There's something very exciting about getting to follow a chef's trajectory at somewhat a close range. I spoke to Hayden McMillan very soon after he landed in Melbourne from New Zealand. Next minute, he's got his own place, and is garnering accolades from all over. Hayden's considered approach to running his kitchen and creating his menu gave me a lot to think about. Good old fashioned Kiwi honesty goes a long way and Hayden has that in spades.
Thank you. How long have you been open now?
A year in March. The first week we opened, my wife and I found out we were having a baby as well.
Wow. The number of chefs I talk to who are opening places and also having babies seems crazy.
It’s very dumb. It wasn’t the best timing.
Congratulations on both. What’s it like having your own place?
It’s awesome. I was head chef at The Roving Marrow and that part feels the same although I feel more worried now that I’m the owner when I’m creating the menu about how it sits with the customers. Maybe because I’ve invested everything into it so I want to make sure that what I’m offering is what the customers like.
I think you always do that as a head chef, but sometimes you can just want to create something because you think it’s awesome and when you become an owner you think about the price point and whether it’s as approachable as it could be. We’re a little neighbourhood bistro, which is how we’ve pitched ourselves, but are we a little too fine dining? Those are the questions I ask myself now.
Clearly it’s working because I read things about Etta all the time.
We’ve just come out of our opening buzz phase and now we’re in an establishing phase which I guess is challenging. The hype has died down.
All the reviews and Broadsheet and all that have happened.
Yes that’s all in the past now. So I feel as though now we’re in the phase were we are building our reputation and trying to be as consistent as we can so that people come back.
Are you getting repeat business? Is it fulfilling your dream of neighbourhood bistro?
Yes it is. But in some respects I thought things would have happened faster; maybe that we’d have built a clientele faster and everyone in the neighbourhood would know about us. But we still have people who live over the road saying they didn’t know we were here. There are still so many people to discover us, which is exciting.
It is exciting. I think you’re a destination place as well. One of my friends from New Zealand came over for his 40th and had dinner here.
We have lots of kiwis coming here, which is good. Being a kiwi myself, I never really wanted to push the New Zealandness, but from a business perspective, it’s one of our strong suits. We had something in Cuisine magazine; the pumpkin dish which is one of our signature dishes in there with a little story about what we’re doing. Some nights half the restaurant is New Zealanders saying they read about Etta and the kiwi chef. They are so patriotic.
I think New Zealanders have the idea that Melbourne is the great food mecca, so to have a kiwi chef who is thriving in the city of food is exciting.
There are a lot of New Zealand chefs over here. Ben Shewry, Dave Verheul, Peter Gunn. There are a lot of kiwis.
I feel as though New Zealand is really coming into its own now on the food front and there is more of a push to make New Zealand a food destination but there is also that added special kiwi flavour we have. Do you think growing up in New Zealand has helped you on your path?
I feel like kiwis, because of our upbringing have a good work ethic. I think Australians do too, but maybe not to the extent of New Zealanders. [laughs] The entire kitchen here are kiwis. There are four of us and when we come overseas, we just really want to do well. We’re a small nation that likes to over-achieve. We’re not blinded by the light.
In saying that, I think if you do anything and put in the hard work and determination, eventually you’ll get there. I was brought up around hard work, grafting, no nonsense. I also worked in a lot of good restaurants in New Zealand: French Café, Merediths, Vinnies. In my opinion, I was working with the best chefs in New Zealand. Working in those restaurants, there was an international feel already. You could put those restaurants in Melbourne and they would be super successful.
So many young kids want everything now, it has to be immediate. Society promotes immediacy but nothing came to anyone without hard work.
How have you grown and evolved since the last time we spoke?
I think when first I arrived in Melbourne, I was trying to make an impact more than doing food that was more natural to me. Here, we’re still trying hard but we’re not trying too hard. We do what works well for us. I find a lot of inspiration in produce so over half the menu is vegetarian and we try to be as sustainable as possible. I think all restaurants should be. They say they are, but they’re not really.
We haven’t had beef on the menu since we opened. I don’t like beef. I think it’s over-priced and what it does to the ozone layer and global warming is terrible so I don’t really believe in using beef. And it is so expensive, which is sort of good because it will price itself out.
As far as fish goes, we’ve never had snapper or John Dory or any of those really popular fish. We like to have a lot of vegetables. The best thing is when a burly bloke comes in and you can tell that he’s heard it’s a vegetable focussed restaurant even though we do have three amazing protein dishes as our mains. You can tell he’s been brought in kicking and screaming by his wife but they always walk out super happy and ask, ‘how did you make that pumpkin or that eggplant taste like that?' Everyone has their own ideas about cauliflower or carrot and if you can elevate them past their expectations, that will stick. That’s what I think part of being a chef is.
Proteins have their place. I’d love to do all vegetarian. I’m not vegetarian but I do like cooking it. That’s how it’s evolved really. We’ve refined things. It’s a bit more simple. We are just focussing on deliciousness really.
How do you lead your staff? Are you a shower or a teller or a bit of both?
I try to be all of the above. I’m not a shouter. I used to be. Well, not a shouter but sometimes you let emotions get the better of you and you lash out. Usually it’s at a situation and not an individual and you let out a few swear words, but now, I think as you mature you learn that when you lose it, you are actually losing the moment, you lose the service, the momentum, the focus. I try to lead from the front and try to inspire the guys.
We try and work on new things that everyone is excited to be doing, which is important. I like the kitchen to be a democracy where everyone has their say. Nothing goes on the menu that we don’t all like. We have to be all into it. It’s not a dictatorship.
How often are you changing the menu?
It’s a constantly moving piece. As soon as something is out of season, we change. Mussels are slightly out of season now and calamari has just come in, so we are in the process of changing that dish. Pine mushrooms are on their last weekend so we are looking at replacing that. As soon as something is dropping out of season, we replace it with something that’s coming in.
Last time I spoke to you, you’d only been in Melbourne a few months to open The Roving Marrow and I guess now you have more of an idea of suppliers and what’s available and what you can play around with.
Yes and meeting other chefs and making connections. When I left The Roving Marrow and we were opening this place, it was a good 10-month process, I went to the McConnell group and was floating around those restaurants helping out, basically as a temp. I met their forager, Nick. Dave [Verheul] uses him as well. He’s an amazing guy. He gets saltbush, watercress, all wild products like mulberries when they come in; wild sorrel, fennel pollen. Then you’d work at a restaurant and they’d have a connection with a farmer and you’d get on the farmer’s list and then you’re developing relationships with farmers and that’s cool. Then you can get those things that other people can’t get. Working with organic farmers and the produce is incredible.
I had a chat to at and he is really in love with Gippsland and he was saying that he takes all his chefs out to the farms so they can see where and how the produce is grown and that has made them more sustainable because they can see the effort that it takes to grow the vegetables. too talks about growing her own vegetables for her restaurant in Trentham, , and she said it changed her whole way of cooking when she realised how much energy and effort it takes to get your seed through to that end point and so she has more respect for what she is putting on the plate.
Yes and when you taste something you have grown yourself, it tastes better and you don’t want to mess with it. I feel as though it is an over said thing now that you find the best produce and do the least to it, but you’ll find that only one per cent of the restaurants in the world do it.
I was surprised to hear another chef say that nowadays because staff wages and cost are so high that restaurants are getting in filleted fish rather than filleting themselves. It feels as though techniques are being lost through high costs. What a shame.
Yes. Techniques are being lost. I think techniques such as filleting fish will be lost any way as fishing becomes unsustainable.
A lot of people don’t see it the way I do and everyone has a different idea of what being sustainable is. My idea is that if the fish is red or orange listed on those lists of what’s good or bad to eat, we don’t use it. But other people will put it on their menu. You can get certifications these days which can be bought. I have my beliefs and I talk about it with the guys so they can understand them. We don’t use prawns or crab. We use lots of oysters and mussels. King George Whiting is the most sustainable fish in Australia and we’re using that. Ora King is a really sustainably farmed salmon from Marlborough and we’re using it. It’s pretty hard.
What advice would you give to young chefs coming into the industry now. Would you have changed anything about your pathway?
I reckon I did pretty well. I always picked out the best places to work in. I always had the idea that if you want to be a good chef, you have to work in the best places and that will be your norm. You also have to turn the blinkers off. I think it is so hard in this day and age to remain focussed. There is so much out there about chefs working 70 hours a week and depression and so on. I don’t think it’s just a hospitality problem. I think it’s a problem in society in general. Instragram is supposed to connect so many people but it is disconnecting everyone from reality. I don’t do it any more. I cancelled my account. Stay off those things.
I think if you are really passionate about something and you want to do well, you are going to have to work 70 hours to achieve that. If you want to be an amazing brain surgeon…do you think brain surgeons are just working a 40-hour working week and not dealing with pressure and stress? Or a lawyer, or an investor? Anyone who wants to be the best they can be in any profession, they are going to have to go above and beyond what is expected of them. If you have that mentality, you’ll get there. I don’t feel I’ve ‘got there’ yet. Yeah, I’ve got a restaurant in Melbourne and it seems like such an achievement and I guess I’m 33 years old and I’ve only been here for three years, but I never really sit back and think I’ve made it. You know, it’s winter now and we’re a little bit quiet…
If you compare yourself to everyone else, you’ll always have that mindset of not fulfilling your dreams. My best advice for young chefs is be prepared to work really hard and pick out places where the food really excites you. If you for for enough people like that, you will build a reputation in the industry for having worked well in good places and opportunities will come to you. I feel like society is crippling everyone for going hard.
Work hard, but you have to know your reason for doing that. When I was doing 70 hours a week we were doing the best food in New Zealand and it was exciting. I was constantly learning. If you're doing 70 hours and you're not learning and you're not excited about the for then you shouldn't be at that restaurant.
The thing I tell the guys is that you have to put in the hard work. So many young kids want everything now, it has to be immediate. Society promotes immediacy but nothing came to anyone without hard work.
60 Lygon Street, Brunswick East