This week we shine the light on a bevy of Aussie beauties – from town to country, north to south.

Wandering Cooks

• WHO: Angela Hirst, director
• WHAT: Ethical food incubator transforming Brisbane food culture
• WHERE: Cnr Fish Lane & Cordelia Street, South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

“Wandering Cooks is a clubhouse for community, food and arts events. With our revenue, we subsidize the start-up process of over one hundred micro-food businesses, and are one of the most densely populated incubators in the world.

“We source local, ethically-grown and seasonal produce. We grow our own herbs, chilli and flower gardens for our customers, and support and showcase local, ethical farmers, community-supported agriculture, Australian wine, drinks and spirits (except for ethically-sourced tequila and mescal). All of the food served in our venue is made with a curation of the best micro-food businesses incubating in our kitchens, or from local farmers.

“We might be small players in the food and drink world, but we are huge when we work together. We commit to improving our sourcing, waste and employment practices by buying our ingredients from local farmers, closing the loop between soil and food, and building opportunities for people who deserve more. We may not be perfect, but our hearts are aligned and we promise to work with collaborative creativity every day. And one day, we will be both big and small at once – thousands of beautiful businesses transforming our food and drink culture together.”

"We’d like to highlight Elaine Young from Bond St Eats who is currently an incubating food business here at Wandering Cooks. Don't miss her delicious recipe included in this week's newsletter for Turmeric Roasted Cauliflower. Elaine has been working in Wandering Cooks' kitchens since June 2018, and chose Wandering Cooks as the place to start her business because she knew her own values and direction would fit in perfectly with ours."

To read more about Wandering Cooks, visit their Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery profile here.

The Peak Restaurant

• WHO: Spicers Retreats, owner & Dean Alsford, head chef
• WHAT: Elevated modern Australian cuisine in a luxury lodge
• WHERE: 1 Wilkinson Road, Maryvale, Queensland, Australia

“Peak has a very strong focus on treating sustainable, raw ingredients with love and respect and making them shine. We have a daily menu that changes according to what is fresh and available to us – and located within the scenic rim, we are surrounded by amazing farmers and producers, and enjoy some of the best produce that Queensland has to offer.

“We have a simple, sustainable approach and focus not only on cooking food that is not mass-produced, caught or farmed – but on other aspects such as having cows on the property that simply graze the land and pigs that eat our food waste. We grow as much as we can and only take what we need.”

To read more about The Peak Restaurant, visit their Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery profile here.

Chef Dean Alsford, The Peak Restaurant (Maryvale, Queensland, Australia)

The Jam Pantry

• WHO: Naomi Zavackas, chef/owner
• WHAT: A clever & comfortable community cafe that’s right for its time
• WHERE: 2/575 Logan Road, Greenslopes, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

“We love to use south-east Queensland suppliers and producers that are equally obsessed with ‘yum’ and do a wonderful job supporting our creativity. Each of our suppliers supports local farmers, are themselves local farmers or producers, or are aware of our desire to put local first and so make sure to tell us what produce is coming directly from our own food bowl.

“We are every mindful of waste and the impact it has. As well as all the usual waste disposal methods employed by a responsible food business, we compost all of our organic waste and in turn, it is put back into the soil of a local farm who then also supply us with vegetables and greens. During venison season our meat comes from a small town behind Toowoomba as a controlled cull. We have been known to buy the whole beast and butcher it in-house. We also turn a lot of our fruit waste into fermented drinks with a blackboard dedicated to all the funky flavours that are continually rotated.

“The Jam Pantry places a big emphasis on real, holistic food and nourishment – everything we produce or bring in to the kitchen is served in a state as close to natural as possible.”

To read more about The Jam Pantry, visit their Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery profile here.

The Jam Pantry (Greenslopes, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia)

Homage Restaurant

• WHO: Ash Martin, chef
• WHAT: A progressive regional restaurant located in southeast Queensland with a focus on sustainability, provenance and fire
• WHERE: 617 Grandchester Mount Mort Road, Grandchester, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

“We are passionate about the connection between land, produce, the story behind it and sustainability. All of our food scraps go back to our local farms, therefore creating a three-sixty-degree sustainable cycle. We only use fish that is line-caught, and purchase locally – supporting local businesses first!

“Diners at Homage are encouraged to join the chefs on a pre-dinner tour of the eighty-nine-bed market garden to select accompanying vegetables for their meal. On our twelve-thousand acre farm and fruit orchard, we rear pigs, geese, ducks, sheep and cattle – all of which are utilized on the Homage menu.

“Homage is also a proud member of EarthCheck, with a dedicated Green Warrior to drive further sustainability."

To read more about Homage Restaurant, visit their Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery profile here.

Homage (Grandchester, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia)

Terrace Restaurant at All Saints Winery

• WHO: Simon Arkless, chef
• WHAT: Contemporary European/Australian restaurant in a historic winery
• WHERE: 315 All Saints Road, Wahgunyah, Victoria, Australia

“Our number one goal is provide pleasure to our customers. We aim to do that firstly, by serving food with delicious flavours – and secondly, by ensuring they are appealing to the eye.

“We strive to serve a menu that follows the seasons as closely as possible, and we change the menu frequently to adhere to that philosophy. We try to utilize as much of our estate-grown produce as possible – including our own ethically-raised lamb and pork, olive oil, fruit and herbs. Foraged produce is also frequently featured on the menu and may include morels and field mushrooms from the Estate in addition to saffron milk cap and slippery jack mushrooms from the local Chiltern forest.

"Be sure to check out our upcoming paddock-to-plate event, Estate on a Plate, planned for November."

To read more about Terrace Restaurant at All Saints Winery, visit their Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery profile here.

Terrace Restaurant at All Saints Winery (Wahgunyah, Victoria, Australia)

Attica

• WHO: Ben Shewry, chef/owner
• WHAT: A small, fiercely independent restaurant in a league of its own
• WHERE: 74 Glen Eira Road, Ripponlea, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

“Acknowledgement of our influences and inspirations – paying tribute properly to the Australian culture is what inspires and helps us to achieve our work.

“We grow and source all of our ingredients in the most ethical way possible. This includes paying our suppliers in full every Wednesday, growing without pesticides or fertilizers in Rippon Lea estate and ensuring as much as possible that the money we pay our suppliers goes to the growers and harvesters, and not to a central distribution company.

“Attica also works with and supports many community groups, including the charity Helping Hoops. We also believe in responsible hospitality businesses which means reasonable working hours and conditions for hospitality staff – our front-of-house staff work a forty-five hour week and our kitchen team work a forty-eight hour week.

“We are committed to fun, not taking ourselves too seriously but doing what we want – we have to – that’s why we are still here.”

To read more about Attica, visit their Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery profile here.

Attica (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)

Salopian Inn

• WHO: Karena Armstrong, chef & Alex Marchetti, sommelier
• WHAT: Casual, wine-region restaurant with eclectic, seasonal cooking
• WHERE: 5 McMurtrie Road, McLaren Vale, South Australia

“We grow our own vegetables at my home which is located just four kilometres from the restaurant. The garden is about half an acre and is crammed full of fruits, vegetables, herbs, chickens, bees and the odd frog.

“We supplement the ebbs and flows of producing our own food with buying from other locals farmers. We change the menu regularly to reflect what is truly in season and seasonality forces the kitchen to be creative – we preserve, ferment and pickle to help when the garden is in between crops. Our green waste is returned to the garden where it becomes compost to return to the soil and because the food we grow travels to work with me, the food miles are very low.

“For seafood, we are spoilt for choice in South Australia. We buy from some smaller fishermen via our supplier Oyster George, and Paul the scallop diver from Kangaroo Island supplies wild scallops from clean water with the beautiful purple roe – amazing.

"Salopian Inn have a very simple ethos – ‘use it all'."

To read more about Salopian Inn, visit their Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery profile here.

Salopian Inn (McLaren Vale, South Australia)

In the know...

Be sure to mark up your diary with Brisbane's free food and wine festival, Regional Flavours, 20-21 July at South Bank Parklands; gourmet eats, craft brews and wines, market stalls, celebrity and local presenters, live music and DJ sets.

Click here for the full details.