Julian Hills

Conversation with a chef: Hi Julian. I've really realised over the course of doing this truffle series that you probably are one of the most enthusiastic chefs about truffles. Chefs generally tend to love it when it comes into truffle season, but you seem to be next level. What is it about truffles that you enjoy so much?

Julian Hills: Truffles have their own terroir and they're all completely different depending on altitude, whether they get snow or constant frosts when they're ripening and I relate them to MSG for food. I think they're one of those things that really enhance something. I find that a lot chefs or a lot of dinners I've been to that involve truffle, it's all about the truffle. And even though I use a lot of truffle, I choose different truffles from different farms to enhance different dishes. I'll use a completely different truffle for a fish dish than I would for, say a duck.

I've been lucky enough to work with lots of truffle over the last 20-odd years since I did my first truffle dinner. I got a bit obsessed by the different flavours and how they worked with things. We do our month of truffle menu at Navi and we able to do every course with a different truffle, which is pretty unique. I haven't come across that before, but I'm a little obsessive about it.

Is that already planned? Do you know what you're going to do or do you wait for when the truffles appear? How does it work?

I've got a base menu and a few options, and then once the truffles start coming in and it changes over the month because the, the truffles have just become available now, they're probably not as ripe as they should be. And they're not as ready as they should be. A lot of the early season truffles, it's exciting, it's the first truffles of the year, but they lack that depth because the truffle grows to full size maturity around the equinox in March. And then from there, they are ripening. I'm thinking this year should be pretty good from talking to other farmers because the amount of frost and cold nights we're having. We had a good rain early on when they were developing and it sort of dried up and got cold. And so it'll be interesting to see what we get this year. Last year was very damp. We got very, very deep fungi aromas for everything. Itll be interesting to see. So based on that, I wait till I see the truffles to see where they'll fit in and how they'll pair with ideas that I've got for dishes.

You're talking about the different truffle farms, and that's different regions as well. Where do you get your truffles from?

All over. So I've got Manjimup, which is probably the most well known in the Australian regions in the world. They produce a lot of truffles and they've got a good cooperative thing sorted out there where they pick on a Sunday, they grade together and then they ship out on a Tuesday. It goes all over the world. And then Tasmania, ACT, New South Wales, Victoria South Australia. I had some from South Australia last year for the first time. So it'll be interesting to see how those farms are going. I know there are a few farms just starting to fruit there, because they do take quite a while for a farm to hit maturity. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of South Australia with their climate.

What are the differences between those different regions? Is it a flavour thing or an aroma thing? Do they look different?

Appearance is probably not so much the thing because they're all the same variety of truffles. But aroma, and the flavour and everything you get out of a truffles. Some truffles will smell really aromatic and that'll just dissipate. Some will be really fruity. But Western Australia I find kind of chemically, it's hard to explain, but they're distinctive Western Australian truffles. Tasmanian truffles have this big deep – without sounding too wanky – this big base note truffle aroma to them that I think is because they get snow every year in that region. And so we get the colder nights and the frozen ground that really helps.

In Victoria there are coastal truffles. There's some up in the Yarra Valley, which, which have a fruitiness to them, but it sort of dissipates pretty quickly. You shave the truffle and then the aroma's almost gone. But they have a fruity flavour and last year I had a truffle that I wouldn'tconsider the best truffle I've ever had. But what it did for my dry aged duck was lifted it to another level and trying to explain to a customer, this is not a great truffle, but wait till you try it with this duck. You get that difference in them and how they work.

And are you using different techniques with the different dishes as well?

Absolutely. Shaving a truffle over something, you're not really going to get everything you need out of it. We do lots of things with them; we ferment truffles, we poach truffles in sherry, we do a truffle puree, we might line a piece of meat the truffle and wrap it up and crepinette and roast it slowly so that truffle infuses in, put it under the skin of a chicken or a pheasant or something and that really gets into the meat, grate it into a warm dressing and dress that over something that's hot. That lets the aroma come out and as you mix it with the hot dish, whether it be a rabbit rotolo or some braised meat and you put this dressing over it and it just mixes in with it and it allows the flavour to escape a little bit more intensely and works well with the sweetness of whatever you're working with.

I find that if you cook truffles too long, they lose their thing. If you go too hot, they lose their flavour. So you don't want to boil a truffle it just starts disappearing. Between 60 and 70 degrees, it releases everything beautifully. I said with the duck last year, and I don't normally shave truffle over things because I think it's a waste of truffle, but the fruity truffle eating it with that warm duck, we served it with chopstick, so could eat a bit of the shaved truffle with the breast at the same time. It's just a different way of eating it. When people eat truffle at Navi, I don't want to punch them in the face with truffle where they're sick of truffle after the 14 courses. I want them to be excited about what it can do and hopefully have seen the difference between the different regions and climates.

You've been truffle hunting yourself. Is that like an Easter egg hunt where you just get really excited when you come across one or when the dog comes across one?

Yeah, it's funny because the farms are pretty set out and they're going every day and they might know that there's a truffle there, they're waiting for it to ripen. They're not just going to dig it up because they found a truffle. You actually get on your hands and knees and smell the truffle to see if it's ready. It's a lot of smelling the dirt. And you don't know. You might dig around and find three 20 cent piece sized truffles or you might find one that's the size of a softball and that's pretty exciting. It's very interesting to do and to understand it a bit better and you can see in the ground the way the truffles affect the ground around the trees. It's worth going on a truffle hunt. There are lots of opportunities to do that now.

Dion from WA was telling me, the truffle farmer, was saying that it's a really symbiotic relationship, that the truffles are good for the trees and obviously the trees help the truffles to fruit and then the truffles give back to the soil and the trees as well. And then we get that added pleasure. So it's just an all round good time.

Yes, and I think at Red Hill, she does hazelnuts, she has some beautiful hazelnuts coming off her trees. They don't taste like truffle or anything of course, but they're very healthy hazelnuts.

That's great. Thank you. And all the best for your month of truffle dinner as in July.

Navi, 83B Gamon Street, Yarraville