On the day I chatted to Tom, it was his 32nd birthday. He has plenty to celebrate. Co-owning three popular restaurants in Melbourne with your brother and best mate is not something to downplay. And Cheek is super cool. It spaces the fun out over three levels. The first floor I knew about and boasts a restaurant with a backlit wall of wine bottles and a dry ageing fridge sporting a lot of meat. Tom gave me the tour up one floor to Peaches, the ever so pretty blush-pink bar with suede booths and terrazzo tables and then up yet another flight of stairs to the rooftop where you can be king or queen of all you survey as well as toasty warm now the temperature has dropped because of the massive heaters and underfloor heating cleverly wrangled into the bench seats.
Hi Tom. I came into Cheek not long after you opened and we sat right there, looking out through the plane trees and it was amazing. I keep meaning to go to Dexter, but it’s just so far…and I know it isn’t actually that far!
It’s a real locals restaurant which is good. It’s nice because we see so many regulars and we can do funner, well, more consistent meat and two vege there, which is sick. Now that we’ve got such good reviews for Dexter, and that’s built off the locals because we have a good rapport and the food is consistent. I feel like sometimes we have people travelling from ages away and they think it’s a bit different to what they thought, as in a bit more casual but then they have the food and think it’s delicious. We’ve dumbed that one down quite a lot from when we opened to get that fun casualness in.
Did that start off as mainly barbecued meat…and meat doughnuts?
We knew it was going to be for the locals, but we wanted a theme to it. We’ve come from a butchery and meat background and that was something we were always going to do and we thought we’d do steak with some good quality produce and that would be all we do but the menu went into a really big meat focus and we jumped on the theme a bit more. We were getting some great stuff in, so we thought why don’t we offer some small variations. We didn’t know how that was going to go because we were in an area that is quite progressive in terms of vegetarianism. But what we’ve found is because we have our theme, people know what we are and we attract the clientele that want to come and everyone is enjoying themselves, which is good.
So you don’t get any militant vegans in?
No. We’re pretty confident with what we buy. We don’t buy cheap meat or meat that hasn’t been farmed correctly or shares the standards we set for ourselves. It’s an easy sell for us because we can say we have been to these farms, we’ve seen what is going on. We’re proud of that. We’re not just doing a steak menu using stuff we can get a good margin on; that’s not what we’re about, so we don’t get any negative press about it. Also, we do use a lot of offal…at least originally we were. When we first started, we were heavy on the offal, getting pigs' heads in and different types of tripe. We do still do it through our specials and if we try something more experimental, it’ll be through our snacks. The menu now is more clean cut, lesser used steaks and things. We’ve stripped back the menu so we could dumb down the meal and keep the casualness to it. Offal seems to make people think of fine dining.
It’s something we are thinking about and talking a lot about at Cheek as well. We have the facilities here that allow us to do a lot more than we can at Dexter. We have a dry ageing fridge where we can hold things for 16, 20 or 30 weeks, whereas at Dexter we started off with only a bar fridge, so we were really limited in what we could do. Also, here we’re in the city and have access to everything. We have charcoal ovens and pacojets and all the stuff we can have some creativity and fun.
Now, as we did with Dexter, we’re reflecting on how well we’ve done and the kind of experience overall the clientele is having. Fine dining restaurants do that; we want the butter to be a certain temperature, the person serving you knows exactly what to do…but in casual restaurants you can also do that and in subtle ways. We’ve done a minimal fit-out here, which lends itself to fine dining. We’ve just tried to casual it up and by that, I mean we let the staff have their own personalities running through the space, we want people to feel as though it’s not so stuffy. We’re selling a higher priced product and the aged steaks and so on are the highest quality you can get in Australia, but it doesn’t need to be stiff.
We want to get away from the Melbourne casual restaurant, so it’s not that…people know how to dine in those places. They are very food-focussed, so you go into Cumulus and you’re really interested in the food. There’s no doubt we want people to be interested in the food and for the food to stand alone, but what we want as well is for people to be really engaged and have fun in the restaurant.
So that’s informed by Dexter and by the ideas you have workshopped and thought about? Is anyone else doing that or are you saying, this is your own style?
That’s the thing. All the staff and Sam (Peasnell) and Adam (Goldblatt), the other owners, have been brought up in Melbourne eating at really great restaurants all the time. There are a few pioneers in subtle changes that have done really well. When Chin Chin opened around 10 years ago, there was the Cumulus, Coda model that was dominating; just below fine dining, serious casual dining. Chin Chin came in with a brashiness, a poppiness, louder music, faster service and it took off at that time. Since then we’ve seen that but a more refined version of that and it has become the Melbourne style of eating. Everyone from Melbourne plays the game. They come in and do the same thing. What we’re trying to do and I don’t think we are quite there yet, to be honest, but we are forever working at it…we’ve only been open for four months.
We want to pioneer what we want, which is getting people to enjoy themselves in the space and then they go, jeez that food was good, as an afterthought. They walk away and think, that was great. The steak is great, but that’s not what is dominant. We want people to think it’s a fun restaurant to be in and it doesn’t need to be because of posters everywhere and loud music. We want people to feel casual and then they can use that with their friends how they want to use it. We don’t want the food to take over because it is too fancy or has flowers on it or is Instagram-worthy; we are pretty much doing meat on a plate with beautiful sides. The flavour is big but there’s nothing that makes you pull your phone out and take a photo. It’s just delicious and part of a bigger picture. It’s something we are working towards.
That’s interesting because I think that it’s a holistic hospitality approach you might have because you’re a chef and a co-owner, so you are thinking about everything. I’m not saying head chefs in other places don’t think about those things, but, for you, you’re going for that overall feel. Across three venues.
There are positive and negatives to being a chef and an owner, especially with multiple venues. I work at Dexter for two services all day lunch and dinner Saturdays and Sundays and then I work here for two shifts on Wednesdays and Thursdays and then it gives me time to work upstairs on Friday night when it’s at its busiest. I get to walk around the venues. One of the biggest strengths of every kitchen is consistency and that means that all the staff know what’s going on. If I say, hey mate can you grab this, he knows where it is, and coming in to work two shifts is very hard, especially in a senior role. Adam is another owner and he runs this kitchen full time and I swan in and swan out between them all. The way that can be achieved is by taking a lesser role in the kitchen during service times, so just focussing on the charcoal grill or something. I can still see what’s going on, but it’s less determined by me rather than running a pass or running a section.
It could be hard for a senior chef to give up that sense of control.
You have to bite your tongue, that’s for sure. You have to trust your staff and know that they are all in it to make good food as well. They are all involved here.
We don’t want the food to take over because it is too fancy or has flowers on it or is Instagram-worthy; we are pretty much doing meat on a plate with beautiful sides. The flavour is big but there’s nothing that makes you pull your phone out and take a photo. It’s just delicious and part of a bigger picture. Getting great produce in, treating it well and keeping it simple-looking and being about flavour is pretty much where we want to be.
What were you doing before Dexter?
I was living in London for a few years and then went to New York. In London I worked for a few places that were along the meat lines. I really liked Borough Market there. They had big butcheries and I worked in those so I could learn some of that, which was awesome. From there, Adam and I worked in a pizza shop in Hawthorn when we both got back, so we got into pizza. It was really good because the two owners were there doing what we were wanting to do; open a small joint, be there every day, learning to run a small business. When they started to expand from a small 12-seater we were there for that. We weren’t just there to. learn pizza, we learned how to run a business and saw how hard they worked. We all worked there at one stage. It was really good for us. Then we opened Dexter. Dexter and Takeaway Pizza are almost a literal translation of working in joints in London and Hawthorn.
Was being a chef something you always wanted to do?
No. I studied architecture. But I had been working front of house from the age of 18 in night clubs and bars. Then I moved into restaurants. I was working at MoVida when I first got put into a kitchen. I was working in the bar and they had opportunities to do charcuterie, so I moved into that. Then I started doing days making tortillas. That’s how I got into the kitchen, literally because I was jealous of the kitchen because they were having fun and making cool stuff and I just wanted to be in there too.
Are you doing charcuterie here?
We’re doing a little bit. We’re doing country hams. We are trying to steer clear of that casual Melbourne restaurant thing where they do casual charcuterie at start…a slice of salami with ricotta. I’m not saying that’s bad, I eat it every time I go out, but in order to change it up we are doing American country hams at the moment, which are dry-cured. You pack them with salt and hang it in there for a year.
A year?
Yeah, ages. We’ve got massive smokers now so we can smoke anything we want; cold smoked, hot smoked, and moving into more of an American style. It’s barbecue style, but a lot of curing: whole butts being cured, so what they are doing in their barns in America.
You seem as though you are a team that is constantly looking to grow, evolve and be challenged. Where do you get the information for all that? Is it Instagram, books…word of mouth?
A bit of everything. I constantly screenshot Instagram to get ideas of what people have done. Not so that we do the same thing, but in terms of concepts, or interiors. But most of the time we work closely with our producers. At the fridge at the moment, we have a pig that has been fed on camembert cheese and acorns as an experiment. They asked us if we wanted to take it and we said, cool.
How is it different? Is the flesh different?
We have no idea, we haven’t tasted it yet.
Does it look different?
Yeah it does. It is a lot thinner. I thought it was going to be a big Berkshire rare bred pig that’s been fed on cheese so it will be huge.
Did it like the cheese? That’s a funny thing for a pig to eat.
Apparently they love it. It’s lean but has nice inter-muscular fat.
What would the acorns do? What would that give it?
A lot of Jamon Iberico and Spanish stuff are brought up on acorns because that’s what is around on the ground for them to eat. They say it adds earthiness and sweetness. Half of that stuff are based on the fact that places doing this can afford to feed their livestock on these amazing things, but the basis is that they are treating their animals really well. They are taking care of them, monitoring their weight growth and not packing the pounds into them quickly. It’s too soon to know what their feed is producing or is it just the farming and breeding and slow growth that means we are seeing marble lines you usually see on ribeye, on pork loins. I think it’s more of a farming thing. There is so much involved in the flavour that for me, I’m not all about the fact it was bred on camembert, but more about the fact that they looked after it, and took care with the weight and developed the fat through the meat and not just in fat caps. That’s what gets me excited about it, because of my butchery background. But for the flavour, we’ll have to wait and see.
You do have vegetable dishes, don’t you?
Yeah, we’ve got quite a heavy vegetarian menu here. We’ve got sweet and sour cauliflower. When we first opened we took inspiration from LA. Everything there is done in a modern and awesome way because they have the clientele and the money to do it. They’ve got some of the best Korean restaurants you’ll ever eat in, and Chinese and Italian and then they’ve got this southern States of America side of it hanging over it all. That was our approach with Dexter; we’ll have an umbrella of LA’s American food and underneath we can play with styles. We know we’re a meatery, so we’ll have great meat, but we call ourselves a non-traditional meatery, so we can take elements of the way Koreans barbecue and the way Chinese use sweet sauces and stir-fries.
That’s the other thing, that tagline of non-traditional eatery might change in six months. once we find the niche we want. But it has been a really great experience for all of us; front of house and back of house, to work together on it. We get mixed reviews on that because people hear us say we are one thing but then we try other things. People mark us down for that but we will wear that until we find our niche and people can trust us.
Getting great produce in, treating it well and keeping it simple-looking and being about flavour is pretty much where we want to be.
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