Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent

She was on the verge of packing in her plant-based businesses and moving to Spain but Shannon Martinez (Smith & Daughters, Smith & Deli) has doubled down on her vegan food brands with new investor Kelly Jarrett. Why don’t the old models work in hospitality anymore? What has Shannon learnt from a finance person about the food business? And what’s happened to vegan eating in an age of meat-maxxing?...

There’s no bad time to catch up with Dave Pynt, chef and owner of fire-driven Michelin-starred Burnt Ends in Singapore. However, this seems like an especially good time to talk Michelin stars and New Zealand & South Australia, kitchen culture in Singapore, whether staging (working for free in restaurants) is a good thing, especially in light of Dave’s topical experience at NOMA in Copenhagen. http...

Dirty Linen is in Vietnam! We get up at 4am for a dawn tour of Long Bien wholesale market (and more) with local chef Duyen Phan. Along the way Duyen told me some of her own story. She left her village as a young teen and ended up working for vendors at this market for two years, before a chance encounter with an English woman inspired her to learn English herself and build a different kind of life...

When you’ve experienced the worst of hospitality, how do you run a restaurant that exemplifies its best? Fhred Batalona owns Palay, a Filipino ‘house’ in Melbourne’s Fitzroy. He grew up in a multicultural home, trained as a chef in the Philippines, and moved to Australia to work and study. After years as an employee, he’s now a business owner, striving to create an environment that’s happy and sup...

After decades in hospitality, including 18 years at Melbourne institution France-Soir, Franck Sammut has opened an all-day pizza restaurant called Upper Middle. What has kept Franck engaged with restaurant life over so many years, and what challenges is he striking as a first time business owner? Also, how is the tarte tatin so good? https://www.instagram.com/uppermiddlesouthmelb/ SUBSCRIBE TO OUR...

In a challenging time for hospitality, I’m also struck by the optimism and investment. It happens with an eye on business opportunity, for sure, but it’s also because of an enduring belief in gathering. Who better to talk about that than an Irishman? Liam Ganley owns The Fifth Province and Freddie Wimpoles in St Kilda, as well as four other pubs. With a background in construction and pub culture i...

We’re back with chef and lamb farmer Jenna Abbruzzese from Addington Downs as part of an ongoing Dirty Linen series. Since we spoke last time, Dani has eaten some of Jenna’s lamb. What’s it like to cook and eat an animal that you’ve seen frolic around on Instagram, that has a name, and that died to be your dinner? Also mentioned: Charles Massy’s book, Call of the Reed Warbler Charlie Arnott’s podc...

Is it possible to create a balanced, intentional, happy life as a chef? Sarah Baldwin, chef and owner of Joy Restaurant in Brisbane, is making it happen. The seven-year-old restaurant serves a set menu four nights a week to two sittings of just 10 people. Joy has won many awards but this conversation is more about connection and vulnerability than accolades. https://www.joyrestaurant.com.au SUBSCR...

Every now and then, we check in with Emma Sheahan from Lumen People, a cafe and wine bar in Melbourne’s Fitzroy. Our Illuminating Lumen series is all about small business: the joys as well as the tricky bits and challenges. As winter kicks in, we talk carrots and cakes, beetroot and lamb jus, and the ongoing puzzles of costing and pricing. https://www.instagram.com/lumenpeople/?hl=en SUBSCRIBE TO...

We love a milestone on Dirty Linen! Geppetto Trattoria in East Melbourne is celebrating 45 years, marking its 1981 opening with a pasta mista for $19.81 all week. We talk to owner Adriano Cea about legacy, lovely customers and his dad Nino, who’s still shopping Preston Market for the restaurant’s daily specials. Now, to get onto the secret coniglio (rabbit) list… ⁠https://www.geppettotrattoria.com...

Is there a good reason to buy a grand champion wagyu beast for tens of thousands of dollars and bring it into Australia for diners to try? Emily Yu thinks so. Her team outbid all others in a Japanese auction to secure the best beast, which is now being served at her Melbourne restaurants Wagyu Ya, Yakikami and Niku Ou. We talk about the surprising qualities of premium wagyu and the best ways to en...

If we’re lucky, we’ll get old. But if we end up in aged care, as many of us will, what are the meals going to be like? David Martin is the executive chef at St Vincent’s Care, which offers retirement living and aged care in New South Wales and Victoria. A former five-star hotel chef, he is soon to compete at the National Chef of the Year competition at Food & Hospitality Week 2026, coming up on 25...

We last spoke to Pietro Porcu in mid-January after his home and farm in Yarck, two hours north of Melbourne, was destroyed by bushfires. Four months later, how is he going and how are things at Da Noi, his 30-year-old Sardinian restaurant? We talk recovery, frustration, opportunity, acceptance and why goats and pigs can’t be in the same paddock. http://danoi.com.au SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR...

How did ‘health food’ get so off track and became expensive, elitist and anxiety inducing? Muesli whisperer and naturopath Catie Gett recently made a scary leap from the wellness world’s cool kids’ table to the very real world of sharing budget-friendly recipes for people stretched by a cost-of-living crisis. The Staple Store Cookbook is enabling, accessible and anxiety free. https://www.instagram...

Are hotel restaurants ever going to be a go-to option in Australian cities and towns? We chat to Ben Creek, Vice President of Food & Beverage in Asia and the Pacific for Accor. From great coffee to smarter buffets to inclusive employment and AI, he shares the levers he’s pulling to make sure hotel hospitality is attractive to locals and visitors alike. https://www.instagram.com/bencreeklondon/ SUB...

Is there anything more perfect than an oyster? Isabelle Pearl Love-Dack runs Finn’s Oyster Bar, which attends events to offer just-shucked bliss. She also works for Shuck Don’t Chuck, which collects oyster shells to use in reef rehab. Finn’s is named for Bella’s son Finn, who died in 2019 aged 13 months. The grief is always present but there’s joy too. https://www.instagram.com/finnsoysterbar/ SUB...

Melanie Lionello is a nutritionist, content creator and author of new book From My Little Kitchen, which brings achievable Italian recipes with dietary information and a practical sense of how cooking fits into people’s lives. We talk about why there are no rabbit recipes (maybe in book 2?) and how she has built her social media audience to almost 400,000 followers. https://www.instagram.com/fromm...

Returning to Dirty Linen after a huge 16 months, Umberto Group’s Marco Finanzio has changed the shape of his business, closing venues and refocusing. In hard times, what matters? Who are we accountable to? What is the mission? A bowl of pasta might be part of the answer… https://www.umbertogroup.com.au SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE ARTICLES, NEWS, GIVEAWAYS AND BEHIND THE SCENES https:...

Australia imports most of its seafood, and the most commonly eaten locally produced fish is farmed salmon. Do these facts point to problems? Today’s chat is with return Dirty Linen guest Stephen Nairn (Omnia, Yugen), who has recently opened Portside, a retail store at Prahran Market with a focus on high quality seafood from known fishers. Stephen’s previous chat on Dirty Linen: https://podcasts.ap...

Louisa Dunn farms potatoes, beef and sheep in Blackwood, an hour north of Melbourne. A city girl from Brighton, who married into a fifth generation farming family, Louisa has learnt more about potatoes than she knew there was to know. There are more than 4000 types of potatoes and the Dunn family is proud to grow around 20 of them, both for chipping and sending to market. Louisa has become a keen...

Chef John Laureti owns Cafe Lewi in Sydney’s Lewisham with his wife Isabella Leva Laureti, a pastry chef. The pair have a background in fine dining but they decided to bring their skills and experience to a daytime cafe, which now does a couple of nights due to customer demand. In a tricky time for hospitality, we talk about expectations, scary spreadsheets, and open conversations with a cafe’s co...

When you’re busy and always thinking about the next urgent matter, it can be hard to stop to celebrate the milestones. I love it when I see a restaurant share that they’ve turned 1 or 5 or 20. It’s great to take stock, find time to be proud, consider the legacy, and what you want to take forward. For Jason M Jones, there are a couple of milestones - he’s turning 50 and his Melbourne restaurant Ent...

If there’s a type of restaurant that I appreciate most intensely, it’s small independent family places where the creativity has to be as much about business structure as food on a plate. Greasy Zoe’s is one of those businesses. Run by couple Zoe Birch and Lachlan Gardner, the eight seat restaurant is in a leafy suburb an hour from Melbourne. It’s a special place. As the business clocks up nine yea...

We return to a favourite series on Dirty Linen: Illuminating Lumen. In this occasional catch-up, we enter the world of Lumen People, a cafe and wine bar that launched in North Melbourne in 2023, closed in 2025 and reopened in Fitzroy. Six months after landing in the second site, owner Emma Sheahan tells us how it’s going. https://www.instagram.com/lumenpeople/ SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLU...

We’re back with Jenna Abbruzzese from Addington Downs in the second episode of our ongoing series about lamb farming. Jenna and her partner Alex farm with purpose and in alignment with strong values around nurturing land, animals and the humans who eventually eat the meat they produce. We talk about the problems with purity and strict labels, and the emotions around sending animals to the abattoir...