Julian Hills thinks about food 24/7. That might seem like a prerequisite for a chef, but Julian takes it to a whole new level. Having dreamed for years of opening his own limited seating degustation venue, his newly opened in Yarraville is allowing him to really stretch his imagination and his skill to explore and discover and surprise his diners and is an absolute delight for all concerned.
I read about you in Broadsheet and I had so many questions after reading the article, that I wanted to see you in person so thank you for having me. First of all, Navi…how do you pronounce that?
It’s actually Nahwi in Cherokee, but I didn’t want to confuse people too much, so you could say Navi. It’s from my Dad’s side of the family. Both his sides of the family involve Cherokee. the food doesn’t have anything to do with Cherokee food or anything, it’s just a name.
It said in the article that you’ve married rigorous European technique, Eastern philosophy and local produce. How do all those things come into play?
I’m European trained and I’ve travelled extensively, and my travel is my main influence really. I’ve had trips to Japan; we spent four months travelling around South America, my wife and I. I’ve lived in Spain and I went to Morocco and south-east Asia and I’m influenced by everything around me. The Japanese side of things, I guess, their technique but also their style of eating and dining. I’ve always wanted a small degustation restaurant. I think when I met my wife 14 years ago, I told her I was going to open a restaurant for 20 people and do degustation only. That was my plan. It only took me that long to do it.
It’s incredible though. I think Melbourne is such a food city, so you have to get everything in place before you launch something.
Yes. So I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the years. We moved to the peninsula with the idea that we would do this in the country and then after three years realised that it wasn’t the right spot and we also missed the city, so we came back.
It’s pretty good over here in Yarraville, isn’t it? It’s a nice community.
It is. When I first moved to the city I was in Kensington and I lived there for about ten years and then North Melbourne and the last two years here were in Carlton North before we moved to the peninsula. I like this side better.
It wouldn’t just be locals coming here, though, would it? Because it is quite specialised dining. It’s a destination restaurant.
In our first couple of week the locals jumped on board very quickly which is great. Since we opened we’ve only had six spare seats. It’s been great. Recently we’ve noticed that people are coming from everywhere.
And you do something different on Wednesdays and Thursdays?
We offer a choice between the eight course and a five course. The eight course takes about three hours so not everyone wants to do that on a Wednesday night.
I looked through the sample menu on your site and each dish seems as though it’s very intricate with a lot going on.
There is. There are three of us in the kitchen. The girl I work with who is helping out mainly on pastry did her whole apprenticeship with me until I left Paringa. She did the last six months at Taxi. So we know each other pretty well and she knows how I work. The I’ve got a younger kid who is like a junior sous chef who has come from Hellenic republic and is as keen as mustard. We all work pretty well together.
It’s a lot of work. It’s about 13 courses. We call it eight because people want a number. Lots of plates come out and it’s about 13.
It’s a real theatre of dining when you eat like that.
Yes, and we serve everyone. We have a sommelier and a waitress, but it’s too much for them to do all that and carry all the food so we probably do about 70 per cent of the food carrying and explaining.
That’s nice to have contact with the diners.
That’s what I want. I’ve been 20-odd years in this industry and been cooped up in a kitchen. That’s what I loved about Japan. The chef is right there explaining everything to you, serving everything on crockery that is just as important as the food and the sake is just as important as the crockery and the food. The chopsticks…everything is crafted and the person who made them…there’s as much respect for them as the doctor sitting in the bar. I think when people actually get to meet the chef, a barrier breaks down and you can actually see what they are trying to do rather than it just being a story told to you by a waitress.
I agree. That’s why I like having conversations with chefs, so I can get the back story. Just to go back to the crockery, you’ve made all your own plates, haven’t you? Because you’ve got a Fine Arts degree as well.
Yes. I did all the centre pieces as well. Like this one over here, and vases on the tables.
Do you have a studio at home?
I’ve got a pottery wheel at home but because of RMIT, I’ve got lots of friends in the industry who’ve been really helpful with firing and giving up some space and helped me with glazing.
At what point did you do Fine Arts?
I’m young for my year level, so I was 17 when I went to university and graduated when I was 20. You don’t really know what you’re doing when you’re that young. It was just a party for me. I did well and finished with High Honours in drawing and ceramics but I cooked the whole time.
I loved cooking and it made sense. It seems weird to say but for people to not know how to or to get overly excited about a braise seemed confusing to me because it was so easy for me. I started at Myer at the marketplace restaurant, a third-floor restaurant in the city and started on the roast bar. I had no cooking experience other than three months at McDonalds and my first week was learning how to cook the roast and then I wanted to make a better gravy, so I did different things with the meat to get a better gravy and by the end of the summer I had old women lining up for my roast. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It made sense to me.
Then I took on a sous chef role at a pub in Kensington, Hardimans and then I spent my summers from here in the States snowboarding. I worked at quite a nice restaurant up at Big Sky in Montana over four years. The last time I worked there I was 21 and I was the head cook with a crew of 25. I hadn’t really done anything. I went over to Cape Cod and worked at a place called the Belfry Inn which had a Michelin star. Well it didn’t then but it got one. I was sous chef there.
I sort of bluffed my way into everything and it worked. Then I came back here and got a head chef job at Blush Foodroom and did that for two years and then realised that I had to go and work for someone who could actually mentor me. I’d hit the level I could without really learning properly. I went and worked with John Lepp who was at The European. He’d come from Jacques Reymond’s and was the head chef there when it got its first three hats. I stayed with him until and went to the Middle Brighton Baths with him for two years. Then I went traveling for two years.
What were the gaps in your knowledge that you were able to fill in under John?
I guess John Lepp was very particular. He had a lot of Asian influences but at The European, he was European and it was learning more ingredients. I was doing well with what I did and what I knew but I didn’t know about different cuts of meat, or working with squab and things like that, that you avoid because you don’t know how to use it. It was more about the ingredients than anything and structure of the kitchen.
I’m always open to discovering a new thing. Once I’ve cooked something and I’ve plated it, and everyone is happy, and customers have passed on their feedback that they’ve enjoyed it, I don’t want to cook it again. I’m ready for the next thing.
What do you pass on to your apprentices or those who work with you?
I try to pass on excitement, of discovery. I’m organised. I have to be overly organised here because I’m not very organised so I’m a bit scattered because I’m thinking of the next thing while I’m trying to produce the one thing. I’m always open to discovering a new thing. Once I’ve cooked something and I’ve plated it, and everyone is happy, and customers have passed on their feedback that they’ve enjoyed it, I don’t want to cook it again. I’m ready for the next thing. That’s been my career a bit. Always ready for the next thing. I was at Paringa for six years and I think there were only one or two things I repeated.
Where are all these ideas coming from?
I read a lot. Influences in life. I think about food non-stop. It drives my wife crazy. I can literally go to bed thinking about what I want to do with a dish and I have a sort of idea of what it looks like and slightly what I want it to do, but I don’t have all the parts linked. And then I wake up in the morning and I know what will work and what I’m going to do. That’s 24/7, unfortunately.
Well, it’s pretty good for the diners.
Yeah. I love it. I think it drives my wife nuts when we are having a conversation and in the middle of it I say, “what would you think if this went with this.” And she replies, “are you serious?”
Also, I dine out a lot.
Are you still surprised by other people’s food?
Yes and no. I get excited, but I think the most excited I’ve been about food was Noma in Australia. I’d eaten at Noma in Copenhagen and I wanted more. I was expecting to be a little more blown away rather than just being obscure. I felt like Noma Australia just nailed it and it might have been the fact that they were working with different ingredients. Native ingredients are pretty awesome. I was aware of them before that but when you see them cooked in Melbourne kitchen five years ago, it was all in chutneys and we weren’t really making good use of the flavours that we’ve got because Australian flavours are amazing.
Who are you getting those through?
There’s Outback Pride who are quite big but there are a couple of little growers who do stuff for me and I have a friend’s farm down near Merricks and they have a little area there full of native produce that they’ve allowed me to pick from as much as I want. I know the peninsula very well, the berries and edibles down there from working with a guy called Lionel Lauch, an aboriginal guy that does living culture tours. We did a dinner together three years ago. I thought I knew a lot, but it was like oh wow, this is cool.
Leading up to that, the Noma experience was about it tasting like Australia rather than tasting like European styles; knowing how to work with local ingredients. When you’ve got 100 chefs and a whole bunch of people to help work out what a flavour can do, it helps. It’s good research in Australian cuisine.
Listen to the conversation here.
83b Gamon Street, Yaraville