From Bondi to Berry: Chef Alex Prichard’s Next Chapter with Sara Dining & Garden

Hello and welcome to the Straight to the Source podcast. I'm Tonya Bar. And I'm Lucy Allen and we're looking forward to taking you straight to the source of the people driving our food and hospitality industry forward. Today's guest is chef Alex Brechard, whose career has taken him through some of Australia's most acclaimed kitchens, including Mama Fuku Siebo, Sake and the Cut. He then moved on to work at Iceberg's dining room and bar where he became head chef at just 24. As since then he's built a reputation for championing local producers, sustainable cooking and ingredient-led dining. Now he's preparing to open Sara, a highly anticipated farm and destination dining venture on the New South Wales South Coast. Today we're going to dive into why he's stepping away from city dining to build something more grounded and produce driven, what hospitality looks like in Australia right now, and what Michelin's arrival in South Australia could mean for the future of the industry. Alex, welcome to the studio. Thank you. It's great to have you here. Tonya and I have been wanting to get you in on the podcast for a really long time, but I feel like the timing is perfect now because you've just made a big announcement about your move from Bondi to Barry. Yeah, I'm glad you waited. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So look, I'm going to start off, I think, by focusing in on what this new chapter really means for you. And so after more than a decade, I think it's been I spoke. Why was now the moment to leave what many would consider one of Australia's most iconic restaurants to build something on a farm in Barry? I suppose it's something I always wanted to do. Obviously I've been at I spoke for quite a long time, but my wife and I and now I family, we moved down to the South Coast maybe six years ago. So for the last six years, I've been commuting from two and a half hours south to icebergs. You mean that tells you the draw and how amazing icebergs is to work out that I commit two and a half hours every day, one way, so five hour round trip. Just to keep working there for the last six years. So absolutely loved loved, loved, birds and loved being there and everything it's given me. But yeah, when you when you kind of have kids and a young family, you need to be present a little bit more, I suppose. And then I've always been drawn to the idea of wanting to do a regional restaurant, especially a farm to table restaurant and your, you know, I've worked with you for so long, you know, how much I love producers and everything they do. I kind of nerd out a bit on understanding, you know, how they do do everything. So yeah, it's always been a dream and then it was there were a few full starts, like I think probably it's the start of COVID. I told all the directors from icebergs, like my dream is to open my regional restaurant and I'm going to be pursuing that. At the beginning of COVID. Okay, so like six years ago, probably about a year after we moved down. So I gave it 12 months to go, can we actually live here and do we like it? Yeah. And then after that, I kind of said, hey, I'm going to be trying to do this. And then I think there were just there were a few full starts and nothing felt quite right until linear collection came along basically. So what is your vision for Sarah Dining and Garden? So I suppose it starts, there's a backstory behind it, linear collection, Peter and Nadia, my partners in the restaurant, own linear collection, which is essentially a hotel reimagined. It's basically what you consider a deconstructed hotel, a few wills. So there's seven different accommodations all within kind of like a five minute drive of each other, two of which are on farms, kind of two minutes down the road from each other. So everything's within kind of a five minute drive, the town centre of Barry. Right. But we've got seven different accommodations that can sleep up to, I think it's 65 to 70 people. Oh, that's a lot. Yeah, yeah. And then so two of those houses are on kind of 10 acre farms, one of them being a Mariah farm. One more bit of backstory, linear collection, named after Carl Linnaeus. The naming system for basically all living things. So everything within the linear collection is named after something to do with Carl Linnaeus. Okay. His wife's maiden name was Sarah Mariah. So Mariah farm was named after his wife's maiden last name and Sarah's named after his wife's first name, which was kind of the grounding force in the centre of his life, really. Okay. So when you found the property, what was it that felt right about this property? You said you kind of nothing had felt right before. What was it that clicked here? I loved that it felt it felt rural, but it was five minutes from the beach. So there was this natural kind of mix where I felt like I was on a farm, but I also didn't feel weird about serving seafood. Okay. Because we're still so close to the ocean. Yeah. So it ticked a couple boxes there. And then to be honest, like the properties are amazing, beautiful. And the collection themselves are incredible. But Peter and Nadia, when, and my wife and I first met them, we just went, no, these guys are amazing at what they do. And we had a mutual respect for each other's, I suppose, talents or fields of work. And yeah, the partnership just felt right. And then yet slightly kind of naturally progressed. I started off just kind of consulting for Pete and Nadia and showing them, you know, how to kind of build the restaurant, what I think would be best for it. And then it slowly morphed to, hey, this is kind of 80% of the way there to something I'd really want to do. Why don't we just rip the band aid off, go the further 20% and I'll, I'll be in on it with you and we'll do it all together. Okay. So you're going to be sort of involved in overseeing the restaurant and the garden farm. Yeah. And the hotel will be something that they'll oversee, but then that partnership is bringing that all together. Yeah, correct. Yeah. So the hotel in a comm is what linear collection and Peter and Nadia and Carly as well, you know, phenomenal at doing that. And, you know, I'd be horrible at that even, you know, trying to try to organize the amount of bed sheets and linen and stuff, not not my world. But where where I come into is kind of the last missing piece of the collection was the food and beverage offering. If you consider a traditional hotel, they've got all the marks of it, you know, every single room has a sign on the suite. They're built incredible. They're beautiful. The grounds are amazing. There's pools, there's wellness facilities, pool, saw and us bar, massages, turned down service, everything. The last thing that was missing was an F and B offering. So that's where I kind of come in where we've got Sarah Dining Garden, the restaurant itself. And then that will also have a food and beverage offering to all of the individual accommodations. So much like a hotel, like if you're staying one of the houses and click on a QR code, order what we've got called the pool side menu, which is basically like a room service menu. You can also have a private chef come and cook a full dinner in your house as well. So not a small undertaking with a young family. But obviously, I know this connection to the land to produce is something you're incredibly passionate about. You know, we've worked for many years on the delicious produce rules together for which you're both a state and national judge. And so I guess, you know, it's a very intentional move. What is your role going to be? Are you going to be mainly in the kitchen and you've got a team on the farm or are you doing it all? It's a mix to be honest with you. I'm lucky that I've ended up with incredible people. So I've got some amazing people in Lewin and Bosley that are in the kitchen. Then I've also got, you know, Caleb and Aaron out in the garden. There's a host of other people that help look after the property. So I suppose where I fit in is wherever I'm needed at the time. My end goal with it is hopefully to get to a point where if I come into work, I'm not needed anywhere. And I can go, if I feel like cooking today, I can cook. If I feel like going around and planting seeds all day, I can do that. If I feel like just taking guests on tours around the farm and showing them what we do, that's what I can do. Hopefully fingers crossed. So that kind of culinary director role where you just bring it all together. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so you mentioned when we were chatting earlier that for the last 12 months, you have been very involved in the farm side of it. So tell us a little bit about, you know, what you've been doing and how that's going to inform what you're going to be doing in the restaurant and on the menu. So for the since engine, I moved down south, we've had like a pretty extensive garden at home and I played around with a bunch of things. Some of which, you know, will kind of grow to an extent that I could take some into icebergs and things like that. But, you know, kind of I start I learned a lot and I stuffed a lot up as well. Yeah. And luckily I was close enough to a lot of different farmers and producers that I could call them for advice. Oh, yeah. Send them photos of things you go, what did I do wrong here? Why is this doing this? What's going on? So I'm lucky that I've had that kind of background before moving into this kind of what you consider. I suppose a market garden size. So I kind of know what works and what doesn't. And then for the last 12 months, we've been able to on that farm kind of play around with what grows, what doesn't, what and what works where I mean we are small in terms of the acreage and also the I suppose the land because it still is an accommodation that needs to look pretty. So it's not just a completely functioning farm that's got you know tractor rose tilled in. We've got what we call kind of the pretty garden, which is 10 meters from where you're we kind of sitting and that's where we grow. What you consider, I guess high rotation crops like things like let us leave lines going into winter all your brassicas and stuff like that. Then we've got what we call the ugly garden, which is kind of a patch down the back that goes a bit wild. So like over the summer we'd have like melons and cucumbers and stuff in there that would go a bit crazy. Now that we're getting into winter, we've got like long form radishes and different varieties of peas and stuff like that. Then we've built like a giant berm down one side that's perfect for natives because it's kind of built up and it's got incredible drainage. So the whole top of that's filled with edible natives and then on either side we've got kind of even uglier and longer things. So like one side it's completely full of like different onion varieties and elephant garlic and stuff like that. Stuff that would take up a lot of time and space in the pretty garden. And then on the backside of that berm, that's where we're growing kind of all of our berry varieties because they look beautiful, you know, for a couple months. Then they've got to be covered in fruit nets and then over the winter they go back to cane so they look ugly. Yeah, they're very brambly and. Yeah, so we've kind of got this, it took a little bit of a bit of juggling around to be honest to get the right balance between aesthetically pleasing and operationally efficient. Yeah, I can imagine. And so what was your biggest learning over the last 12 months? Like what, for example, did you think would be a no-brainer and didn't work? So much. I think a lot. I underestimated the impact the weather has when you're trying to grow things at scale. Like melons was the most true sign of it. Like I'd grown a couple melons at home but we're talking like one or two plants and like maybe four or five melons and I'd eat them. I'd be like, this is the best melon I've ever had. This is amazing. I'm a genius. And then trying to grow them in scale in a field and you've got like a pretty rainy summer and then huge amounts of heat. Then you've got kind of mole growing and things like that. It just, I left for like a week and a half and I came back and they were all just ruined. Wow. So a real newfound appreciation for what producers are doing on a sort of daily, weekly, and your basis subject to the weather trying to grow at scale so that they've got a financial, financially viable business. Yeah, it's crazy. And like we're pretty lucky with that that was just going to be a crop that we're going to save for seed or just eat ourselves anyway. But it did really make me consider, okay, cool. If I'm, if I've put all my eggs into this particular dish being on a menu and I'm trying to grow something for it, it doesn't work. What am I going to do? Like hypothetically, if I'd never done that test and I was dead set that hey, this summer we're going to have, you know, ham on and melon on or something with these incredible chanteray melons. And then they stuffed up. I would just put, well, what am I going to do now? Like I've planned that. That's been sold on menus, people have booked to have it, whatever. So it kind of taught me that I need to be a little bit more flexible in my approach to food and yeah. And menu planning. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so I think you've mentioned that you're going to be growing about 80% of the produce for the restaurant. What will you need to source to complement that? I think, and I've wanted to be honest with everyone from the start about it that 80% for me, I feel is achievable and really sticking and I'm comfortable with it. To say we'd do 100% is insane. Like to try and grow every onion and every carrot that we'd ever use in stock would just be ridiculous. And also the realities of like, you know, if someone, if a corporate customer books in a breakfast event and they want a violent toast, I'm not going to turn around to them and go, now, sorry, we've only got pumpkin. You know, there's the real, there's the commercial realities of running a business that also needed to factory in and that's kind of what that 20% is that, you know, if someone comes to us and they go, hey, we want to do this particular event or there's this particular activation or theme or something like that and I can't manage to grow everything. I want the freedom to be able to go, okay, cool. I can't do that. I don't have that currently. Let me source it from someone I know or someone that I know cares as much as we do and get what I can. Yeah. No, that makes sense. So that makes me think about how do you define then the term local in that, in the ingredients that you will be sourcing outside of what you're growing? I suppose it ties to not a hundred percent of the menus ever going to be local like and that's one thing that I've been really important to share in both the media and the menu planning and everything like that. Like, the best example of it is this mixed crudo plate we've got. It's got, you know, some incredible royal red prawns from Bombo, like, you know, 20 minutes north of us. It's got Craig Lukies, Blue Macro, tuna, wild kingfish, but that's also got Chris Bolton's coral trout and pass payly pearl meat on it. Okay. And, you know, those two things come from quite a fair distance away, but they're two beautiful products. I know the people that produce them. I know them well. I've used them for years and I love them. I don't want to hold back my customers from being able to eat and enjoy them. To me, that would be not the best use of, I suppose, my skills, but also I feel like regional diners often miss out on some of those luxuries of Sydney, if you will. Like, I can't think of the last time I went to a regional restaurant and got to enjoy Chris Bolton coral trout. Yeah. And the reality is it's actually not that hard. Like, in the same way that Chris flies it from cans to Sydney and I pick it up from the airport for icebergs, there's a truck going from Aladala Fisherman's cop to Sydney and back every single day. So there's no difference in the timeline of it going from, you know, the airport in mascot to icebergs as opposed to the airport in mascot to Barry. Yeah. Okay. For enough. Yeah. So I think your intention then is to make it very connected to the land and to the destination, but then also to really reflect the best of Australian produce as much as you can. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a great way of summing it up. I wish you wrote my media release. I could always help you with the next one. So does that sort of level of dependency on nature? Has it made you think really differently about the way you write a menu and engage in that whole process of planning the business? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I think the biggest thing that's changed is probably my idea of the aesthetics of food. Like when I traditionally come up with a dish at icebergs, I would go, okay, cool. This is delicious. I love how it tastes. I like it look away that we want it to aesthetically look. And often that'll be with incredible, beautiful garnishes or something like that that we're lucky enough to communicate with an amazing grower on and go, okay, cool. How many of these can you do a week? How many weeks are we going to have them for, etc. I don't necessarily have that luxury there that I've got growers I can fall back on, but I'm trying to avoid it if I can. So if I put pea flowers on a dish and then my pea crop fails, I can't be solely tied to that as an idea. So I think it's loosened up my idea of what the aesthetics of dishes need to be a little bit. Especially when a lot of those kind of finer garnished things and flowers, they typically are grown in tunnels and stuff like that, which I don't have. So I really am at the behest of nature a bit. Yeah, okay. So you're really moving from, you know, I guess, a sense of luxury city dining and having access to incredible produce from around Australia to very land-driven dining and having to really adapt to that. Has it made you think that chefs need to focus more on really reconnecting with the source more deeply? Yes and no. I mean, I think it would be good for every chef to have to experience what it's like to grow something. Like the easiest example I can think of is a bunch of chives. Most chefs get like, you know, a market bunch of chives from their provoderate kind of shows up and the majority of chefs will leave, you know, chop off the ends and then leave a couple inches down the bottom and they just go in the bin. Whereas when you're going out and you're having to kind of cut the chives with a set of scissors in the garden and you're bringing them back and they're not all perfect and you've kind of got to filter through the different tips and stuff like that and slice them and then you know, oh, okay, if I don't get the exact amount of chives I need out of this, I've got to go back out to the garden, it's going to take me another 10 minutes to harvest more. So you really try to make the most out of it. Different thought processes. Yeah, it's definitely different thought process. I think it's a great thing for chefs to know what goes into, especially young chefs, if they can be educated on how much goes into the products they're using, they might appreciate them a little bit more and also I think for the general consumer might appreciate the cost of things a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's easy to go a cabbage cost $2.00 at will worse, but not every cabbage is the same. Yeah, and it's that value proposition is it's really understanding what's gone into growing it and getting it, getting it to the kitchen to the table. Yeah. So you know, your transition and the opening of Sarah is a real, it's part of a bigger movement that I think is happening in Australia where chefs are really, they're rethinking their approach to produce on the plate and leaving cities and building more sort of destinations and regional areas. Do you think that's a trend? Do you see that as a trend? Was that influencing what you were thinking or this was just something you felt really personal and passionate about? I think so. I think, look, it's people are a victim of, you know, kind of the housing crisis in Sydney and how expensive everything is. We saw it in Newcastle a number of years ago, like 15 years ago, if you talked about Dine Out in Newcastle, there'd be next to nothing. Now you talk about Dine Out in Newcastle and it's a dining destination itself. And what that was was kind of 10, 12 years ago, there was this huge influx of kind of young families and people, you know, migrating up to Newcastle from Sydney. Some of them had incredible hospital experience in Sydney and they took that knowledge. They went to Newcastle, opened a bunch of things up. They then taught and trained local chefs who then go on to open things up. And it kind of pollinates this entire micro industry in a region. And I think that's slowly going to happen across regional, New South Wales as, you know, people transition through the industry and they get to a point in their life where they go, okay, I need to be able to buy a home. Unless I want a million dollar salary, I'm not really going to be able to buy a home in Bondi. So all right, where can I go where I can still do what I love and there's people there that are willing to pay for my product. Yeah. And yeah, I'm hoping it slowly does pollinate out. Nothing made me happier than, you know, if Sarr is a huge success and, you know, we're still around in 10 years time and seeing people that have worked with me over the years, they're going to open their own things in the region. Yeah. And do incredible work there. I think that'd be beautiful. It definitely feels like there's more and more coming into the market. I mean, three blue ducks have just opened up Baradu, Park Farm. It's a huge success. I just saw that you're having a bite ticket to go there on the week. Yes, well I was lucky enough to be down there a couple of weekends ago and you know what they've established there is incredible It's good for kids as well to say yeah, and all parents as well anyone that comes really and like that's one thing that I really loved and When we first moved down to Jarin Gong I did a series of pop-ups at a place called Dubkit like a luxury accommodation there Mm-hmm, and one thing that I loved was that people was when they came to these kind of pop-up lunches and dinners We were putting on because it was in a house not a restaurant people weren't treating it like a restaurant You know when you get a restaurant and you're stuck and you kind of three or four square meters I really love that between courses people would be going up and they'd be exploring the house So they'd be hanging out in the garden people would be you know having a cigarette or a cocktail outside and talking into Mingling and I I love that and something that I isolated from those events that I went okay Whenever I open a regional restaurant, that's what I want to be able to repeat So like when you come to Sare and you've had a huge meal, but you still want dessert your staff Cool, let's let's go for a walk around the garden have a little amara or a coffee We'll walk around the garden do it to a pop back to your table and it'll be ready or if you come with your family and you know The kids are getting a bit so crazy cool. We're on a farm. There's not a road there Cool run around go play with the goats go over there and see them whatever. Yeah, yeah, and they've got Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden as well, which is fantastic So yeah, sort of like you said the education for children is really really important and it makes me feel like restaurants are kind of moving away from feeling like status symbols to more experiential Opportunities, you know people really take their time and immerse themselves in it, which is Equally as exciting because I think it is it People walk away with a different experience and a different meaning of food. Yeah, definitely definitely so hospitality as an industry is it's under enormous pressure right now, you know economically Labor costs produce costs overheads You know margins us shrinking. It's a reality What does it feel like opening a venue in in this kind of economic climate? Does that something that worries you have you considered? Have you considered that or you're just all your boots in a really funny story for her that just straight after the announcement of me leaving Iceberg came out Bianca who I know really well as amazing generals She wrote the me leaving iceberg story for good food then a week later she did a story on On the amount of regional restaurants and use our whales that are closing I shared the story to her. I went maybe I'm just an idiot and she was lovely and she had these all the amazing words of support for me But I definitely did have that passing thought going this is scary. I mean, I suppose I'm lucky in a way that the project we've taken on has Multiple facets to it in that there's there's an economy business. There's something more than just coming to Eat food and and drink I suppose and I think we've really considered what the challenges that a lot of regional dining places face one of which being Alcohol If you're regional dining your destination. There's not Uber. There's barely a taxi in a regional town Yeah, so 50% of your clients can't really drink assuming two people are coming in a car whatever So look we've been really really consider that and the Beb team I'm working with we've made it so that every single cocktail on the list Also has a non-alcoholic option. Yep, and we've also teamed up with Volkswagen to get some electric combo vans So that we can ferry people from the town and there and their comms to and from the restaurant right? Okay Then you'll manage that for yeah for for the guests Okay, yeah, we isolated that that's one challenge that I think regional restaurants face is the spend on booze versus Sydney. Yep, and so we put a couple things in place to hopefully combat it Yeah, it's it's a challenging time for the industry all around and I feel now more than ever restaurants need to have What you consider an X factor or a point of difference or being incredibly smart operators like I'm seeing more and more chefs and restaurants Now that are going direct to producer to try and save markups when they can you see You know restaurant groups now more than ever going direct to the fish markets or Flemington markets where they can To try and save those dollars and it's a taking a huge amount of effort from them But you're seeing people pivot and do those things to try and yeah try and claw back a bit of that margin that we lose Yeah, well, I mean business models are having to adapt I don't know they're having to think differently and they're having to be a lot more thoughtful of those Costs that might be able to be managed better and I guess growing everything or 80% of what you're going to be using on the farm is going to be A big benefit in that sense, but then that comes with its own overheads and and management So it's kind of like I don't know. Do you feel like obviously As you mentioned alcohol people having to drive you having to sort of think of a solution to get people backwards and forwards Are there any other sort of pressures that you think a Regional hospitality venues face that are very different to cities? I think attracting people to the regions is definitely one like we're lucky that we're two hour drive from Sydney So if you finish work on a Friday arvo for those people that still do work in office on on Fridays You can jump in the car get down there by kind of seven check in Have have a dinner and still enjoy the weekend and then head home Sunday afternoon and you're still good We were four hours away. That'll be problematic like you know someone leave in Sydney at 5 p.m Getting out there maybe 9 p.m. Yeah 10 then having to leave first thing Sunday morning. That's a different different predicament So I'm conscious that while we're regional. We're still you know You can go back and forth from there in a day if you really wanted to if you want to just pop down for lunch from Sydney You can yeah, I feel for those people that are further out Um, it's hard to draw people out especially just for a weekend Um, and there's all kinds of challenges that face like You know, we saw just just then with all the all the drama on in the Middle East and the rising fuel prices People were staying in Australia more than heading over to Europe Everyone in regional hospitality saw this huge influx, you know kind of during COVID Of people traveling to to the regions because they couldn't go overseas Um, yeah, it's interesting the problems at face it and how incredibly up and down it is like yeah You know, you're experienced at icebergs as it was such an iconic destination that you didn't probably really have to Think too much about drawing people in you just have to manage to continue to give them an incredible experience But now I think that sort of that destination marketing piece is going to become so much more important to keep that sort of you know Constant flow of business coming through and marketing is that something that really Businesses have to drive would you feel like you're gonna be able to lean on on destination marketing organizations to help with that No, you've got to constantly drive but the other the other part of as well as well as like tourists which is such huge focus for businesses I think one thing some regional venues do miss out on is Doing something for the locals As much as tourists are your bread and butter your locals are what keep the lights on yeah, you know, and we that's also something we identified and we're conscious about So we've done certain things where like you know if locals book for I think it's up to four people or something There's a percentage off their bill, you know Monday to Friday. Yeah, or um, you know If they book a group for you know, they're birthday or anniversary or whatever like a large group will automatically upgrade them from a two course menu to a three Stuff like that to try and say to locals hey, this isn't just Targeted at tourists. We're also here to service you as well Yeah, and then also pass that I think especially in regional areas It's really hard to find somewhere to go just for a snack or a drink in the arvo or anytime of day most places are just open dinner or lunch One thing we were conscious of and I could be an idiot for it like if you people have said there's a reason why no one does this is A being open Mondays and then be we open from midday and that's just it if you want to roll in at 3 p.m And have you know a glass of wine if you snacks in the garden um before you know The kids get home from school or whatever or you know You do have a young family and you want to just pop in and have dinner at 5 p.m. Sure go for it So I think that's something we've been conscious of as well those times it probably times that locals and tourists are like a missing out on something Yeah, and it gives people the confidence to not have to think oh is it open should I check just get in the car We know it's going to be open. So you know, they have more confidence in in coming to visit. Yeah I guess that whole sort of topic the reason I was thinking about it was you know Obviously, it's been in the press in the last um to the six months that tourism Australia turned down The Michelin guide and there's been a lot of um different opinions around that which I didn't necessarily want to get into right now But um, I do want to know now that you are in original dining destination Do you think that was a right or a wrong decision because of course in the last few days South Australia have just announced that they have got the Michelin guide coming to South Australia Yeah, look I think it's incredible. I think it's like I I sent a number of chefs over in South Australia I know congrats messages It's amazing for them because you know, they've often missed out on that kind of coverage We're lucky enough to get in in New South Wales and and Victoria of a kind of dining guide whether or not um That's going to lead to new people coming like I don't know how many tourists are overseas going Oh, Australia just got a one star restaurant. We need to travel to Australia now to go there I'm not I'm not too sure on how that's going to pan out to be honest with you I do think it's great for places that didn't have a guide to be able to have something that kind of Easily assembles things into a recognizable category I suppose yeah, I think it's good I don't know say tomorrow New South Wales announced they were tourism New South Wales or whatever announced they were doing it for New South Wales Even if I got a star down there or whatever or whatever their other metric is I don't believe it would be a dial changer for us Like unless we were the only restaurant in the state to get one maybe then yeah But if you're in a sea of other one star restaurants, I don't necessarily barely see it being a huge dial changer or bringing people from overseas. Yeah. I think, you know, you heard, and I, I can't remember whether I read it in an article or maybe in the book, "Bray experienced a huge amount of influx from being the top 50 of people from overseas traveling to, you know, Melbourne and Victoria just to be able to go to Bray, which I think is incredible and amazing." So it is obvious that some, some guides or some lists do definitely have an impact on some people, but I think, yeah, I think being in the top 50 restaurants in the world versus obtaining a star probably have different, different impacts, I think. Yeah. I'm in your camp, I totally agree with what you've just said. And I guess what do you, in that sense, then, are thinking, you know, what we do so well and what guides can or can't influence? Is there anything that you hope Australia never loses in our dining scene as it gets more global attention? I hope we never lose the ability to be deeply Australian and a bit egalitarian. You know, I'd hate the idea that every single incredible Aussie restaurant needs to get that little bit stiffer or needs to have perfectly starched tablecloths to have a rating that equals business because the reality is there's not a single business owner myself included that if that was a dial change, it wouldn't do it. Yeah. We don't have tablecloths, but if I thought that was going to be a dial change if a revenue and I was suffering, you watch me go on iron tablecloths every day. So yeah, I just hope if they come here, they understand that, you know, while icebergs has tablecloths on in winter, we take them off in summer because it's light, it's breezy, it's fresh, we're by the ocean, that's what feels natural and normal in that environment. I don't want to, I don't want Australian restaurants, chefs, restauranters, whatever feeling constricted by those criteria. Those kind of rules, yeah. Those rules. Yeah, I think you're right. I think what Australia does so well in dining, whether it's at the top end or casual, is that it sets its own agenda. Yeah. And it's very honest about what it is and it's very based on place and that experience. And I think that's what we do so so well. I also worry that overseas guides, I suppose, wouldn't have the knowledge of the limitations Australia faces. Yeah. It's one thing reviewing a restaurant in France or Asia or the US or somewhere where wages and rent are a completely different proportion to running a restaurant in Sydney. Yeah. Where in a lot of those overseas restaurants, you can afford to have 20 chefs on in a kitchen. You can afford to spend a million dollars on a multi-nistove because your rent is and also a million dollars a year. Yeah. You know, I think the propositions and the criteria for restaurants overseas are very different to Australia. Yeah. I feel like reviewers in Australia at least for the most part kind of understand some of the difficulties restaurants face across the board and go, okay, cool. We know you can't have 20 chefs on to perfectly place 45 tiny flowers on a dish amazingly. We understand that's not the reality of a restaurant unless it's a restaurant that's propped up by some other kind of business that allows that restaurant to lose money. Yeah. I think also people underestimate the distance. So the size of Australia and the distance, the produce needs to travel if it's traveling into state or coast to coast. So that's something that I don't think anyone understands until they're here and they get a sense of the vastness of Australia. And that wage and rent trickle on, it has the same effect down to producers. Like ultimately, if you go to a fruit and veg market over in Europe, you see all this incredible stuff and you go, why don't we have this in Australia? Why don't we have that? And then you chat to a producer about it and you start to understand that, A, there's an insane cost to be able to import any type of new seed or new variety to Australia. Then you've got the risk of it just not working in our climate or the soil or anything like that. Then you've got all the environmental risks. Like when margins are already thin, it is very, very hard to convince any kind of farmer to take a gamble on doing something completely new or nuanced that hasn't been done before because there's a huge investment of costs that they could very, very, really never get back. Or on the off chance at works, how long is it going to take or how many of those units they're going to sell to claw it back? So I think there was also a limit in terms of produce we have to work with. The same way that we've got incredible things that the world's now taken and love. Like fingerlimbs is an example. We also don't have some things the rest of the world has. So yeah, I think understanding that that wage thing trickles down to producers as well and what we're able to source. Yeah, absolutely. It's a very good point. Well, we're going to wrap up with a quick fire round. What are you most excited about for the menu at Sarah Dining? I love Crudo. So the mixed Crudo plate is amazing. My arch nemesis on the menu is this omelette. There's a crab omelette on the menu. It's an old school chef thing. They're like, doing a perfect omelette is a sign of being a good chef. You know how to do it. And there's so few ingredients in there that if you do it perfectly, like it shows that you really care and you've honed in on it. My wife's sick of eating omelettes. We have eight chickens at home just so I don't have to buy all the eggs I've been testing omelettes with. Yeah, I'm still not perfect at it, but hopefully we'll get there. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to tasting the crab omelette when I come down. What's the most underrated Australian ingredient right now? Lume mackerel. Okay. Well, that might fit into my next question. Who's a South Coast producer more people should know about? Craig Luki that does the blue mackerel is obviously pretty incredible. I think Greg Mumm from Kangaroo Valley Retired Dairy Cow. Pretty amazing as well. And then these bombo prawns we just nominated for the produce awards. I love them. I love their named after bombo beach. Best train station in Australia. It's right on the beach. Okay. One thing Australia does better than anywhere else food wise. Coastal dining I feel. In Australia I feel like everywhere by the ocean seems to nail that feeling of light fresh vibrant food I can eat and dive in the ocean after. Yeah. It's pretty unique. One hospitality trend you're completely over. Every chef that just puts baramundi or farmed salmon on their menu because it's easy and constantly available. Good call. What do you hope people will feel the first time they eat a sorrow? I hope they feel like they've come over to my place and they just happen to be sitting on my veranda but there's someone doing the dishes and serving them. I want people to feel comfortable. I want people to feel like they can get up and explore. And yeah, I want people to feel like they've been welcomed and welcomed into essentially our home. It's a real, a true essence of hospitality. Yeah. And what does going straight to the source mean to you? Going straight to the source to me means knowing the name of the person that's grown everything I've done and knowing a little bit about not only them as a person but their business, their challenges, how they do it and being able to ultimately explain to other people how they do it. Nothing gives me more pleasure than someone asking me about a bit of produce we use and I watch the look on their face when I kind of get into this weird trance where I go back to that moment or time that I was with that producer and I walk them through every single detail and I love it. I love knowing what goes into it. I love knowing the challenges that people face and yeah, I love that I'm actually in a position to be able to hopefully support something. I was going to say, I think you know, your passion for that has really come through and everything that you've done at icebergs and I have no doubt it's going to be the shining light of Sarah Dining. But I think, you know, your support for producers and really proactively finding ways to make sure you can keep them on the menu and you can keep that sort of seasonality reflected in your food but in a way that really reflects what they do as well. So being able to adapt to their, you know, challenges, be it to do with weather or fuel or whatever it might be. But I think that's been such a stamp of who you are as a chef and I think that that's very exciting for your next chapter. I think it's also important just to remember that they're humans like when you meet someone and you see what they do and they send you a message and they just go, I have them able to fish for two months now. The weather's been horrible blah, blah, blah and they might have a huge run of some type of fish you don't necessarily want to use but you know them as a person and you know the challenges of the face and you go, okay, usually I just say no because I don't necessarily need her. It's easy. But then you go, okay, no, this person really needs this and I know them as a human and as a producer. How can I find a home for this? How can I alter what I'm doing slightly to help them out the same way that if I've got a huge event or a last minute booking or something, they've always helped me out. Yeah and that's that real connection with the land, the source of what you're doing and I think Tony and I are so excited for your next chapter and we can't wait to come down and visit you when you open. Thank you. Can't wait to have you guys down. Yeah, it's been great to have you in the studio. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening in. We really hope you enjoyed the conversation. You would be keen to hear from you if you have a story to share or a topic that we should dive into. Drop us a line. We always love hearing from you.