Dan Lidgard

Conversation with a chef: Dan, thank you for your time and for all the driving around.You have come up from the peninsula. Is that where you spend most of your time?

Dan Lidgard: Yes. I'm based out there now. We've been out there for a little while. I haven't been into the city for a few months, so it's nice to make the trip back.

But you're executive chef over all of the venues, is that right?

It's been a mixed role. Bistro Elba is pretty much self-sufficient. Sam Van der leeuw looks after the kitchen, he does a fantastic job. But then an opportunity came up a couple years ago where we needed a head chef at Patsy's. And so that's where my executive chef title came into it. I looked after Donna Maria and Patsy's. Fortunately I don't do that anymore. It's a lot of work. A lot of driving. I got Patsys up and running to where we wanted it to be and then I handed over to Jayden who was here for a while and I became, once again based at Donna Maria on the peninsula.

And that's closed now?

It has closed, yeah. Our lease was up October last year, and we're now in Mount Eliza at Bau Bau.

Are they all Italian?

Bistro Elba Is Southern French, so bistro vibes, here at Patsys they've got the luxury of being Mediterranean, so they've got a really big pool to choose from and then Bau Bau is Italian.

I feel like whatever my algorithm is on social media, you have been in it because I spoke to Diana a while ago and she mentioned you and then Simon mentioned you when we were talking about Pizza Luna. And then I read the Broadsheet story about Pebble at La Roca. Then that was coming up on Instagram as well. So I feel like you are everywhere.

It feels like that at the moment. I was just saying to Matt and Clinton the other day, how I feel like March is filling up really quickly.

Sunday sounds really exciting.

Sunday should be really good. It doesn't really feel like work at all. I mean, cooking outside in a car park with a couple of mates. Cam's been a friend of mine for a long time. We worked together at Attica years ago when he was just fresh into kitchens. And so we've been friends ever since. I'm really looking forward to that. It'll be heaps of fun. It is basically good barbecue.

I love the article that I read, and it was about climbing and cool chefs. Who knew that would be a thing?

Yeah. It's so random. I don't know how he's made it work, but he has had all these great chefs, I think John Demetrios was in there from MasterChef and it was packed. Every popup they've done has been full of books. I'm really looking forward to, it'll be good fun.

Your menu looked really great. Tell me about the Tiramisu that has taken months to perfect.

That's actually currently not on the menu, but it did take months. I started working on that when we still had Donna Maria. As you do, when something exciting is happening, you start to forward plan a bit. It took me probably six months, I think, to get it right.

Had you made tiramisu before?

Yeah, of course.

What is the perfect tiramisu?

Well, we made everything ourselves. And that was obviously going from Donna Maria where it was higher volume than Bau Bau. We wanted to take a different approach and handmake everything ourselves and we do. I had never made Tiramisu from scratch before, so we made the biscuits, the sponge. We had always made the zabaglione, but it was a different way of putting it together. It took a little while, but it was delicious. It had a stint on the menu and was gone maybe never to be seen again.

It sounds as though it made a mark. People remember it.

I think tiramisu is a given in an Italian restaurant. People were coming in asking about tiramisu. We ran it and then it had its peak, its moment and then it dropped off a little bit. We try and keep it fresh. Rotate the menu often.

If you are working on a dish and it's got a few iterations before you're happy with it, what's your process? Do you make notes on it or do you just mentally remember what worked and didnt work?

Well, just trial and error. That's the best. And that's the way try and teach the guys, the Junior Chefs now: you don't know until you try. If you come across a recipe and you're not quite sure how to make it, just give it a crack. It may or may not work out, but then at least you can say, Hey Chef, or hey whoever this didn't work out, why? And then they can point you in a direction of where you're meant to go. Next time you make it, you're all over it. It's the same with me. I'll find a dish from some somewhere in Italy that I really want to do. Their cooking is quite rustic. So thats where the tweaking comes in and the trial and error. I just try it. And we make notes. We all try together. I've always had a good group of chefs at Bau Bau. One of them thankfully had an Italian background. He was my secret weapon a little bit. It's a process, but it's pretty normal, I think.

It sounds like you like to continue learning and challenging yourself, but I've also read and heard from people that you're a really great mentor. Diana was saying that she learned everything about fish when she worked with you at Point Leo Estate. Is that something that you've developed along the way that you just really enjoy sharing with other people? Or is that your, your personality anyway?

I would say it's something I've developed. I think there's a lot of learning when you're a young chef and you think you know everything and then going from that personality to somewhere like Attica, you know nothing and basically your whole career starts again. Then the way you work, the way you taste, the way you cook, everything is learned again. Then you take that knowledge into the next thing and share that: don't do that like this, do it like this. It can be hard, like Di will tell you how hard it can be but look at the outcome. She says what she says and honestly pretty humbling to hear what your peers say about you. Its pretty cool.

Where did it all start for you? You're from New Zealand, from the North Island?

I am a North Islander, from Mt Maunganui.

Wow. My grandparents lived in Tauranga, so we spent a lot of summers up around that way.

That's just over the bridge. It's a beautiful part of the country. Being out on the peninsula now reminds me so much of being at home.

Yes! We used to go to the Te Puke Hot Springs and stop at some pub on the way home for fish and chips. It was a long time ago but I've got fond memories of that world.

It probably hasn't changed much either.

Did you always know you wanted to be a chef?

Yes. I wouldn't say I knew, but I fell into it. My mum was a very good home cook and my grandma, my Omi actually was a chef and had her own catering business. I got to the troublesome age of 15, 16 and didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I didn't want to be at school. And so Omi said to me, why don't you go and give this a crack? I really enjoyed food tech at school and my teacher was a chef and he got me a job in a kitchen and then it was all foot to the floor from there, enrolled in university, got a diploma and I just never looked back. Once I got that job in the kitchen at 15 years old, I was washing dishes, it wasn't anything fancy, but I just knew and I was hooked.

What hooked you do you think?

Just the adrenaline rush of it all. Not so much the adrenaline rush of washing dishes, but it was a 200 seat restaurant fully booked every night. It was crazy. It was called Harbourside and you can just see the yelling, the frantic service, the fire, the pans, everything was just full on. I thought, wow, this is really cool, itd be sick to one day be the person on the grill cooking. That was where it all started for me. I couldn't imagine doing anything else now.

At what stage did you come over here?

It's hard to pinpoint. I've been here for about 12 years.

Did you go to Auckland first?

Yes. Mt Maunganui, as you know, is pretty small. Not many restaurants to choose from. I think Harbourside was probably it. I grew out of that pretty quick. Auckland was the big smoke. We moved there and I was there for a few years, and worked at The Grill by Sean Connolly and then sort of outgrew that and my best mate Adam had moved here and I toyed with the idea of moving over, but said, I'll never move to Australia, being a passionate Kiwi. I came over on a holiday actually and we just lived the dream over summer for a couple of weeks, went to Vue de Monde for dinner, did all sorts of stuff, went to the Queen Vic markets, all these sort of touristy things. I thought, that's it. We're moving. And we did and I can't see myself moving back now. I love it here.

I'm the same. I came in 2011 from Christchurch. There's something pretty amazing about Melbourne and I think its accessible, it's not really racy like Sydney. You can stay in your area or you can go into the city.

Exactly. I like to stick in my area on the peninsula. I've only been to Sydney once. I don't rate it. Too many one-way streets and too much going on, but Melbourne has something for everybody in a small spacet. It's been a while since I lived in the CBD now, but I have so many good memories and I think the food scene is just bursting at the moment. Especially Italian. Italian's definitely on trend at the moment.

Isn't that so interesting? Because there must be waves of that. I guess in the early days of Melbourne, Italian was really big because of all the migrants arriving and setting up coffee shops and pasta places. But you're right, there's been such a wave of Italian and such high quality Italian.

We're spoilt for choice, for sure. Even somewhere that's really small, you may not expect it to be much and you go in there and you get mind blown.

You're a seasoned chef and you've got all the technique and so on, so you can turn your hand to any kind of cuisine. But I always think it's interesting that coming from New Zealand, how do you learn Italian or French cooking? I guess it's from the people that you're working with as well. Is that how you hone the skills of different cuisines?

Yes. Prior to taking on Donna Maria, it was something that had never crossed my mind cooking from a specific region or cuisine. But then James Langley who's another owner, helped shape me and gave me the right direction. I had never really had any Italian experience. I'm not Italian, none of my family's Italian. So it was just, this is what we want to do and this is how we want you to do it. It was all about research. That's how all the menus were based in the early days. At Donna Maria, we would try and be as authentic as we could. But James was the one who said, that's how we want it to work. And that's how it did work.

Then what about plant-based? Because Patsy's is vegan. Was that new for you?

That was another new thing. Obviously the Mediterranean diet was something I was familiar with. because there's a lot of intertwining Italian, Greek, a little bit of French all over overlaps each other. But the vegetarian thing was, was tricky. I think I researched probably harder and more intensely for Patsy's than Donna Maria. Donna Maria is easy in a sense to go pasta, it's Italian, but to really knuckle down on something really specific and then turn it into a delicious restaurant setting was a big challenge for sure.

I was just talking to Matt before who's crossed from being a sommelier to being in the kitchen.

He does it all.

He was saying that he's vegan and has always lamented the plant-based offering in restaurants. I guess a lot of chefs don't have experience cooking vegan food. How do you make it tasty and interesting and not just based on refashioned meat dishes.

I think what makes Patsy's special is that there are vegetarian restaurants around and they do steak nights and things like that. I think it's a bit off. At Patsy's we focus on the fact that we're a vegetarian restaurant, we grow our own vegetables and they're really delicious and here they are. And it's succeeded.

Are the vegetables grown on the peninsula?

No. So we've got a farm in the central highlands. James, who I mentioned, lives out there and looks after the farm. He's pretty specific with what we grow. Everything has a purpose, but we can sort of pick and choose seeds and things like that if we come across something that we really love. Like spigarello is one of my favourite vegetables. I hadn't discovered it before and then I came across it in a restaurant. I really wanted to grow it. Now we get spigarello every year and it's actually hard to get your hands on because everyone wants it.

What is it?

It's a brassica. It's like a broccoli that doesn't floret. It's just a big leafy green really, kind of like broccolini with the stalk and then it's got the broccoli leaves on the outside. It's really yum with a bit of garlic and lemon juice.

Delicious. I've spoken to a couple of Italian chefs, who've come over from Italy and they lament our produce and say you've got to do a lot to it to bring the flavour out. What do you think? Have you been to Italy?

I have never been to Italy. It is absolutely on the cards. Di went, I think you spoke about it with her. Man, I can't wait. It's just in their blood. Everyone grows tomatoes, everyone grows basil. It's all homegrown. And it's not even a 45 minute drive to the central highlands to get it. It's in the backyard. That's where I think their perception of the flavour comes from, it's all just grown on your back doorstep. Whereas yes, in Melbourne you might have to work a little bit harder to find the good stuff, but it is out there. I don't think it needs a lot of work. Especially on the peninsula, you can pick and choose growers.

That's right. Who are using the right soil.

Exactly. Sam sent me a photo the other day of some tomatoes from Daniel's run and they looked incredible. I've used them before in the kitchen as well and you don't need to do anything to those. They're just delicious. All the veg that we get from the farm is super good, simplicity is best. It doesn't need much at all for it to taste delicious.

I was wondering whether it is because the soil is obviously different soil and the landscape's different here to Europe. This soil was never intended for growing with these kinds of vegetables. But as you say, if people are putting the right nutrients in and treating them the right way and being really aware of what that vegetable needs and I guess you can still achieve that.

A hundred per cent. It's like anything, they treat it as a profession and a passion. they want their products to be the best that they possibly can be. So I'm sure they put in all the research

I think it's interesting too to have suppliers who work with chefs and perhaps you have this relationship with you grower where you can say what you want as well. Is that how it works? You could work together and have conversations about what might be good to have rather than the person just growing it and saying, here you go, here's this mystery box.

It's a little bit of both. Obviously you never know to an extent how much you're going to get. I remember when we first started we would just get inundated with tomatoes: boxes and boxes and boxes of tomatoes to make sauce and things like that. Now we're sort of honing down on what we want, how we would like it. I think we've got a really great product and it doesn't need much doing to it at all.

You worked at Attica but where did you first go when you first got here?

It was really funny. I just stumbled across a job at Stokehouse. I was there for six or seven years I think.

Oh wow. That's a good stint. So it must have been a good team and a good place.

It's a great team. I think it's one of the best teams I've worked in, in terms of the kitchen culture. We'd get to work early and, it's hard to beat, have coffee on the deck looking out at the bay. That's so nice. Wed have breakfast and then all go to work. It was a really great team environment, but that's where it started for me in Melbourne.

Was it a culture shock coming over? Did you have to get used to different ways of doing things? Or a different audience?

Not so much. We're not too dissimilar, Australia and New Zealand in terms of cuisines, it was a lot faster paced for sure. I think The Grill was quite busy. That was the last restaurant I worked at in New Zealand, it was part of Casino Sky City there. So it was busy. But then you come and do summer at Stokehouse. And it just can't compare. But you quickly find your feet in a place like that. There are 15, 20 chefs on the roster, so it's not like you're in the deep end straight away. But it was a bit of an eye opener for sure.

What position were you there?

I started as CDP. I worked up to junior sous chef. And again, talking about mentorship. I had Jason Barrett who's now, I think he's doing Andrew McConnell's joint in Brisbane and he was at Attica. He paved the way for me in terms of how to do things properly. He would be on my case. He was what I am now for a lot of people.

And so then you were sous chef at Attica?

I started as a stagiaire right at the bottom. You go from being in a place like the Stoke House, like yeah, I'm really hitting it in my stride here, killing it. And then you go to Attica and I think I spent the first two weeks washing dirt off cabbages. It's so humbling.

Was that hard or did you just take that on and go, this is what I'm doing?

I think it was super rewarding. The jobs were mundane but at the same time you get to be a part of something that's bigger than just scrubbing dirt off cabbages, for example. When you see that final result, the dish going out and it's like, okay, wow. It's pretty incredible. It was really difficult at the start, but then you get to see the end result in the dining room and how it's seen from the guest perspective and it's pretty amazing to be a part of.

How was the step up from sous chef to head chef?

I think there's a lot more back of house sort of stuff. I saw a little bit of that back of house stuff at Point Leo, but Attica that was all behind closed doors. I didn't see much of it. But then becoming responsible for the dollar sign at the end of the day, that was the biggest learning curve I think.

Does it stunt your creativity when you're thinking about food costs? Is it more challenging?

It's more challenging I think when you get to a point and you say to yourself, I don't know how I'm going to do this. Like, let's use Attica as an example. You would watch the guys in the section at Attica and think, I don't know how I would ever do that. And then next thing you know, you're doing it. And then people would say, Hey, I need you to do the dry store order this week and you think, I haven't got time to fit that in. But then you do it. As head chef, you have to write a menu and cost of the food and hire staff, look after the staff, all of that. So just, you just absorb it and take it in your stride. You become very good at delegating and then making sure that those people are doing their jobs as well. It was another challenge, but one that I've really enjoyed. I enjoy working with good people and it's a different reward, but at the end of the day, that's why we're all in the same place, its the people.

Are you still on the tools? Do you still cook?

I am. I do enjoy it. Not as often probably as Id like to be, but I still break down fish every other day. Being such a small restaurant, we get a fish delivery every day. So it's still one of my favourite things to be doing. But I think the pleasure now for me is having young guys who are keen and eager to learn and then showing them how to do it. I've got a chef that's working for me now, and he's just come leaps and bounds since he first started and now he's on the grill at Bau Bau and is just doing a fantastic job. I think that's the reward at the end of the day as a head chef; seeing somebody come in who's not so confident as a first year apprentice and work their way all the way up through the ranks of the kitchen and know it inside and out.

That leads into my final question, which is, what would your advice be to young people starting out as chefs?

Oh, just go a hundred per cent. Like I said, I was scrubbing the dirt off cabbages 10 years into my cooking career. No job's too big or too small. You scrub the dirt off cabbages the same way you would clean or fillet a whole fish. The hard work pays off. You get noticed. I think that the attitude of young chefs is probably more appreciated than skill. You can teach skill. It's harder to teach a good positive attitude.

Bau Bau, 1/18 Ranelagh Drive, Mt Eliza

Patsy's, 213 Franklin Street, Melbourne

Bistro Elba, 100-102 Ocean Beach Road, Sorrento