Muse for good food
FAR from lagging behind their city counterparts, regional chefs are now setting the standard - and maintaining it high - for dining across Australia. And the Hunter Valley is arguably leading the pack, with chefs such as Troy Rhoades-Brown's produce-driven cuisine redefining perceptions of regional food.
Chef and owner of Muse Restaurant and Muse Kitchen with wife Megan, Rhoades-Brown notched up yet another award recently, taking home the Unearthed Next Gen Chef gong at the Delicious Awards in Sydney. In 2014 he was named Electrolux Appetite for Excellence Australian Young Restaurateur of the Year, while back in the early days of his career in 2005 he won the prestigious Brett Graham Scholarship.
His restaurants have also earned high praise: Muse Restaurant was awarded its first Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide chef's hat within 18 months of opening. The same year it also collected the Restaurant and Catering Association award for best regional restaurant in NSW and Contemporary Australian Restaurant Regional NSW. In 2011, Troy and Megan opened Muse Kitchen at Keith Tulloch Winery. It picked up a chef's hat in its first year and has continued to do so in the years since.
In winning his latest award, Rhoades-Brown was praised as challenging perceptions of country dining and redefining regional cuisine. The chef agreed there has been an attitude shift in the last decade when it comes to dining outside of Australia's major cities.
"I do believe people's perceptions of regional dining has changed. Sure there are still wonderful rustic country restaurants around Australia serving huge portions, with casual, cheerful and sometimes clunky service and dining rooms with service procedures and food offerings that simply wouldn't survive a capital city's demand.
"These restaurants still have a wonderful place and a story to tell in regional Australia," Rhoades-Brown said. "On the other hand we have this incredible, strong wave of young industry leaders contributing to the regional Australia dining scene, serving beautiful refined and elegant food that represents their unique region: restaurants like Dan Hunter's Brae in Birregurra, Victoria, for example, which ranks 87th on the world stage."
The Muse chef said restaurants had a prominent role in fostering tourism in regional areas, bringing customers to not only the restaurants, but to the accommodation providers, wineries and producers too.
"In our case at Muse Restaurant and Muse Kitchen, the Hunter Valley is already an amazing destination thanks to established wineries, accommodation, and restaurateurs like Robert and Sally Molines. There has been a fantastic movement over the past 10 years with winemakers embracing a real focus on single-vineyard wines that express regional terroir [the natural environment].
"Likewise, the Hunter Valley dining scene [has] family-owned restaurants forming the backbone of the region, trying to put the spotlight on quality local ingredients and producers. We recognise local produce, wine and the relationships within this as our greatest asset."
Rhoades-Brown touches on the importance of produce to his acclaimed cuisine and a driver of all good restaurants.
"It keeps us passionate about creating. We work with and support these quality producers every week. Their farms or company names are worded on the menu," he said.
"From the salad grower to our local jersey milk man, they work so damn hard to produce something they are proud of - it becomes our responsibility not to mess it up."
The Muse team sources as much produce as they can locally, but are happy to look beyond the Hunter region if it means sourcing a superior product.
"We need something that is consistent, can meet supply and demand, and above all it must be delicious. If this means roaming a little further, then we will."
Muse's dairy, cheese, ducks, partridge, quail, chicken, olive oil, honeycomb, leafy greens, shoots and edible flowers all come from the Hunter Valley. Lamb comes from Armidale, venison from Orange and wagyu from northern NSW.
"It is a real pleasure having the opportunity to build relationships with local winemakers, cheesemakers, fruit and vegetable producers, animal and dairy farmers," he said. "These select people are committed to quality and they all have a unique story to tell."
Offering an insight into his creative process, Rhoades-Brown considers three things when creating a dish: what product will be the star of the dish (vegetable or protein); what is in season; and what ingredients and/or techniques are inspiring the chefs at the time.
Condensed in such a way, it might sound like a relatively simple process but the dishes it produces are anything but.
Rhoades-Brown highlights two dishes on the Muse Dining menu which showcase the produce-driven ethos at Muse: jerusalem artichoke cooked in butter with a roasted jerusalem artichoke puree, crisps and crumb.
"The variations of this beautiful season vegetable with Mudgee are served with yellow-box honeycomb straight from the rack, whipped local Binnorie Dairy brie and home-grown thyme and rosemary flowers."
Another prime example of Muse's cuisine is northern NSW wagyu short rib, slowed cooked for 70 hours then touched on the chargrill. It is served with potato puree and a local pinewood-mushroom dressing. The finishing touches are picked from among the Hunter Valley's famous vines.
"The dish is finished with a selection of locally foraged vineyard weeds. We work alongside some local viticulturist picking in-between the vines during winter when they lay dormant," the chef said. "Wall rocket, rapeseed flower, brassica leaves and wild fennel are all being picked at the moment."
Farmers and producers aside, the chef also takes his passion for produce home with him where he has three 50-metre vegetable plots which grow most of the herbs, garnish leaves and edible flowers for the restaurant, as well as a vegetables for his own family.
Current crops include upland cress, red vein sorrel, cornflower, borage, camomile, violets and nasturtium. He also grows rhubarb, savoy cabbage, heirloom carrots, broad beans, sweetpeas, lemongrass, juniper, wasabi, ruby grapefruit, blood orange and the unusual Buddha's hand citrus.
However, Rhoades-Brown said the vegetable patch is too small to produce a large proportion of the produce needed for Muse Restaurant and Muse Kitchen: "The true heroes in this field are restaurants like Margans at Broke, who commit to a serious ethos of estate-grown."
The exception is the annual tomato season when the plots produce a range of heirloom tomatoes that the chef said "almost meet the demands of the restaurant; I'll be hoping for over 250 kilograms this year!"
Despite awards and accolades filling his mantle, the chef acknowledges the most recent Delicious Awards Unearthed Next Gen Chef win was not just for him, but was a "pat on the back for our hard-working staff, who play such a big part in even the personal awards". Case in point, Rhoades-Brown did not collect the gong in person - he was cooking at an event on the Central Coast - so his wife Megan and sommelier Stephane Pommier went along.
He said while regional chefs were leading the charge in changing perceptions of regional cuisine, there was much more to a restaurant's success.
"I think a big part of the answer is the chefs realising that it's not about them. Great food isn't special without a great team delivering it. You can buy a chef but you can't buy a great restaurant," he said. "At Muse, we try extremely hard to over-deliver on expectations. It's essential that we surround ourselves with like-minded professional staff who care about what they do.
"Megan and I always try to lead by example with our passion and work ethic."
With a reservation book filling fast for the rest of the year, a number of on and off-site food events and a handful of charity and industry events on the calendar, the Rhoades-Browns set the bar high. The Muse team also changes the menu on an ongoing basis and are planning a website overhaul. They also recently completed renovations at Muse Kitchen which include a "beautiful" new conservatorium and kitchen extension.
Work aside, the chef also ensures he has time to spend with his family - with thanks to two "amazing" head chefs Mitchel Beswick and Sean Townsend.
Muse Restaurant is at Hungerford Hill Wines, Pokolbin. Muse Kitchen is at Keith Tulloch Winery, Pokolbin. Visit musedining.com.au.
Source: Newcastle Herald, Kate Tarala, 11th August 2015
Originally published as: Muse for good food
