This week I got the train to Mitcham to visit Dutch Rules Distilling Co., a retro‑styled bar, working distillery and sat down with rising star chef Viveik Vinohoran, this year’s Young Chef of the Year. Surrounded by vinyl records, warm timber, and the quiet hum of a still out back, Viveik talked about shaping a menu that blends his Sri Lankan heritage with the classical French, Italian, and Japanese training that has defined his career. We explored how he builds dishes “flavoured with memory,” from lamb‑biryani sausages smoked over cherrywood to charcoal‑kissed eggplant with fiery pol sambal, and a cured trout entrée. Viveik shared his passion for working directly with farmers, his commitment to reducing waste, and the joy he finds in teaching his team to embrace bold spice. He also opened up about the whirlwind of pop‑ups, the intensity of competitions, and the moment he realised that cooking, not forensic science, was his true path.
Hi Viv, it’s so nice to be here at Dutch Rules and to meet you. It’s such a nice place. The decor is so lovely. Very vinyl albums and retro posters.
Exactly. Danny wanted, wanted actual wood and vibes.
It’s a working distillery. The still is out the back. I always find stills so beautiful. I’d love to have one in my apartment. That’s not really a thing.
I don’t think the tech is here yet to make a small one.
It’s not like those mini pizza ovens. One of those and a still on the balcony. That’s it. We’re doing it. You’ve been here a month?
The distillery has been here for two or three years. They’ve been operating as a bar and I’ve jumped on board and now we’ve got a kitchen. This is our fourth weekend.
There’s so much media about you. It’s so great. You’re like the wunderkind.
It is overwhelming, but it’s great.
Your menu just sounds so fascinating. It sounds as though you’re the perfect person for this venue because of your Lankan leaning style.
I love these words. It’s the best.
Tell me about that. What does that mean for you?
I was born and grew up in Sydney. The only Sri Lankan food I had was what my mum and my grandmother would cook, and things that I would have when I went back to Sri Lanka. All my food training has been French kitchens, Italian kitchens, Japanese kitchens, so it’s not traditional Sri Lankan. It’s just the way that I’ve been brought up in the industry with the way I’ve been brought up in general. I feel like that’s like the best way to describe it.
I guess it’s food that’s flavoured with memory and then you’ve got that layer of your training. Tell me a bit about what’s on the menu. I’ve read things. Maybe everyone’s read about it. I feel like Dutch Rules is everywhere in the world at the moment. But, for example, the sausages. What’s the the blend there?
The vision? Lamb biryani is one of my favourite things. It’s just so soul-warming and soul-filling, with the spice and the meats in there. We get lamb shoulder and we cook that in a really dark stock with bay leaf, onion, carrot, peppercorns. We mix that in with sushi rice because I feel like it binds better. I prefer short grain to long grain and then we add fermented chillies, preserved almonds, sultanas, everything you’d have in a lamb biryani and we stuff that into skins. At the moment we’re smoking it over cherrywood. A mate of mine, Mark Foletta, has a farm in Benalla. At the moment we have pumpkins in the venue, that’s also from him.
So autumnal.
Exactly. We do that and then we cook it straight up over hot coals. One thing that will stay consistent with that dish is we’re serving it with Dreaming Goat yoghurt, which is this insane product from Macedon. It is the best yoghurt I’ve ever tried. It’s insane. We’re serving that at the moment with a puntarella, pandan, black pepper salad.
Puntarelle are only around for such a short period.
Only a month, I’d say. This season, I feel like it started earlier. which is good because then I can, you know, use it.
Do you just use it raw?
I cut it up really thinly and I put it in ice water? I feel like it removes the bitterness, otherwise, it’s quite intense.
You seem really good at doing food that goes well with wine, like at Lilac, and here it’s food that goes well with gin. Do you have to really think intentionally about what food would go with gin? Or does everything go with gin?
Honestly, it’s been a bit of a learning curve for me as well. Because the gin that they produce here is quite spice forward. You can taste all the botanicals in there. It has worked easily in the sense that my food’s very spice forward too. But there’s also some things where I needed to change things up a bit. My plan for the mignonette with the oysters was to use the Officers Cut gin. I tried it and it was so strong and intense. People would get drunk from three oysters. Now I’m using the Dutch Ceylon, which has makrut lime, toasted coconut and works quite well.
I was born and grew up in Sydney. The only Sri Lankan food I had was what my mum and my grandmother would cook, and things that I would have when I went back to Sri Lanka. All my food training has been French kitchens, Italian kitchens, Japanese kitchens, so it’s not traditional Sri Lankan. It’s just the way that I’ve been brought up in the industry with the way I’ve been brought up in general.
Viveik Vinohoran, Dutch Rules Distillery Co.
What other snacks do you have?
One of the standouts for me is probably the eggplant skewer. I love charcoal skewers of all sorts. We are serving that with pol sambal which is a very traditional Sri Lankan thing: coconut, tamarind, chilli, garlic. It’s quite intense and spicy. We’ve had a lot of people say that it’s intense. But they’re not saying to reduce the spice. It’s a good spice
And you have a cured trout?
That’s probably one of my favourite entrees at the moment as well. We get trout from Noojee which is near Buller. The fat content and the texture’s insane. We dry it for a week to concentrate it a bit more. We turn all of the bones into a very intense fish stock, almost like a pilpil. These are seasoned with fermented green tomato. So it’s a bit tangy, a bit smokey. At the moment, we’re doing a kiwi fruit, and shiso salsa. There are different kinds of vade, I’ve forgotten the Sri Lankan name for it, but it’s like a flat crisp. Like spicy lavosh, which is super nice. It’s like got cumin, fennel, curry leaf. It’s fresh and beautiful.
You also have charcuterie from one of my favourite chefs, Kyle Nicol. I’ve spoken to him a couple of times, and I’ve run into him as well, which is always a lovely. What do you get from him?
At the moment, he’s doing a bresaola for us. He is curing it in our coffee liqueur. I believe that’s two or three weeks away. Obviously, with charcuterie sometimes it will take longer, sometimes shorter. He’s going to bring us in some Cappacuolo and that’s got some pretty intense curry powder in it, as well. It’s perfect drinking food.
Are you getting some produce from the O.My farm?
One of my chefs worked there for two years or so. And then when he jumped on board, I asked him whether they would be ok for us to go down there and grab some stuff and they said, sure. I was expecting to grab one small crate of zucchinis, tomatoes, stuff like that. We ended up leaving with six boxes of things. They are lovely people. The food they’re doing is insane; beautiful food. They’ve exclusively used all the veg from their farm for seven years.
They are amazing. I had a conversation with Blayne a few years ago and we walked around the garden. It was very early days and I think there’s a lot more going on now. So obviously using local suppliers is important for you.
That’s for sure. I want to know where all of my produce comes from. I think that’s quite a key thing. Because I want to support the people who need to be supported. I want to make sure I’m getting the best I can in supporting the people that I can. Some of the stuff we use isn’t just from Victoria. Some of it’s from Flinders Island, Northern New South Wales, but it’s coming directly from them. It’s proper farm to table.
I always think, having spoken to people like Annie Smithers and Blayne, people that grow their own vegetables, and then, if you have a relationship with people who grow their own produce, you respect it, because you know the journey has taken them. When you really listen to the challenges they face, Annie Smithers with water, and there’s storms, and all kinds of things that happen, I think it must help with the way you treat those vegetables in the kitchen, don’t you think?
Definitely. Before we chuck anything out, we look at every part of it and think, what can I do with this? What can I do with this that’s not chucking it away. Before we opened up, we got a big order of mangoes in. When you process a mango, you’ve got like the seed, the skin, and you’ve got the meat as well as well. The meat is fine. We can ferment that and then use that quite easily. We fermented it in red chilli, grapefruit, lemon, lime for two months, and it’s insane. It has such a deep floral flavour. And then with the skins, we made a mango skin cheong, which is like a Korean sugar syrup. It’s fun as well. Sometimes these things don’t work out. They end up going off or tasting terrible. But the fact that you tried to do it, it can be cool. It opens the possibilities a lot more.
Danny and I have known each other through the industry for a while. Obviously, it’s a large industry, but it’s a very small industry at the same time. We had a chat last year and I thought, he is such a lovely guy. He just wants the best from his staff and treats them like human beings. I want to work with someone who cares, and, as sad as it is, that’s not as common as it should be.
Viveik Vinohoran, Dutch Rules Distilling Co.
You’ve got free reign? You can do what you like with the menu. You’ve been able to do that with your pop up? But apart from that, is that the first time you’ve really taken charge of a menu?
I’d say this is my first larger head chef job where I can cook the food that I want to cook, have fun with it and get the right things in.
How did it come about?
Danny and I have known each other through the industry for a while. Obviously, it’s a large industry, but it’s a very small industry at the same time. We had a chat last year and I thought, he is such a lovely guy. He just wants the best from his staff and treats them like human beings. I want to work with someone who cares, and, as sad as it is, that’s not as common as it should be. It’s been good. It’s been a big change from doing pop ups, for sure. I was doing a lot of that last year. It’s a different mindset doing pop-ups compared to a proper full-time venue.
What do you get out of a pop up? Obviously, you get to and you get to introduce yourself to different audiences. It must be quite tiring, though.
100%. It’s a lot of work. But it’s very fun. You’re doing these, wild, one to two day things in so many different kitchens and venues. You can’t do the same menu all the time. Some venues are not well equipped. You have to constantly think, what’s going to work and what’s the best way to do it?
One to two days is really short, and I just feel like it must be so hard going into different kitchens and feeling the flow to then produce your thing. I don’t know how chefs do that.
It was exhausting. I finished a big overseas trip at the end of August. I came back and in 4 weeks, including the week I got back, I had five dinners. It was a lot, but it was fun. I was exhausted at the end of it, but I love to work.
Well, that’s obviously why you are Young Chef of the year, congratulations. You’d been nominated for a couple of years before that? So you’ve really put the time and the effort in. Was it important to you to get that accolade?
It was. I’m incredibly stubborn as well. If I want something, I’m going to be going for it. If it doesn’t happen the first time, it doesn’t matter. Just do it again.
How do you become part of it?
Entries open around June every year. You have to submit a fair few responses. I believe it was 12 questions about the challenges young chefs are facing and, where do you see yourself in five years? You can’t just randomly type it. Then there’s a panel that reads through those and then they get a short list and get an interview with them. The first year there were six judges. The second and third years there were five. They’re sitting on just a small table just like this. You are in front of industry icons. I had watched these guys for years and now I’m in front of them telling them why I became a chef. It was insane. Last year was the first year that we had to cook, as well, which was really cool. We did that at Stokehouse. Beautiful venue and a beautiful team. We each did one course and then they put tickets out and people bought the tickets and it ended up being, I think, 65 to 70 people, which was quite cool.
I’ve always been obsessed with food. My family are great cooks. Cooking for people in my culture, as in a lot of cultures, it’s a love language. When people come over, you’re cooking for days and there are twenty different things on the table . Being surrounded by that warmth rubs off.
Viveik Vinohoran, Dutch Rules Distilling Co.
Congratulations. It is a really great testament for the hard work you put in. Sometimes you’re working away in kitchens and you’re a little bit unseen. You’re not unseen here. It’s very open here. What are the challenges of an open kitchen?
If you drop something, it’s embarrassing. I enjoy open kitchens because I love to yap as well. People come up and just talk and I love that.
Stepping into the role of head chef, was it an easy transition for you to become more of a leader and to think about how you how you take your team through the menu and so on?
I’ve had senior roles in the past, so leading a team hasn’t been an issue for me. But it’s been more about teaching people Sri Lankan food. That’s been fun. The team have been hesitant to put the amount of spice in. I say, don’t worry, just twist it a bit, go intense, and then we go from there. I try and tell my staff that cooking isn’t everything. When we’re at work, we’re at work, but you need a life outside of work. You can’t be burning out, going back home, sleeping, dreaming about work, coming into work. At the moment, I’m pushing my chefs to have four days on three days off. I feel like it’s key. Two days off is good, but a lot of the time both of those days end up being filled with grocery shopping, cleaning and then back to work. I want people wanting to come to work, not waking up and being, oh, no, I have to head into work today, but coming in wondering what fish is coming in this week, and having fun with it, which I like.
I always hope the people cooking have a good time with it, because hospitality is a super hard job. But you would hope that there was passion in it. What about you? Do you think about food 24/7?
Yes.
You have so many amazing ideas. You manage to sew in those beautiful threads of your Sri Lankan memories from growing up in with your training. Do you write these ideas down, or do they just sit with you?
I think they end up all going into a really messy document. But most of the time my ideas are very produce driven. I feel like that’s the best way to start. What can I get in now? I think the perfect example is a few months ago, I met up with some guys who work directly with fishmongers and farms. They cut out the middlemen and ensure that all the fish are being picked up from the fishmonger and going straight to me. I had a meeting with them and asked if there were things the farms aren’t really selling that they want to sell. They said there’s a farm up in New South Wales called Bundarra. They do a really great Berkshire pig. One of their things that they wanted to sell, or they had a lot of was pig’s skin. A lot of people boil and dry pig skin and make chicharon. But I thought, what else can I do with that? I thought I could try to make a pork curry with it. wear it with that. And then they said, the farm on Flinders Island has a lot of wallaby mince. And then I thought, we’ve got the fattiness from the pigskin, we’ve got the leanness from the wallaby mince, lets just combine them. And so I made a pork and wallaby Bolognese kind of vibe with tamarind, lemongrass, kaffir lime, black pepper, fennel, cardamom. We make our own rigatoni, and I just made a spag bol, but without the spag.
I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. That’s clever. Do you reckon you’ve got a cookbook in you?
Maybe down the track. Who knows? It could be fun.
These ideas are incredible, but we’re lucky we can come and eat them. Growing up, did you always think you might be a chef?
I’ve always been obsessed with food. My family are great cooks. Cooking for people in my culture, as in a lot of cultures, it’s a love language. When people come over, you’re cooking for days and there are twenty different things on the table . Being surrounded by that warmth rubs off. I went to uni for a bit after school. I was doing a bachelor of forensic science, which is completely different. A the same time, I was applying for part time jobs in kitchens. Then someone offered me an apprenticeship. I thought, let’s just see where it goes. Now 12 years after that, I’m here.
What do you most love about it? Maybe there isn’t just one thing. I often think it must be the thrill of service, creativity, as you say, the hospitality aspect of talking to the people, and the fact that you are using your love language.
I’d say I feel all of that. It’s just so nice to see someone enjoy a meal that you’ve made. And then people coming up and saying this is the best thing that I’ve had. Once someone came up to me, not here, but at a pop up, and they said it reminded them of their mum’s cooking. That’s the greatest compliment I can get. And then seeing your team have the same respect and enthusiasm for the food is really nice.
With all that in mind, and the fact that you are Young Chef of the Year, what would your advice be to young chefs starting out?
Ask as many questions as you can, in every instance possible. Even if it’s a weird question, just ask it and put yourself out there. Put yourself where you want to be. You’re not going to do the things you want unless you go for it. Things aren’t just going to be thrown at you. You need to work for it. When you’re there, just ask the questions. It’s the best way to learn and stay curious.
Dutch Rules Distilling Co., 1/586 Whitehorse Road, Mitcham