C's new head chef, Luke Headon on loving his dehydrator, ageing duck and putting as much of himself on the plate as possible.
Luke, I've just been reading about you and I have so many things I want to talk to you about. I really love that you want to have a sustainable and zero wastage kitchen and use as much local produce as possible. Is that something that has come from what you’ve been doing in Europe or is that your own ethos?
I think it has slowly developed over the last few years working over there and especially my last stint working at Restaurant Story in London, it was certainly part of it. I learned a lot of techniques there using the whole vegetable or the whole animal; utilising different parts with different techniques to create really nice dishes. I guess I've picked up those techniques and then my personal beliefs come through as well. Even in my life I try and be more responsible and look after what we have. It creates another challenge, which is exciting as well; for example, to not stick to the fish that everyone knows; the snappers, the blue eyes that you see everywhere and everyone goes straight to on a menu. It’s more of a challenge to try and put something else on there that’s equally as great but that’s perhaps not as well heard of and encourage people to try that. Sticking to what you know becomes monotonous. I can’t think of anything worse than cooking the same fish you’ve been cooking for the last five years and not changing it.
You hear at times and I think it’s true that we do have that level of responsibility as the middle man between really great farmers, people who believe in doing the right thing by the environment, and the customer. We are the people in the middle who have an opportunity to show people what’s great, what’s in season and encourage the right kind of farming and to get behind those who are. The only way to really do that is to use their product.
How did you go sourcing the kinds of suppliers you knew you could have a relationship with given that you are newly back in Melbourne?
It’s a lot of trial and error and speaking to people you know. I have a really close relationship with our fruit and vege supplier. They’re great guys from the northside. I speak to them two or three times a day and they pretty quickly figured out what I like and what I’m about. If anything comes up they think I might be interested in, they send me a message straight away. Recently we’ve been investigating a lot of native herbs and vegetables from South Australia.
It’s important that we hold ourselves accountable for the seasons as well. Australia is in the fortunate position where we can grow most things all year round and unfortunately that can create quite a lazy approach because as a chef you then don’t need to change the menu very often. You can get tomatoes for nine or ten months of the year. But I try and hold myself accountable. About three weeks ago tomatoes started to finish and they’re not as good as they were so they have to come off the menu and we have to find something else that’s coming into season to go on in its place.
It’s about having direct contact with the farmers and the fishermen. I always want to know where everything comes from and I’ll do my research behind it so I have some background knowledge. Then it comes down to hearing what other people are doing and what they’re using. That always helps as well. I do always look at what other chefs are doing, not so much their dishes but if they’ve said on social media or in the press that they find a particular ingredient amazing or they’re working closely with a farmer, I’ll always check it out because we have to help each other and I think the whole dog eat dog nature of the industry is disappearing. We’re all in this together to make it a better industry and to make what we’re doing for customers a better experience as a whole.
I was interested in your use of those plants and herbs from South Australia. Does that involve an aboriginal community?
Yes. It was set up by a bunch of ex AFL players who are working with a local indigenous community and using their knowledge of their land to sustainably harvest different products at different times of the year. If they can’t use it when its fresh, they dry it or pickle it for us.
Has that been a learning curve incorporating those into your dishes?
I was familiar with a few of them but I always like to try different things and these are so interesting. We’ve cooked with our traditional herbs and fruit and vege for so long. Like anything that’s harvested in the right way and is really tasty and really different, if I can put it on someone’s plate and have them say, 'oh wow this is really amazing', that’s success for me and it makes it exciting.
Is it a challenge to be really creative and to keep your food costs where they should be?
That’s the biggest challenge. It does come down to picking your battles. I’m fortunate here because we have a breakfast menu, a bar menu, an à la carte menu and so I can use different parts of the menu to limit food costs and then in other areas I can be more extravagant. But it is a real challenge at times. Just to touch on the native ingredients again, they’re not cheap, and with good reason, but the challenge then is how to use them well. For example, I can incorporate them into a sauce, so I use less and still get the same flavour profile.
Maximising he flavour of the ingredients is important to me. In a lot of the dishes, you’ll find the ingredient in the dish, probably also in the sauce, and then I’ll make a salt to go with it. If you’re going to put a flavour into the dish, you might as well really put that flavour in the dish.
The dream is to put as much of yourself on the plate as much as you can and hope that people can feel that memory or emotion through what you’re cooking. It doesn’t happen all the time, but that’s what I strive for.
I spoke to Alejandro at Pastuso and he spent some time at as you have and he said it really changed the way he saw ingredients and how they could be used. Has that been the case for you in terms of creativity and less wastage?
One of the biggest things The Fat Duck teaches you is to really question everything you’re doing with every ingredient and every technique you’re using. That’s still the way I cook now. I have dishes I’ve put on in a few different places and I’ll still look at it and think, can this be better? It’s about opening your eyes and not getting comfortable. I was lucky during my time there to have some really good conversations with Heston. As a chef and as an individual, he was never content to sit back on his laurels and accept success. He is a bit misunderstood on that front because we did have a similar menu for a long period of time but although they were the same dishes, they were revised time and again. So the Snail Porridge, for example, when it went on the menu to when it went off, was a completely different dish.
It’s about not accepting that anything is ever finished. It’s not an easy way to live because your mind is always working but once you think something is finished, it’s time for it to come off the menu because there’s really no more learning you can do on it and you’ll lose the passion for it.
You’re right, a restaurant like that opens you to a lot of new techniques because they have an abundance of every possible piece of equipment and knowledge that’s around to do with food. They have the labs there with four or five guys solely researching food and techniques. At the time I’m not sure I appreciated it as much as when I stepped back. I’m a little bit older now and I’m running kitchens myself so I appreciate how special it was to have the opportunities to use equipment worth £40 000 – £50 000. You don’t get that very often.
Do you have a piece of equipment that you rely on?
For me, the most handy piece of equipment in the kitchen is the dehydrator. It’s a fairly basic piece of equipment to a certain extent but you can use it for preserving, making something for an oil or a powder, using up your wastage and making it into something else. It’s one of those things I use a lot. I was actually thinking about it yesterday because we have a new one and it hasn’t stopped for about two weeks. It's had something in it the whole time.
I like a mixture between more modern stuff and also sticking with the classics. I was fortunate to spend time at Marcus Wareing’s restaurant and he does very classical British French food and I really learned how to cook food there. It was at two star level, so everything in pans, with foaming butter, no sous vide machines or anything. I still honour that from time to time.
I think it’s important as head chef, to be able to teach my guys how to take a raw ingredient through to a finished product that’s cooked exactly how it should be and treated with respect. If you just use modernist techniques all the time, it can take away that knowledge. We do still use sous vide and there’s nothing wrong with it, but if you do everything that way and put it in a bag, in a controlled bath with a timer on, take it out and it’s done, and it’s fantastic to utilise that but I don’t ever want to be a chef that relies on that.
So you are a bit removed from the process cooking like that?
Exactly. You lose touch a little bit and it becomes slightly robotic. I never want to have a robotic kitchen. It needs to have energy to it. It sounds ridiculous and romantic but this industry has to be energetic and it is an emotional industry if you compare it to others. No two days are ever the same. Even if you do the same amount of guests and have the same team, it will never be the same because the variables are huge.
Did you always want to be a chef?
Yes. I’m one of those chefs. I can never recall thinking that I was ever going to do anything else. Probably from 12 or 13 it was going to be either this or something hospitality-based. I’ve never really looked at anything else.
How long were you away from Australia?
Just under nine years.
Have you noticed any changes in the food industry?
I have actually. Melbourne has changed slightly, I feel. Whether it’s positive I’m not so sure. I think Melbourne needs to get back to the basics and do really well again what it’s always done really well. I feel that we have lost it a touch and got a bit ahead of ourselves as a city. That’s just my opinion obviously but I just feel that a lot of the time it’s all about the glitz and glam and about how many people we can serve. There has been a revolution of massive restaurants and we’ve lost a little bit of the heart and soul we were always known for. That’s a touch sad.
It’s not like all hope is lost but I just feel that we need to get back to doing the right things right. We need to keep improving, following trends, looking at things, doing our own stuff, pushing boundaries. We have great restaurants in Melbourne. There are some really fantastic chefs who are doing great things but there is also a lot of stuff overtaking that, like the amount of money being thrown at some places. I feel that the public are supporting those places a lot more than people who are trying to do interesting things and have a level of fine dining restaurant. I find that a little bit frustrating and sad.
When you come in to a kitchen as a new head chef, do you have to share your vision with your team or does it come through what you do?
I think it’s a combination. I think you have to communicate really well with your guys and not force things or rush things. When I come in and take over a kitchen, I always try to make everything really clear. I’ll speak to all the guys and have a one-on-one chat with everyone and not go into too much detail but lay out what the vision is for the next month or two and towards the rest of the year. Not to get too ahead of ourselves but so that they have something to get excited about.
It's hard. I’ve been in kitchens when we’ve got in a new head chef and you wonder what he or she is about and what the food is going to be about. There’s a level of uncertainty, so I think the first thing you have to do is calm the nerves and calm the situation and make sure everyone is happy with their jobs and then from there, it’s about leadership and giving everyone the tools they need to do the job you want them to do. You have to be very careful and wary of your surroundings at first. You can’t come in like a bulldozer because you’ll end up by yourself and no one needs that.
Is there a particular dish on your menu that you like or showcases some of the things we’ve been talking about?
There’s one that I really love, because of its simplicity and how tasty it is. It’s dry aged duck with rhubarb and bay leaf. The reason I like it so much is that it’s just three ingredients but the duck is really special. We age it for about six weeks here on the crown and it gets beautiful crispy skin and soft flesh. We make a ballotine of rhubarb by pickling and poaching the rhubarb and then rolling it into a cylinder and slicing it. It’s about having really good product, taking care with the meat and then putting the three ingredients onto the plate.
Another one we’ve just started doing are the Clarence River prawns. I come from up near Byron Bay, so Clarence River isn’t far away. I have a bit of a soft spot for that area. We are doing that with pickled rose petals, black garlic, a little bit of cardamom as well. Again, a lot of my dishes are quite delicate. I use a lot of fruit and flowers because they relate to a lot of my own memories as a kid, eating fruit straight off the tree. That tends to flow through my cooking a little bit.
I like that. You can create a link or a trigger of a memory for the diners as well.
That’s the dream. The dream is to put as much of yourself on the plate as much as you can and hope that people can feel that memory or emotion through what you’re cooking. It doesn’t happen all the time, but that’s what I strive for.
86 Collins Street, Melbourne
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