Jacob Muoio

Conversation with a chef: Hi, Jacob. Thank you for your time today. We’re at Moondrop, and I came in here maybe a couple of weeks ago, and I really love it. It’s Shanghai 1920s theme. 

Jacob Muoio: That is the general vibe that we’re going for. Paris of the East, the height of the Shanghai jazz era. It’s coming together. 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the ghosts of venues past, and I guess this space has quite a big ghost. When you walk into somewhere that has had such a big name and it’s empty, where do you start? 

I guess you start with trying to make it your own. We got this place, we got the lease, and it was very much a bar that was ready to go. The last owners left, and they left a lot of stuff here: all of the furniture and paintings and everything on the walls. We could have opened up and just swung the doors open and started slinging alcohol, but we didn’t really want to be stepping into someone else’s suit. We wanted to make it our own, change the bar over, change the deck, change the colours. 

Where did the idea for that Shanghai 20s jazz come from? 

I think that was mostly Steve, because he gets really excited about things and he and Jesse have had a couple of trips to Shanghai recently. I think he was just super excited to bring that energy back with him. 

Let’s talk drinks first, the menu is really playful and there’s lots of pop culture references and fun references. When you’re setting up a cocktail bar, do you start with the drink and then the name, or do you start with the name or the story, how does that go? 

Jesse, drinks question for you. I’m saying we start with ingredients and flavour profiles, and then we work on a name from there.

Jesse: Honestly, inspiration comes from anywhere. The Szechuan Slipper Jacob named.

Jacob: The Szechuan Slipper was named first and we worked backwards from there. 

Jesse: Sometimes the name helps build the other ingredients. With that one, obviously we wanted a Szechuan, a hot sauce, it’s like a Japanese Slipper, a classic Melbourne drink, we fell easily into the name. The Chanhattan, for example…

Jacob: That was also named first. I just thought it would be funny. 

Jesse: We love whisky and Manhattans, and because of Steve Chan, we thought Chanhattan. 

Jacob: We played around with it a bit at Sleepy’s, trying to work coffee into something that Steve might enjoy, but it is also whisky-based, because he’s famously not the biggest fan of whisky. We also have an excess of coffee. 

Jesse: Otherwise, the name is usually the hardest thing for me. Jacob is a man of many talents. 

Jacob: I love good puns. If I can think of a good pun, I’ll throw it at Jesse from across the room, and he’ll make a drink out of it. It’s the best way to go. 

Jesse: Like the Me and Ube, I feel like some of your punniness fell off onto me and I was using Ube. 

Jacob: I think that’s the benefit of having a two-year-old is I can use all of the worst dad jokes and puns and work it into something interesting. The more the menu goes on, the more dad jokes that somehow make it into the menu. 

I guess once you get on that wavelength, then the puns are everywhere. 

Jesse: It brings a bit of fun back to it as well. A lot of bars are going for that very minimalist, ‘this is an ingredient and the whole drink is based off this, like a one word name.’ We want it to be smart casual where you can come in, have a laugh, dress up to the nines and enjoy a celebratory experience, but we’re all human, we’re all down to earth, and we just want to bring a bit of our personality out. 

So now talking food, that’s your domain. Where did you start with that? 

Jacob: I started at Sleepy’s a year ago and it was very much my first foray into Chinese or Chinese Australian food, which is really good for me because I get really excited about ingredients and doing different things. I get bored very quickly. It’s always good to read about different foods and different ingredients and try to work with that. We have a very small menu here, so we have to keep it tight and interesting. Some of this stuff is just stuff that I really loved and wanted to work in somewhere. We had pork and chrysanthemum dumplings on, and it’s not really something that white people like us would eat a lot, chrysanthemums. It’s something that you find in your garden, and you see when you’re out on your walks, and I actually really like that flavour in the dumpling. It’s something that Steve does occasionally, where we stir fry, or wok toss chrysanthemum, and fold them through rice cakes, and it’s a super simple stir fry. It’s just super delicious and aromatic. I get really excited about ingredients and trying something different, and also forcing someone else to try something different, which is always fun. 

Are you thinking about how they’ll match with the drinks, or does everything go with everything? 

I think most things go with everything. I’m trying not to do anything that will clash because you don’t want to have extreme flavours. The whole point is that people can come here at midnight and have a bunch of drinks and have some dumplings and enjoy themselves. The other stuff is very simple. We have cured meats on the menu, because that’s what the kitchen can allow for, and I ferment cabbage, and we do pickles and stuff to go with it. 

When you were learning about Chinese food for their first time, how do you learn new things as a chef? Are you reading books? Are you watching things online? I guess Steve’s a good source of information. 

Steve is good. He was basically in charge of nights for six months when I was at Sleepy’s. I did the daytime, got the day menu together. There were a lot of dishes that he wanted to do, that he might not really have had the experience to be able to execute the way that he wanted to, which is where I kind of came in and helped him get things together, which helped me to learn about the ingredients and the techniques, and it helped him to learn about execution and plating. We worked really well together. Then I took over the night menu. I do a lot of reading. The internet is amazing for that sort of thing. Shout out to Nagi, because she has so much on there and all the work is put in and it’s really helpful to be able to read that sort of thing, and you don’t necessarily have to do it exactly like she does it, but you can riff on it. There’s also The Woks of Life which is amazing because it’s just generations of knowledge that they’ve decided to put out there and it’s free to read and it’s free to learn and it’s a really good way of learning about techniques and ingredients. Then I’ve got three or four Chinese cookbooks at home. I borrowed a few from Steve that have been in his family for the last 50 years, and it is super interesting reading about the history of dishes, and how a lot things were perfected 6,000 years ago, or whatever, and then they just kept it going, and it didn’t really change much. It’s really nice to read about that sort of thing. 

Are you a note taker, or do you absorb all of that, and then give it a go and adapt from there? 

I take occasional notes. I’m have a tendency to take notes and write them on paper, and then lose them. Then I’ll come back to the idea later and have to re-research everything. Otherwise, I’ll find something that I want to do and I’ll get ridiculously carried away with it. I’ll work on that obsessively for days, weeks, or months, until it’s perfect and then I’ll get bored and I’ll take it off the menu. 

Because of that boredom, will the menu change quite often? 

I’d like it to. Especially here. We’ve already had to change it once since the soft open, just because we didn’t really know how food service was going to work here, because the kitchen is ridiculously small and ill equipped. The menu at Sleepy’s is a monthly menu, so I change little bits here and there every month, but I also do small changes every couple of weeks to keep myself interested and to keep customers interested in coming back. 

Are you going between the two at the moment? 

Yeah, I’m still full time at Sleepy’s, I do five days there. We’re open for four nights a week. I do full-time there, and I prep food for here, and at the moment, Steve is running service in the kitchen here most nights. 

We spoke off mic about you having a very young family and how chefs seem to like the challenge of having a lot of things going at once. 

You kind of just have to do it. I was happy with what I was doing at Sleepy’s, and I very well could have not committed to opening a bar at the same time, but you just have to. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. If you work too much, you fill in the gaps, you can hire someone to help you out. We’re looking at hiring prep hands and kitchen staff. 

That’s a good philosophy. You don’t sound like you get flustered; you’re able to work through challenges. 

I don’t get flustered very easily. It takes quite a lot. It takes a snowball of errors to get me flustered. If we’re in the middle of service and I’ve got a full docket rail and dockets are spilling over the side and there’s a mistake, that’ll fluster me. Otherwise, I’m generally pretty calm and casual in service. Shit goes wrong, it doesn’t really matter. Most of the time people are okay to wait a bit if they need to wait. If they’re not okay, then they don’t need to be here. 

Also, if you let people know what’s going on, if they understand the situation, people are usually reasonable. It sounds like you’ve got a really great team. Did you all find each other at Sleepy’s? 

The opening team: myself, Steve and Jesse all work at Sleepy’s. Jesse came on quite recently after his very long stint at Above Board, and he was looking to have some fun, and Steve and Jesse did Fried Rice Sundays and doing cocktail specials, and having a good time of it. We all just got along really well. We have some really good staff here. Our bar manager is Jesse’s friend, and I guess protégé, they’ve worked together here and there for a while. Our venue manager is great; another friend of Jesse’s. Our assistant venue manager is Jesse’s partner. It’s nice to have a family vibe. 

I feel like that’s what hospitality is, isn’t it? I want to hope that the people who are serving me, for want of a better word, like being there and then it’s a good time for them as well. 

You can always tell when they don’t. You can always tell when someone hates their job and they’d rather not be there. It’s not nice for anyone. It’s nice to work with people that you enjoy the company of and you could gladly spend eight, 10, 12, 14 hours with. 

I love it, and I’m good at it, and it’s all I really ever wanted to do. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I think when I was a kid, I applied for a job at Blockbuster Video, and they were like, no. And that was it. I thought, oh, yeah, there’s the kitchen. I’ve worked in kitchens since I was 15, 16.

Jacob Muoio, Moondrop

What were you doing before Sleepy’s?

I was at One Trick Pony for a year. I was the head chef there for nine months or something. It was a fun stint. It wasn’t really something that I’d planned to do. I was at Westwood before that, and I burnt out a little bit. I thought I didn’t want to do it anymore. So I took an extended break and then ended up working at One Trick Pony, basically just washing dishes and peeling onions initially. 

There’s obviously a call to the kitchen. What do you think that is? 

I love it, and I’m good at it, and it’s all I really ever wanted to do. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I think when I was a kid, I applied for a job at Blockbuster Video, and they were like, no. And that was it. I thought, oh, yeah, there’s the kitchen. I’ve worked in kitchens since I was 15, 16. 

Always in Melbourne? 

No, I’m from Perth. I did a work placement when I was at school, where I did baking for a few weeks, which was waking up at 1 a.m. and going to work at 2.00 and working until 10 in the morning, which I just loved, even though you can’t sleep during the day, so everything kind of gets a bit fucked up. Then I was just a kitchen hand and a dishy for a while until I got an apprenticeship. I moved to Melbourne after I finished my apprenticeship and worked in a restaurant. It was my first restaurant, and it was a lot. 

From a demanding hierarchy point of view? 

It was something that I hadn’t experienced and definitely terrified me. I think when I was really young, I wanted to be a chef, and I knew how demanding it was, and I think I decided that I didn’t really want to do that, and I got into baking instead, and I did pastry. Then I moved to Melbourne, I had no money, and I needed a job, and I knew a guy that knew a guy that was looking for staff. I ended up working at Circa in St. Kilda. That was my first restaurant gig straight out of an apprenticeship. 

That venue carries a lot of weight. 

It was hectic. It was great, but it was a lot. 

It’s a beautiful place. I was listening back to a conversation I had with Esca Khoo in 2021, who I’m also speaking to this afternoon and he was very honest about the toxicity in kitchens. It makes me really sad to hear that, because I feel like, certainly now, when you’re working here, I would believe there’s no such thing here. Do you think it is shifting in the industry? Does it depend on the venue? 

It definitely has shifted in the last 10 years. It definitely still exists in some kitchens, but not any kitchens that I would be a part of. I think you get to a certain point where you realise that it doesn’t work and it’s not fun and nobody enjoys it. But I’m sure if you go to a two or three hatted kitchen, you might experience it. 

I think that’s what he was saying, that in fine dining, there’sa lot of pressure and a lot of precision to maintain the hats or the stars. 

That being said, I’m sure there are plenty of hatted places, that are not like that where they’re a family and they enjoy what they do and they love it and you can see it and taste it in the food. And then you’ve probably got places that don’t have a hat where the chef is a 20-year Michelin fucking burnout that treats his staff like shit. 

I guess it’s about breaking the cycle, and as you say, not getting flustered, if people could all learn from you and realise that it’s just food at the end of the day and things can be fixed. 

It’s important because it’s what we do and it’s what we love and it’s our entire lives, but it’s not important enough to kick up a stink when stuff doesn’t go your way. I’m lucky enough to have people in the kitchen at Sleepy’s that are young and chill, and they have fun, and we get along, and it’s great. 

How do you go with reviews and things? Do you avoid them? Do you read them? What do people say? I’ve only seen positive things for here and for Sleepy’s. But how do you navigate opinion? 

I don’t pay too much attention to it. I feel like every place I’ve worked, we’ve had our locals and our regulars, and they come in every day. We have people that come in to Sleep’s every day, even if it’s 35 degrees, and they order a hot bowl of congee, and they order pork belly, and they get their Chinese broccoli on the side, and they love it, and they come back day after day after day, and if someone comes in and they have that same dish, and they don’t like it, and they leave a review, 2 stars, this wasn’t for me, I think it was shit. My thoughts are: don’t come back. That’s fine. You don’t have to enjoy everything. 

That’s the problem with reviewing, it is so subjective and people come with different baggage or different experiences behind them as well. 

Even professional reviews. Someone does get paid to go to restaurants and eat and taste the food and test the atmosphere, and then write about it, and it’s not always what you want to hear or what other people think. It’s definitely someone’s opinion and that opinion is also formed by other restaurants that they’ve been to and other food that they’ve tried, so it’s not really based on a particular criteria. It’s just, I didn’t have it this way when I went somewhere that I loved. Therefore, it is less than that. 

Yes, I believe it’s a model that should change, this top down critique. 

I really appreciated what Dani Valant was doing. I don’t know if she still does it, but she goes to a place, and she eats it, and she recommends it. That’s the end of the article. Or she doesn’t recommend it, and she doesn’t write about it. She’s had places she’s gone to, where she didn’t have a good experience, and she’s been open about it: I went to a place, I didn’t have a good experience, I’m not going to write about it. The people that were at the place that she went to know that she’s talking about them, and they can work on that themselves, but it’s not an open thing where everyone sees that she had a shit experience at this restaurant. 

Dani Valant, for me, is the standard. She’s an icon. She’s such an excellent journalist.  You’ve been open two weeks? 

Officially two weeks. 

How’s it going? 

It is going well. We encountered every issue that you will encounter with a new venue. The fans don’t really do much. They look good, but they don’t really move any air around. The air conditioner in the bar is dead and we have a technician on their way to fix it. The walk-in freezer went down in the soft opening, almost immediately. 

How old is this building? 

Well, we’ve got bluestone walls, so you’d have to assume it’s real old. There’s still a lot to work on. We’ve got it open, and we’ve got people in, and people are enjoying it, and we’re just going to tweak it and work on it in our spare time. 

When I came in, I sat up at the high bar along the wall, and the lamp was so beautiful, my drink was so beautiful, and like the marjong kind of tiles, so beautiful. I think I took one of my best photos ever and obviously put it on an Instagram story. If people come in and they don’t post to social media, what do you hope they’re taking away with them? What do you want people to leave with, whether they do or don’t post on social media? 

I just hope that they come back, or that they have a kind word to say about it to their friends. We’re on a main street, but it’s still suburban, and we want people to be able to come in on a Thursday night, and have a drink, enjoy it, and go home and tell their friends, and come back in three weeks or a month. It doesn’t really matter, as long as, as long as they have a good experience and we make a good impression. I don’t really mind about social media. It’s difficult because you have to be on top of it and you have to push and repost stories and get people engaged. It has to be constant, but I’m just happy for people to come in, have a good time. Word of mouth still exists whether it’s on the internet or not. 

Absolutely. I guess with all that in mind and your experience of multiple places over a few years, what would your advice be to a young person starting out as a chef or in hospitality in general? 

Find a place that you love, find people that you love. Don’t settle for a place where the chef’s a bit of a cunt, but the food is good. I’s not worth it, in my opinion. I’ve still got friends that are my age, that chase the hats or the stars, and they work for people that are just shitty. The food is good, but I just don’t see the point. Especially if you’re a young chef, you can make a name for yourself. You can even go to a small place where they don’t really do the kind of food that you want to, and maybe you can change it and put your own dishes on and make a name for yourself and for the business. I just think you need to enjoy it. I’ve got chefs that work with me at Sleepy’s, and they have fun, and I hope that they never leave. But they probably will. If you’re not having fun, what’s the point? Make some food that you enjoy, you hope other people enjoy it. It’s all that really matters. 

Moondrop, Level 1, 15-156 Gertrude Street