Following the recent launch of his cookbook Brae: Recipes and Stories from the Restaurant, the lauded Australian chef tells Don Mendoza why farm-to-table cooking is deliciously hard.
In his debut cookbook, Brae: Recipes and Stories from the Restaurant, he shares how he felt like he “had gone away to travel and party”—leading to an important decision about what he wanted to do. His move was far more than a sentient push to source more sustainably; it was a deep-rooted commitment to cultivating a personal style of cuisine that’s both progressive and sincere.
To be sure, natural, modern, cross-cultural cooking and the seemingly idealistic notion of sustainable consumption have taken over the wonderment of molecular gastronomy in inspiring today’s best places to dine. But having your own farm and working within your geographical means is far from a glamorous notion.
“It’s all a choice,” posits Hunter. “People often say to me, ‘Oh, you are so lucky!’ Well, there’s no luck involved. I made a decision many years ago that I wanted to work in this way. Is it a chef’s dream? Is it a chef’s dream to have to worry if it’s going to rain next week, because your vegetables are going to die? Is it a chef’s dream to have to mow the lawn before dinner service because the guys who were meant to do it didn’t turn up?”
(Related: Last Supper: Why Celebrated Chefs Decide To Say Goodbye)
It’s not a perfect world, he adds. “In the bigger scheme of things, I think it’s disgusting—the way that many restaurants around the world operate, that many people buy shit food and that supermarkets waste food. But I didn’t really set out with all of that in mind at the start. It’s something that I’ve always appreciated—to work in a way that is gentle to your environment. And cooking from your local surrounds is not really that far an extension from that ethos.”
(Related: Central’s Virgilio Martinez Talks Peruvian)
So it’s the utopian proposition for every chef, certainly, but also a reminder that we all have a part to play in this delicate ecosystem. Hunter tells us more: