes from winning a high-profile award like those handed down from Restaurant & Catering recently helps to maintain staff members involvement in the business.

“It’s a great boost of morale and I think it just reminds ev-eryone that they’re doing a great job.”

Like many restaurateurs in the industry, the Trims are also continuing to grow, with a more casual kitchen and bar in Adelaide and another period building-housed restaurant on the way.

Part of the push, they say, is that the margins built into a fine dining business are smaller than other food operations.

“It’s definitely hard to make money in fine din-ing,” says Matt. “Especially when in most cases,

there’s a guy down the road offering your customers the world for $9.90.

“I sometimes say that the man who sells the Mercedes drives a Commodore, and the man who drives the Mercedes sells the Commodore, and there are some similarities with that in fine dining.”

It’s not all about the money, the tireless pair say. More importantly, if the money is your primary focus then your fine-dining concept usually doesn’t work.

“Everyone who works at The Manse has a passion for what they do, and that’s what makes them excellent at it,” says Matt.

“My biggest piece of advice for doing fine dining well is that you really have to love it.”

cover story


EVERY FEATURE.EVERYWHERE.

When it comes to features the new improved E31D4 in the Turbofan 30 Series certainly sets the

standard. First, you’ve got all the characteristics, durability and performance that made the old E31 so

popular. Then there’s the array of stunning new attributes, such as the electronic thermostat control

and the ability to hold 20 preset programs. Built to broil, bake, roast and hold anywhere you want to

take it, the E31D4 simply delivers the very best in good-to-go performance.

NEW RACKINGSYSTEM

ANTI-SKID STEEL FEET

PORCELAINENAMELLED

OVEN INTERIOR

PURPOSE BUILTSTAINLESS

STEEL STANDS

HALOGENLAMPS

QUICK BROILMODE

PRECISION DIGITAL CONTROLS

HIGH VISIBILITYDISPLAY

EASY CLEANINNER GLASS

SAFE-TOUCHVENTING DOOR

STAY COOL DOOR HANDLE

Moffat Pty Limited Victoria/Tasmania 740 Springvale Road, Mulgrave, Victoria 3170 Ph 03-9518 3888 Fax 03-9518 3833 [email protected]

New South Wales Ph 02-8833 4111 [email protected] South Australia Ph 03-9518 3888 [email protected]

Queensland Ph 07-3630 8600 [email protected] Western Australia Ph 08-9202 6820 [email protected]

www.moffat.com.auwww.turbofanoven.com

All in

wise business sage once claimed that you never go into business with family or friends. To do so, the learned advice repeated across generations claims, is to risk ruin-ing personal relationships, and to threaten the operating dynamics of an enterprise.

It is an issue that many industry consultants agree is a poten-tial minefield. Business journals are full of advice that if ventur-ing into a business partnership, think seriously before doing so with a loved one, relative or close friend. Then be sure to think about it again.

The restaurant game, however, has never played by tradi-tional rules. The best business advice from industry experts was hurled out the window years ago at restaurants, cafes and bars across the country, as an abundance of partners, spouses, parents and children, as well as brothers and sisters, worked alongside one another in ventures created together.

How so many family operations in the hospitality industry achieved success in the face of such adverse traditional warn-

ings says as much about the people and their business meth-ods as it does the intrinsic demands of the work they do.

“This industry is a tough gig and working together will either make you or break you,” Zoe Ladyman of Melbourne’s Liber-tine says. Ladyman opened the restaurant six years ago with her husband Nick Creswick, and they have also opened the Le Traiteur bistro. Members of both the Ladyman and Creswick families have also worked at both establishments.

“The reason I think the industry is full of families working alongside each other is because it is an odd industry, with long and odd hours and demanding schedules. You have to be like-minded and you have to be similar people who love this environment to do this job.

“But for people who don’t fit together properly or who are too different—despite being from the same family or mar-ried—it will break them. And for every happy family business story, there are also many when it has not worked.”

Jenny McGrath never had any hesitations about going into business with her chef husband Paul in the Sydney eatery, Bistro Ortolan. In fact the pair initially worked alongside each other as colleagues before becoming personally involved.

The restaurant game is full of families working alongside each other. Some who have made it a success share their insights—and warnings

wordS: john burfiTT

the family Zoe Ladyman of Libertine, Melbourne: “For every happy

family business story there are many where it hasn’t worked.”


Management


“We learnt to be work colleagues before we learnt to be partners,” Jenny says. “He knows how I work and I know how he works. I think that’s part of the reason we got together in the first place.

“But when it came to setting up our own restaurant, there was no question about it. If there was anyone I wanted to go into busi-ness with, it was Paul. We both had the same aspirations, and being able to follow that with someone who works the same way you do and is also your partner seemed a perfect fit.”

In the five years since Bistro Ortolan opened, the McGrath’s lifestyle has changed with the birth of their two chil-dren. That was when the dynamics, Jenny reveals, took a dramatic shift.

“There has been less tiptoeing around than in the past—I think we are probably more honest and straightforward with each other,” she says. “We both realised that to make things happen smoothly, we both needed to know when to let things go—to give in to the other person without necessarily ‘giving in’. Learning to compromise when that compromise is for the common good.

“It’s not just a home relationship at stake, but also a business. That has to be treated very carefully.”

Negotiating the path from home to work and back again with the same people is a skill siblings Angela and Con Vithoulkas learned as they grew up watching their parents work together in a

variety of small businesses.Since 1986, Angela and Con have been in business and currently

run Vivo Café in Sydney. Angela says when dealing with family in business, she’s learned the issues of money and trust are vital to have under control from day one.

“Money is one of the biggest reasons why things fall apart,” she says. “So for us when it comes to money, everything we do is 50-50. You also must be able to com-pletely trust that the other person has your best interests at heart. At the first hint of weakness in the chain, the whole house—both at work and with the family—begins collapsing around you. We have a tough respect between us and have also worked with the understanding that major decisions are made together, and if one party does not agree, then we don’t do it at all.”

Being clear about money matters is an essential to keeping everything above board with any business, but particularly when family is involved, says Close En-counters consultant, Jonn Close.

“There needs to be an agreement that the money in the POS is owned by the business and is not any individual or family slush fund,” he says. “People really need to be honest with each other that this is a family business and not a family fun-filled game. There also needs to be an understanding that serious business is easy to get into and hard to get out of.

“If you have done all your homework on expectations and budgets, and if there are any doubts about any of it, then don’t proceed. It’s not worth it.”

Creating a trust at work that has its own set of rules away from established personal relationships is a must, ac-cording to Vanessa Hall, consultant with Entente. “People need to be clear about what the rules are at home versus in the business,” Hall says. “Because of the close relationship and ‘inside knowledge’ you have with each other, because of what you have grown up with or what you’re married to, you expect them to behave in a certain way in the business.

“There is an assumption that every-thing will always sort itself out, because ‘we’re family’. But too often it does not work out like that.”

Knowing when to walk away cleanly is another strategy that must be established early on. So is how to resolve conflicts

without ruining relationships.“We both want to minimise harm to the value of the business if anything happens, if one person wants to get out or if one person gets sick,” Angela Vithoulkas says. “We have an exit strategy that is documented and deals with either buying one half

out or selling it up. And when it comes to conflicts, we have a strict

ground rule that it is between us and is not open to a third party. And any per-

sonal relationships we have with others have to stay out of the business.”

While everyone appears to agree that many tough questions have to be con-sidered before opening the doors, Jenny McGrath says the toughest one might be the most confronting: is this relationship strong enough to cope with working to-gether? “You have to not make everything so personal,” she says. “You must be con-fident that if you’re going into something like this, then you are not going to lose your partner. Because while many people do it, it is not for everyone.”

Angela Vithoulkas of Vivo Café: “You must be able to completely trust that the other person has your best interests at heart.”

“If you have done all your homework

on expectations and budgets, and if there are any doubts about any of it, then don’t

proceed. It’s not worth it.”

Jonn Close, Close Encounters

uild it and they will come. That seems to be the logic behind some of the world’s top restaurants. El Bulli in Spain is famously miles away from anywhere. The Farmer’s Inn, Higher West Hatch, Somerset, is so far off the beaten track that it does not have an address, although its website gives an OS grid reference for walkers. And the Doune

Dining Room, Knoydart, opposite the Isle of Skye, cannot be accessed by road, so guests are collected from nearby Mallaig by boat. But all these restaurants face the same marketing challenge—how do you convince people to come out and see you when you’re off the beaten track?

Well, being Ferran Adria probably helps. Shaun Arantz of Racine Restaurant isn’t as celebrated as Adria, but he’s very good, having picked up a chef ’s hat and gongs from Savour Australia and Gourmet Traveller. And unlike El Bulli, Racine Restaurant is only at La Colline Winery, about five kilometres out of Orange, in Central Western NSW. But the problem

remains: “We’re not that far out of town, but here being five kilometres out of town makes the same difference as 50 kilo-metres,” says Shaun’s partner (in business and in life), Willa. “I’m reading FERRAN: The Inside Story of El Bulli and the Man Who Reinvented Food by Colman Andrews at the mo-ment, and El Bulli is famously very isolated. Their whole ap-proach is build it and they will come. But people in Australia don’t think like that. So we realised when you do move here you do need to be in people’s faces all the time.”

After the interview with R&C magazine, in a blog post, Willa continued the comparison, noting that both restaurants are out of town, reliant on tourist dollars, and both faced times of being financially unviable due to lack of trade.

Shaun and Willa had faced the same problem running The School House restaurant at Mayfield Vineyards before moving to La Colline, and realised from their experience there that while weekends were okay, mid-week business presented the real challenge. “One thing we did when we came out here was say. ‘What is our point of difference?’,” Willa recalls. “Obviously we hope it’s that we have the best food and

Tonic in Millthorpe expanded into the old arts centre to do functions

as well as the restaurant.

How do you attract customers to your restaurant if you’re out of town? Two regional restaurateurs reveal their strategies for success

wOrds: rOb jOHnsOn

dwellersFringe


Marketing


service, but that doesn’t mean that people are going to know that when they haven’t been here, so it’s a question of what else do you bring? So we really play on the views we have, and the lawn you can sit out on which looks out over the vineyards. We wanted people to see that dining here really encompasses the whole Orange experience. So that was our main strategy.

“The other thing we do is try to get a lot of press, so people don’t for-get about us. Obviously you have to balance that, and not become too familiar. But they’re our two main strategies.”

The key medium Willa uses to keep in customers’ faces is an email newsletter, and, to a lesser extent,

her blog linked to the restaurant’s web page. She emails the restaurant’s database regularly, with the intention of using it as a “fact-sheet”: “I try not to overuse it, but also I try to give information without asking people to do anything,” she explains. “I try not to have a newsletter that’s asking them to spend money all the time. So you do have to be careful with how much you do that.

“The email newsletter helps, but we don’t have a

problem with people coming back. The prob-lem is getting new people in the door. People have to find it for themselves. Email is great for existing customers, but new ones are a differ-ent kettle of fish. People still don’t know we’re here—we do markets in town and people will be surprised to find us. People do go to the website, but we’re trying different things all the time to get new customers.”

Two of the successful strategies they used were a baking arm of the business (Racine Kitchen), based on their observation that there wasn’t a lot of good fresh bread available in the area; and starting a cheaper, more simple version of Racine Restaurant on Thursday and Friday lunches with Racine Café. And they have made a point of getting involved with the local farmers markets and food festivals.

Local festivalas help. “The support I got from Taste of Orange was good,” says Tony Worland of Tonic restaurant in Millthorpe. “You become a part of the food group, and they promote you in publications and they ask you to con-tribute to their functions. It all comes back to giving a bit as well.”

The Orange F.O.O.D week, which is on again this month, celebrates the produce, wines and restaurants of the region. Having run for 20 years, the event is now the most significant event on the district’s calendar. If the Worlands

have found the restaurant business as tough as their colleagues on the other side of town, Tony’s not admitting it. Although he does say they’ve had a blessed ride since building the business eight years ago.

The town of Millthorpe, where the restaurant is based, is half an hour’s drive from Orange and Bathurst, and was close to completely dead when

the Worlands moved in. “We didn’t have a plan,” says Tony. “I think we weren’t really thinking. We just thought if you build it, it has to

happen. It’s been a process of building and maintaining a reputation, and keeping a constant standard, I think.

“There were a lot of locals coming in, to start with. I got a bit of press in a few magazines, and I had also worked with people who were talking about it, so that created a bit of buzz. For the first couple of months, people would come in from Orange and Bathurst. I think people who lived in Millthorpe then wanted to know what all the fuss

was about.” Having said that, Worland also found value in a real estate investment, purchasing the old

theatre next door to the restaurant and fitting it out as a function venue, focussing on weddings.

“We’ve done heaps of weddings in there, so that pro-motes the town to people, and people will come to a wedding,

and say we want to come back and check out the restaurant,” he says.Willa Arantaz writes on her blog that she will continue to look for

new strategies to attract customers, but after our interview, she posted: “My point here is that you can do any number of things to get people into your restaurant and whilst it is important to do this especially when you are out of town, to remind people that you are there, I think you will only succeed if you can deliver a good product.”

“The email newsletter helps, but we don’t have

a problem with people coming back.

The problem is getting new people in the door. People have to find it for

themselves.” Willa Arantz, Racine Restaurant,

Orange

Willa and Shaun Arantz of Racine: “Around here, being five kilometres out of town makes the same difference as being 50 kilometres out,” she says.

I wanted to be a chef growing up, but first I tried nursing. It wasn’t me. Then I went and did my first day at Atlas. On that day I cleaned five kilograms of mussels, roasted two kilograms of capsicums, and made the Chez Panisse baked ricotta cheesecake. I’ve never looked back—I couldn’t believe how much fun it was.

That said, you have to love what you do, because that’s the whole job. There aren’t that many financial rewards. Fortunately, I love what I do.

I’ve had a lot of good work experiences. I’ve always worked with nice people. I tried the high-pressure angry place once and I didn’t last long.

I did a year as a pastry chef at Rockpool and learned a lot. I worked at the Opera House Concourse—a fourth year apprentice calling service for 300 people! It was fun. I don’t know how I did it. Then at MG Garage I spent four and a half years as second chef. That was the food I loved doing—the most inspiring food I’d done. Then I was a private chef in the Hampdens, shopping in the morning at the farm stalls.

I try not to be swayed by trends. You’ll succeed doing what you’re meant to do well. And trust the weather—if it’s a cold day put on a soup.

I love getting market reports and taking them to suppliers. Have a good relationship with your suppliers. Developing relationships with suppliers takes time. The ones I’ve got now are very good.

Justin Hemmes took me to New York to do research for the new bistro Felix and we went to see Balthazar. Now I know I can do a good duck confit, equal with that. It’s reassuring to be unafraid of trusting my judgement and instincts. The Hemmes and I have a good relationship. They trust me. They don’t tell me at all what to do. At Merivale we run our restaurants as if we own the business. I’m

responsible for managing the food costs, the labour costs. Ash Street felt like my restaurant. Now it’s Felix. They tell me what their inspirations are and I put in what I want to do. When we opened Ash Street Justin gave me a list of things he’d like to see on the menu. He put on that ‘a little pot of scrambled eggs’ so I added toasted brioche and salmon on the side. So we meet somewhere in the middle.

Felix is the biggest I’ve done. It’s inspired by French bistros in New York and Paris. A Bistro has a large volume and turnover, with something for everyone. I’ve gone from

ordering five kilos of oysters to 60kg a week.

Opening it has meant moving from a kitchen with four staff to a

kitchen with 40 staff. That means less time cooking and more time on people management and systems management. Having a brand new kitchen team of 40 is challenging until the staff get to know each other and

learn to work together, which thankfully has happened quickly.

You pick your brigade and treat them with respect. It’s up to them to prove

themselves. Respect and getting on, enjoying your job, that’s what it’s about.

Some people worked with me at Lotus, so I’ve had the same team for years. You’re physically close so you have to get to know people well. Last year I was off for three weeks, stuck in London because of the volcano, and they were doing specials as if they were me.

Thankfully we have had some great reviews already and it’s something that is very important to me personally and professionally. It’s also very important for the team to know the most critical of diners think they are doing a great job.

The head of Merivale’s new bistro Felix on trusting yourself, your suppliers, your staff, and the weather

MurdochLauren

words sharon aris


What I’ve learnt

“You pick your brigade and treat them with respect. It’s up to them to prove themselves.

Respect and getting on, enjoying your

job, that’s what it’s about.”


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You dont need a Danish Pastry Chef to make Smoked Salmon Savouries...

..just ask Pacific West

For your nearest Stockist call Pacic West (02) 9630 0188www.salmonsolu ons.com.au marke [email protected]

It’s only

here was a time not too long ago when you could almost build a house with gluten-free bread loaves, the very men-tion of soy milk made people’s eyes water and vegetarians were just plain annoying. But things have certainly changed. Buckwheat pancakes now stand shoulder to shoulder with bacon

and eggs on the brekkie menu and a chickpea casserole has been known to outshine a classic chicken parma down the pub. And with heart disease and diabetes continuing to be the number one killers of Australian people, it’s little wonder why more and more people are being forced to have a good hard look at how they eat, when they eat out.

As the nation tunes in to watch celebrity chefs teach over-weight contestants how to eat healthily on The Biggest Loser and retail giant Woolworths spends a reported $30 million to acquire healthy brand Macro, savvy restaurateurs and caterers are also busy making sure they get their piece of the gluten-free pie.

For Suzie Parker of Sensations en Ardross in Western Aus-tralia, it was a customer who stopped coming to her café that helped steer a course towards a very specific kind of healthy menu. “There was a woman who used to eat with us every day and then she disappeared. Finally, I ran into her and she said I can’t eat with you anymore Suzie, I’ve been diagnosed as a coeliac. ‘A what?’ I’d said. That was ten years ago. I’d never heard of Coeliac’s disease. I then learned everything I could about gluten-free.”

Fast forward a decade and you’d be hard pressed to find a restaurateur or caterer who hadn’t heard the term gluten-free. For Parker it was a research project that has paid big dividends.

“Things have really grown,” Parker explains.“We found that people started asking for gluten-free, then

no dairy and then no sugar. We then built our recipes on customer demand. Of course, the key is the food has to taste great. I find that people now come in groups of five and six because one is a Coeliac.”

Pacific West trading manager Paul McGreevy believes about half of Australian restaurants feature certain menu items

There was a time when healthy food didn’t excite many patrons,

but things have really grown.natural From gluten-free and vegan to low fat and organic, the healthy food movement is alive and kicking

words Nicole AzzopArdi


Special report

because of specific or unique nutritional benefits. “We’ve seen an increase in the demand for our salmon from restaurants and cafes due to the healthy benefits that are associated with it,” he says. “We’ve also found that there seems to be a gap in the market for children and trying to appeal to them to eat salmon. When dining out most parents would love for their kids to try something different and healthy at the same time.”

QLD co-ordinator of Food Circus for Mushrooms Faye Tabet agrees that parents are driving the trend, however, she admits there is still a long way to go before Australians are really indulg-ing in a healthy diet when they eat out.

“Healthy eating is not only driven by consumers,” she says. “Governments are getting involved too because obesity is a problem that is starting with our youth. They are trying to teach parents to feed their children properly. Gradually, people are starting to wake up and listen. They are interested and wanting information about healthy food.”

For former Today Show food correspondent Peter Howard, knowing your customers and giving them exactly what they want is the secret.

“Look at your demographic and who you are trying to at-tract,” says the former owner of four restaurants.

“Be aware of changing trade and cultural influences. Look at vegetarianism, twenty years ago we used to say ‘oh no, not a bloody vegetarian.’ These days, any thinking caterer will now

have 10 per cent of his content reserved for people who don’t eat meat.”

Howard, who presented to chefs as part of an Al-liance Catering national education program says smart marketing can make all the difference when selling the healthy stuff.

“Often it can all depend on how you describe it on the menu,” he says.

“For example, frittata becomes a crustless quiche. Buckwheat can be sold as buckwheat pancakes with caponata.”

Sydney-based macrobiotic food chain Iku Wholefoods has made and art out of marketing the healthy side of life.

Having started with one store in Glebe in 1985, Iku is just about to open its 13th store.

“Twenty six years on and Iku is coming to fruition,” Part-own-er Andrew Hayes says.

At Iku, 20 chefs arrive at a central kitchen at 4am so that food can be at the counters of their stores by midday. The result is a product that requires no freezing, and no preservatives.

“This should be on every corner and you are doing the right thing with food,” he says. “Delivered fresh and made daily and it’s true. It’s not a ‘Woothworths the fresh food people’ type campaign which doesn’t necessarily guarantee the freshness of the food in stock. We are actually doing it.”

Special report


t might be an American Express sticker by the front entrance, a Mount Franklin-branded drinks fridge, or even takeaway cups emblazoned with a gourmet coffee brand. It’s a rare thing to find a res-taurant or café without at least one other big-name brand featured somewhere in the physical space. But what impact does the presence of these other brands really have on a business? Apart from any

savings in getting branded items or equipment for free or at a reduced cost, what effect do other brands have on the success of the business? What kind of message does their use send to customers, and what can be the effect of getting it wrong, maybe too many brands or using the wrong types? The bottom line is, using other brands is an essential marketing tool for restaurants and cafes, so it pays to know how to do it well.

First impressionsThe real appeal of displaying other brands in a restaurant or café, is the chance to send the right signal to consumers. Whether it’s a sense of quality, reliability, trustworthiness, professionalism or even innovation, the sight of a particular product’s logo in a restaurant environment can make a big impression on diners.

“If it’s a well-known and trusted brand, it can be a real draw-

card for your business,” says restaurant marketing expert Jill Groves, of Rich Restaurants Group. “If you’ve got a drinks fridge with an unknown brand all over it, they may not feel as safe and comfortable buying their product from you.”

Security is a big issue for customers, especially those travel-ling or not familiar with the area the restaurant’s in.

“For the restaurateur, you get that credibility from the as-sociation with a massive, multinational brand, like American Express,” says Geoff Begg, Vice President, Merchant Services Australia at American Express.

Another reason to use other brands is the simple fact that customers are used to seeing them around, with all the various messages and signals they send. A restaurant or café with no branding whatsoever can have a negative impact for some cus-tomers. “They call it a ‘clean store policy’, where a restaurant that doesn’t put anything up, and I think it just puts a question mark in front of the consumer,” says Begg.

That first impression another brand creates for customers can translate directly to dollars spent.

“Once they’re in and see the branding, they can be more inclined to spend,” says Begg. “We’ve got studies that show globally you can increase your turnover up to five per cent by putting up the decals and letting people know the merchant welcomes your card. We offer the consumer protection of

Does having someone else’s brand all over your business

help or hinder business?signUsing other brands in your restaurant or cafe is common practice but how does it really benefit your business?

words: jodie thompson


Special report

A good

people dispute the charge, and in our experience, if you’ve got a credit card you’ll spend more than if you’ve got cash.”

In a broader sense, using big-name brands is a way to boost the recognition of your own business.

“Drink and food companies are big businesses generally and have the power and money to do their own branding aware-ness,” says Jill Groves. “Smaller businesses like restaurants and cafes don’t have the budgets for that, so you can attach yourself to the big companies and ride off their marketing gains.”

There’s the obvious benefit of reduced set-up costs and run-ning costs, if branded equipment or items are supplied cheap or free by other companies. Branded items range from the small, like stickers, napkins and coasters, to larger furniture items, like umbrellas, or even structures like awnings or lightboxes. It’s worth contacting companies to ask what items they have avail-able, rather than waiting for them to visit or send things in.

It’s also worth thinking of it all in terms of a business relation-ship with suppliers, that can benefit both sides. “I recommend restaurants go to the best suppliers and use their branding, then they can say things like, ‘We only use the best quality ingredients’, that sort of thing,” Jill Groves says. “Sadly, often restaurant and café owners fall in love with their own brand and it hinders them from making money.”

The first step is choosing the right product for your business. Some brands, like credit cards, are more generic and likely

to suit a wider range of restaurants and cafes. Other brands might be more suited to certain styles of restaurant or café, and it’s essential to stick to other brands that reflect the feel and personality of your business. For example, displaying a range of mainstream, multinational brands might be good for some bigger restaurants or cafes, but fine dining restaurants or quirky cafes might benefit more from associations with boutique or organic brands, for example.

With lesser-known brands it can help to follow up with more information in any menus or other promotional material.

“You might have a coffee brand’s logo out the front, but don’t assume the consumer knows all about that,” Jill Groves says. “You need to tell a story about that coffee, that it’s been roasted by a master roaster in Zimbabwe or whatever, and that it’s su-perb and better than what’s being served down the road.”

It’s also important to use other brands where they’ll have the biggest impact. That can range depending on the product and the size and location of the restaurant/café.

“The first thing is having something on the exterior of the business,” says Geoff Begg. “If somebody’s walking past, it can bring them in, and then, to have branding in the interior, next to where you pay the bill, when you’re doing the transaction.”

It can also help to think beyond the business’s physical space. “Use the brand online, on their website, as that’s where a lot

of people do their research,” says Geoff Begg.

Special report

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eciding upon fitting out a new com-mercial kitchen is never easy. There are a range of mitigating factors to take into consideration such as space, budget, location, type of food on offer and speed of service. It is quite common for most outfits to get the order wrong, according to

kitchen designer Chris Love. “The first question people should ask when it comes to

designing or fitting a commercial kitchen is what kind of food they will be serving,” Love says.

“There is so important for the design of the kitchen. Whether it is a café, fine dining restaurant and/or a short-order restaurant for example they all have different kitchen needs in terms of space and flow through the kitchen.

“They you have to take into consideration aspects such as budgets, seating capacity, how many staff will be working there amongst a range of other factors.”

Love has been designing kitchens for years and always models his kitchens in 3D to give the prospective buyer a bet-ter view and feel for how the kitchen will look.

“Each project is very different,” Love says. “Each is very personal. There are a couple of hundred points taken into consideration with each design.

“There has to be a good and logical flow to the kitchen and a lot of that will depend upon the type of food you are serv-ing. Fine dining requires a lot more preparation and time, as well as staff, in comparison to mum and dad running a small café. The key elements are the preparation area, the cooking space, the serving area, and wash and waste space. I don’t think there is any type of industry standard when it comes to commercial kitchens.”

Love has designed kitchens for a variety of organisations and institutions including upmarket restaurants, fish and chip shops, sports stadiums, school tuckshops and bars.

He believes that each job has its own anomalies and you have to take into consideration each will have its own restric-tions. “I have fed 300 people out of a domestic kitchen,” he says. “The reality is every place has their restrictions. It is not necessarily the case of the bigger the space the better the kitchen. It is all about workflow. I have been in the back of cafes where I have seen commercial kitchens smaller than my bathroom yet they function perfectly well.

“A small, compact and efficient kitchen that is well laid out

When it comes to commercial kitchens, it’s not about size, but what you do with it

Words by Louis White


Special report

sync This is where the design of a commercial kitchen starts: with the

food you’re planning to serve.

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will be better than a big kitchen. you can do a lot with an oven and nothing else but of course that is not the ideal scenario.

“When I undertake a job to design a kitchen I never have a specific space in mind when I go to see what is on offer. I think you think of what kind of food will they be serv-ing first to what kind of clientele and then you start to think about designs from there depending upon the space on offer.

“I also emphasise to people to be flex-ible with their layout. They might find that they need to expand the kitchen so if you can allow for that in your design it will benefit you in the long run.”

goodman Fielder is Australasia’s leading listed food company. Names such as meadow Lea, praise, White Wing and pampas are very common around the country.

goodman Fielder is also the largest supplier of edible fats and oils to Australian and New Zealand food manufacturers and wholesalers and the largest supplier of flour to New Zealand commercial customers.

so, when it came to fitting a new commercial kitchen in North ryde, New south Wales, it took a lot of consultation before the task was complete.

“The first issue we had was with the landlord,” Annette mansfield, goodman Fielder group property manager, says. “It was important to call it as a culinary centre. There are also so many factors to take into consideration like how the exhaust system goes up seven floors and how you can’t have curtains or blinds in the kitchen because of the potential for bugs and there can be no gaps between the floor and the walls and any windows to again ensure there will be no insects or animals of any sort.

“It was a challenge to keep the sun out but we counteracted that with white-boards with a little bit of film in the glass. our old kitchen had no natural light but this one does which is a big advantage.”

It took almost a year to fit out the kitchen with equipment being sourced from all over the world. goodman Fielder tendered the project out and Jones Lang

Lasalle were the winners for the design and construction.

“We had to consult each business unit involved in making products as we have more than 50 brands and ascertain the best work flow,” mansfield says.

“We had the kitchen built and then the ovens placed followed by the cool room and freezers.

“The research and development team spend a lot of time in the kitchen and it is important that the space and flow accommodated their needs.”

moffat corporate executive chef scott graham is well established in the food industry. After working in a variety of kitchens around Australia, graham took up the opportunity to work with the moffat group who design, develop, manufacture and market a compre-hensive range of commercial food and bakery equipment.

“It was something that came about by chance and nine years later I am still here,” graham says.

graham, who is an experienced chef, says most companies think back-

wards when it comes to design-ing a commercial kitchen.

“The first thing you need to consider when design-ing and constructing a commercial kitchen is what you want to achieve,” graham says.

“most people just talk about space but you need to

understand what kind of custom-ers you want and how quickly

they want to be served.“you also need equipment that is ver-

satile. Certain equipment can have mul-tiple functions and most people don’t want to look at new products, they just want to use what they have before.”

graham says that while it is common for chefs to complain that kitchens are too small, when a kitchen is too big it can cause more problems.

“I have worked in a fifteen square metre kitchen serving a hundred meals at dinner time,” graham says.

“That just goes to show there is no ‘one space fits all’. It depends upon your menu and how many people you want to seat.

“The basic key is to be smart with your space. If you don’t have much, use it wisely.”

Special report

Scott Graham from Moffat believes that when it comes to commercial kitchens, most companies think backwards. You must start with what you want to achieve.

“A small, compact and efficient kitchen that is well laid out will be better than a big kitchen. You can do a lot with an oven and nothing else but that is not the ideal

scenario.”Chris Love, designer


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e have a romantic image of the professional chef: someone who just needs access to blades, pans and fire to create wonderful food beyond the abilities of the rest of us. It’s the myth that sustains Masterchef and foodie magazines, but it’s a far cry from the reality of Pacojets, Thermomixes and teams dealing with the volume demanded by a modern restaurant. “There’s a machine for every job,” says Damian

Heads, of Sydney’s Pony and Steel Bar & Grill. “If you can validate the volume, you can validate the machine.” But while those machines are undeniably useful, are they de-skill-ing today’s chefs? Do you need classical skills when an enormous amount can be done with the press of a button on a pre-programmed machine?

And the reality is, those machines are more reliable, in many ways, than an appren-tice. If you have a recipe that states exactly what is required for the end result, and you can upload it to a combi oven via a memory stick, then that’s more efficient than show-ing an apprentice how to do it three or four times. And once the oven’s got it right, it isn’t going to leave you to work in a competitor’s restaurant.

Damian Heads stands on the side of the people (as opposed to the machines) in this debate. Partly because people don’t break as easily as machines: “The down side is if your Pacojet breaks,” he says. “So you should really buy two of them, plus the cylinders, and then it starts to become an expensive process.”

By contrast, he says, he has an apprentice who started two years ago, did six months

Has kitchen technology advanced to the point that we no longer need so many chefs?

Rise of the

as a lackey, six months on one restau-rant’s larder section, another eight months on pasta, and is now making gnocchi and sauces over at Pony’s Neutral Bay site.

“The money invested in that person has created a machine that’s worth more than the equipment it would take to do his job,” says Heads.

But the reality is there are also down-sides to training apprentices. Firstly, you have to find a good one. Then you have to hang on to them.

“I did my apprenticeship with a gas grill, wok burners, target top, basic ovens and the hot box was 70 degrees or nothing,” says Heads. “And I look at some of the machines available now and I think, ‘If I had that machine I could do this and this’—we’ve got four Rational ovens, and they can steam, you have complete control over temperature, time and so on, and you can upload your recipes from one to another one.

“And other restaurants have even better stuff. You should go to Baroque (in the Rocks, in Sydney) and have a look at some of the toys they have!”

words rob joHnson

Technology


The kitchen at Baroque in The Rocks: they have

all the latest gadgets.machines

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“We’ve got the standard stuff,” says Peter Robertson, chef de cuisine at Baroque. “A Pacojet, a 20-rack blast chiller, Cryovac, combi oven, a range of different cooktops, liquid nitrogen doer ... Something I’ve got on the wish list is a vacuum evaporation machine. I don’t re-ally need one. It’s just a cool machine.”

Robertson’s perspective on kitchen skills and gadgets has been borne out by his experience both here and overseas. After cutting his teeth at Bilson’s, he travelled to the UK where he worked at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, as well as at progressive institution Tom Aikens.

“I do think the equipment is deskilling chefs slightly,” he says. “When I was at the Fat Duck, that was certainly their gripe. They said it was really hard to do what they did before, and really labour intensive, and they did lament the loss of these classical skills. But it’s every bit as hard to put out perfectly cooked beef every time—so if a machine can help you do that, that’s a good thing.”

Robertson believes the ease of use inherent in such machines doesn’t only make cooking easier, but enhances the training of

apprentices as well. “There’s no longer a recipe where you set the oven to gas mark four, which is something I find really vague by current standards,” he explains. “With the new equipment it’s far more precise, which means I also find it easier to train the

new guys—so it’s easier for us.“I also think you find other ways to engage yourself as a result. So your meat cookery might be one step easier,

but then you find you’ll do a more complex garnish. And if you can spend a minute extra on plating then you’re going to be putting out a better dish.”

And no matter how good the machines are, they can’t solve every problem. Damian Heads has an espresso bar below Steel Bar & Grill, and he says the hardest staff position he has to fill is the person mak-

ing the sandwiches at the espresso bar. “There’s so many details in sandwiches,” he explains,

“and it points out where people skill is so important. At the moment, the chefs upstairs have to do it. It’s the job I keep get-ting dragged back into.”

The other issue with equipment, he says, is it becomes self-perpetuating: “When you do menu planning you consider the skills and equipment you have. I have a woodfire grill, for example, so I’m going to use it. That’s going to drive what I do on the menu.”

Perhaps the machines are taking over after all.


“You find other ways to engage

yourself as a result—your meat cookery might be one step

easier, but then you’ll spend an extra minute on plating.”

Peter Robertson, chef de cuisine, Baroque

ow that sav blanc is social death; now that young women realise pinot gris is awful; and now that no-one even remembers what the great white hope, viognier, is, or even was; everything old is chardonnay again. Australian chardonnay is undergoing a self-made renaissance.

The sunshine-in-a-bottle tropical fruit chardies of yore are now being made in a more restrained and elegant style. Indeed, when compared to the old-fashioned styles, these new chardonnays seem

to have no aroma, no flavour, and no texture. Yet the wine connoisseurs can’t praise them or drink them quickly enough. More importantly, if you are not stocking them you will look more yesterday than a current release, viscous, 14 per cent alcohol pinot gris.

The trend has started because we now have Australian winemakers born into wine. They actually have taste and they actually like drinking more keenly balanced styles of wine, as op-posed to growing moustaches, buying cricket memorabilia, or collecting sports cars.

The old more-is-better approach which produced the oaky, buttery and fruit bomb chardies of the ‘80s and ‘90s copped a whacking at the hands of Kiwi sauvignon blanc come about the year 2000. These no-oak, crisper fruit-flavoured savvies where—and are—fresh and distinctive, and also much cheaper than the heavily over-made winemaker chardonnays. Ten years on again and a new breed of chardonnay makers are bringing some balance back to the wine bar—at both a flavour and price angle.

And it has a good take-up rate because the current generation of wine drinkers don’t

of classOut of the ashes of sav blanc’s demise comes the welcome re-invention of Australian chardonnay

Chardonnay: unlike sav blanc, it’s now subtly interesting.

Chards

want the wine to get in the way. Chablis-styled chardonnays with higher acid, little or no malo-lactic creaminess, and a much lighter mouth-feel, are seen as wines you can actually drink whilst holding a conversation. They don’t dominate or get you all giddy. More importantly, their aromatics, their bouquet, and their flavours and textures have a more beguiling and ethereal quality than sav blanc, whose pungency and overtness is always in your face. Modern chardonnay is subtly interesting.

The best news here is down to what it promises—culturally. Australian wine drinkers now seem to be heading further into a more natural and everyday en-joyment of wine. This is particu-larly good news for licensees, as they will see a more regular and less rowdy clientele, who will drink two quality glasses of wine after-hours most nights, rather than twelve rum and cokes Fri-day at 4pm. The endgame is that Australian chardonnay in its new guise may yet help the number of licensed bouncers fall, being replaced by more educated wine waiters. Education defeats a licence every time.

Your own wine list’s role in this is about understanding the style of modern Australian chardonnay, and where its personality comes from: Chablis and Burgundy. Imparting some of this knowledge can therefore help your customers feel even more imbued with the wine.

Concentrate, therefore, on cool-climate regions producing chardonnay fruit with greater natural acidity—like Chablis achieves. Higher natural acidity in chardonnay helps keep it taut and keen; such wine also tends towards the greener and leaner fruit flavour end of the spectrum, allowing the winemaker to build subtle richness into the wine with barrel work, like a small per-centage of malo-lactic fermenta-tion or lees stirring—like they do with White Burgundy.

wOrds: Ben cAnAider


Drinks

From regarded regions, drill down to find the more highly-pedigreed producers—that is, the ones who have the runs on the board and who’ve been making good chardonnay for a while. This will give you your bearings, from which position you can then more confidently test and taste the ‘affordable’ LUC chardonnays of the regions in question and, faster than you can say ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) you’ll have an emerg-ing brand on your wine list, at a mark-up that makes business sense. Regions and chardonnays thereof worth considering:

TasmaniaLatitude equals attitude in noble wine grapes. This is why Tasmania is quickly emerging as Australia’s quality future when it comes to chardonnay and pinot noir. They get ripe, but they also hang on to natural acidity, thanks to the state’s more south-ern latitude. Tasmanian chardonnay can have a wonderfully pris-tine quality. Look for such labels as Stoney Rise ($20LUC), Goaty Hill ($19), Freycinet ($25), and Josef Chromy Pepik ($13)

Mornington PeninsulaPerched above the right fetlock of Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay, this wine region has traditionally been where dentists go to die. There’s no questioning the vineyards’ qualities, however: their microclimates, terracing, soils and the bayside breezes wafting in every evening make for chardonnay with a more robust lineage, but some good cool-climate breeding. Kooyong Clonale ($18), Port Phillip Estate ($28), Ten Minutes By Tractor 10X ($20)

Yarra ValleyMicro-climates and some minor altitude help here to trap acid-ity. Other geographical considerations that are more of human-kind’s making help: a close-knit and well-informed winemaking fraternity all of who egg one another on. The first among equals rule applies here; and the wine shows that fantastic blend of pu-rity and complexity. There are some real bargains, too. Oakridge Over The Shoulder ($14), Innocent Bystander ($14), Punch Lane ($30), Yering Station ($16).

CanberraContinental climate factors help make for a good diurnal shift in Canberra—hot, dry days but cold nights. The cold night help the grapes lock their acidity. Mount Majura Chardonnay has, in recent times, been in excellent form ($19). Also consider some of the very affordable and restrained chardonnays from Orange, such as Logan ($13).

Adelaide HillsAltitude and aspect. Cooler conditions thanks to height above sea-level, and vineyard aspect—which way the vines hit the sun-rays—make for wine that’s neither too under-ripe or too burnt. Shaw & Smith M3 ($26), Petaluma ($30), Paracombe ($14). Elegance but understated power.

Margaret RiverHere the full maritime climate effect takes place. The south-western corner of a hot continent’s edge meets the enduring horizon of the Indian and Southern Oceans. Soils and well-stud-ied vineyard practices combine to make for grape heaven. Cab-ernet likes it, but so too does chardonnay, with the grapefruit acidity underscoring more nectarine and stone fruit flavours born from the grape. Stella Bella ($18), Forest Hill (from Great Southern, $16), Voyager Estate ($28). (NB: All prices quoted are LUC)


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e took possession of this building 12 years ago when it was just an old Thai restaurant in an average state of fitout. We took out walls, opened up entrance-ways and got rid of all the arches. As this was our first restaurant, funds were very limited. We finished our first refurbish-ment by splashing a bit of paint around, tidying up and buying some new chairs.

“Since that time, we have never really had a major renovation. The look of our interior has simply grown over time; we’ve changed things as funds became available. Star Anise is contained in three rooms. There’s a larger room at the street frontage with a big window looking out over the street. Then there’s a smaller room at the side that runs off the courtyard and a room towards the back that is close to the bar and kitchen area. The courtyard is a nice little space that can seat four people.

“We’ve changed the paint colours every couple of years and at the moment, it’s a very neu-tral palette of dark brown, cream and green. We wanted to keep it clean and simple with fairly dark hues and a subdued ambience. We wanted a slightly Asian feel without being obvious.

“Originally the rooms had timber flooring consisting of old wide boards with a few holes. Unfortunately we had a massive noise problem so we carpeted the front room and the side room while leaving the floorboards in the back room. The carpet is a also very dark green.

There are downlights throughout the restaurant except for one saffron-coloured chandelier that hangs over the bar. We purchased that online from deLighting in Bali (www.de-lighting.com). The front room has a series of three paintings called ‘Passion’, ‘Lust’ and ‘Compassion’. They were painted by our friend, Leisbeth Sheilds. We wanted the restaurant to be comfort-able, neutral, have a good vibe—and the paintings reflect that very well.

“All our furniture has been with us for a while though we have updated our chairs. We had them made in Bali where they pinched the design from one of the big hotels over there. They are simple, nice looking chairs that are comfortable and reasonably strong.

“The kitchen is at the back near the toilets. It originally had vinyl flooring and a dry store-

Under owner/chef David Coomer, quality of the cuisine is paramount in this WA restaurant, but the interior design anchors the room by providing a warm, casual ambience

Star Anise

room right in the middle, which we knocked out. We re-equipped the whole kitchen and replaced the flooring with tiles.

“I think people get a bit of a surprise when they first eat here. We have a good reputation and I guess people’s expecta-tions are reasonably high. But really, we are just a humble little restaurant in the ’burbs. We’ve never had a mega-fitout or an interior designer involved in any way. As a cook I serve the best food I possibly can but jumping to a fine-dining category was un-expected and a little unwanted. I just wanted Star Anise to be a re-ally good local restaurant. I want people to eat here and think, ‘What a great little find’.”

Star Anise225 Onslow RoadSheraton Park WATel: (08) 9381 9811W: www.staraniserestau-rant.com.au

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