Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent

This is part two in a special series following the journey of leading Australian chef and restaurateur Martin Boetz as he works towards opening ShortGrain in Brisbane. In our first episode, Marty outlined the vision: self-funded ShortGrain will be an Asian food store and eatery in a landmark heritage building. It’s 12 weeks till he presses go. Let’s see where he’s at… https://www.instagram.com/mar...

Caley Callope works with Black Duck Foods, an Indigenous produce enterprise that encompasses farming, learning, connection and culture on Yuin Country in East Gippsland, Victoria. Caley brings her whole self to her role: there’s her rich and proud Aboriginal heritage, the complexity in how she was raised in generosity and community, and an academic lens which also informs her intention and ambitio...

We love celebrating young talent at Dirty Linen. Amber Heaton is a chef at The Star Gold Coast and Captain of The Australian Youth Culinary Team. Fresh of a couple of big wins, she shares her tips for culinary competitions (seafood yes, blast freezer no) and the non-medal rewards of putting yourself forward as a competitor. https://instagram.com/chefamberheaton?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== Follow Dirty...

Winemaker and restaurateur Troy Walsh became curious about wine as a child when his Italian neighbours turned the grapes overhanging his fence into something they seemed to enjoy very much. He became a sommelier at top London restaurants including The Square and Nahm, studied winemaking in Burgundy and can now be found at Le Bouchon at Attwoods in Glenlyon, north of Melbourne. The restaurant is a...

Hospitality professionals are often looking at creating a career that works for them, both professionally and personally. Emily Petrelli and her husband Daniel Greenwood left busy, stressful jobs to open Restaurant St Lawrence four years ago. They structured the hours and the menu to suit and did almost all the jobs themselves. They pivoted hard through the pandemic then saw cost of living pressur...

For the last 18 years, The Paddock in Leopold has offered people with a disability the chance to learn new skills, and thanks to The Paddock’s Kim Turner the fruits of their labour are now appearing on restaurant menus across the region. https://www.givewhereyoulive.com.au Follow The Producers on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/producerspodcast/ Host Dani Valent  https://www.instagram.com/dani...

Content warning: we talk about suicide in this podcast. Tobie-Anna Durk is the founder of Kelly’s Cause, a UK-based charity on a mission to create a mentally healthy hospitality industry. As a trained chef Tobie-Anna started Kelly’s Cause in honour of her dear friend and fellow chef Kelly who died by suicide. We talk about mental health first aid, emptying out the 'stress container' and strategies...

Paul Iskov got into cooking so he'd have time for surfing but was soon swept up by a fascination with native ingredients. His roaming restaurant Fervor moves every week, engaging with Traditional Owners and their local foods, setting up dining experiences everywhere from deserts to treetops. Paul shares his story plus has tips for other chefs keen to use native ingredients but unsure how best to g...

Opening a restaurant is an epic venture, a project that is always beset with ups and downs. It’s a minefield of plans, plans derailed, endless compliance, permits, unforeseen expenses, building snafus, supply problems, creative blocks and staffing challenges. It’s also about making dreams come to life: to see something in your mind’s eye, to make it happen and hopefully to experience the enormous...

John Ford and his team at Unearthed Mushrooms grow gourmet culinary mushrooms in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, supplying restaurants and a few retailers in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. John has loved mushrooms since he was a teenager and eventually turned his hobby into a business. It’s been far from easy but he’s as curious and passionate about fungi as he ever was and is very happy to wear the man...

After some tough and tumultuous years, chef and restaurateur George Calombaris has opened Hellenic House Project in the Melbourne suburb of Highett. We talk about the journey: what he's learnt, how he's regrouped, what anchors him and how it's expressed in this new business. https://www.thehellenichouseproject.com.au Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dirtylinenpodcast Follo...

We're eating all the cake on the podcast today! Arnaud Vodounou is the group head pastry chef at Black Star Pastry, which has seven locations in Sydney and Melbourne. It's home to the oft-Instagrammed watermelon cake but now has a new owner in Louis Li and a new range under Arnaud's stewardship. We talk about his early career at Taillevent in Paris, an interesting stint teaching patisserie to Viet...

Over the past decade, Melbourne's Bourke Street hill has slowly morphed into a vibrant Thai Town. The originator is Thai Tide, a dynamic restaurant which has changed menu direction a number of times in its 11-year history. The chef for all that time has been Nutchanun Thongsawat. She talks us through the current iteration of Thai Tide and its celebration of regional Thai cuisines and specialty ing...

Levenvale Farm is a place that nourishes the soil, the plants, the animals and where farmer Georgina Baker (Bello Beef) and her husband Sam are rearing the amazing cattle to produce grass fed Bello Beef. A farm that helps build community and bring back localised food systems. https://www.levenvalefarm.com.au Follow The Producers on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/producerspodcast/ Host Dani Va...

Alex Dekker was a 19-year-old uni student when the pandemic hit in 2020. His sister was a doctor working on a Covid ward, busy, stressed and without any time to feed herself properly. Alex made her a lasagne and Alex Makes Meals was born. Alex's food charity now makes more than 3000 meals a week for those facing food insecurity in Melbourne. We talk about Alex's huge life change and what's he's le...

We wrap up our special series on the Liverpool Plains. Jason Allan is a Traditional Owner and CEO of the Walhallow Local Aboriginal Land Council. He's also an elected Shire councillor. Jason talks about this special country, its ancient heritage and continuing importance. It's a powerful and crucial perspective, especially in the context of debate around an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. https://...

We continue our Fighting for the Liverpool Plains series in this discussion with sourdough baker Renee Neale. Renee runs Reverence Sourdough in Gunnedah: it’s bread made with time and love. She also has a close association with Wholegrain Milling and can speak with passion and authority about the importance of Liverpool Plains grain to the Australian baking community. https://www.reverencesourdoug...

We're back in the Liverpool Plains to discuss the perils of coal seam gas mining in Australia's food bowl. Today's guest is Pip Murray, a farmer and writer from Gunnedah. She’s deeply connected to her community in the Liverpool Plains, considered one of the most fertile agricultural areas in the world and - as Pip explains - one of the most beautiful too. An advocate for the environment, wildlife...

We continue our Fighting for the Liverpool Plains series in this discussion with fourth-generation farmer Scott McCalman. Noone has more reverence and deep knowledge about the black soil of this extraordinary growing region - how it came to be there, why it’s so precious, and how best to look after it for the benefit of farmers, eaters and the climate. Educated and forward-looking, Scott is using...

Cathy Palmer is just about getting used to the idea that she’s a dairy farmer. After a career in music management she followed a passion for animal welfare into ethical milk production. On her northern Victorian dairy farm, calves aren’t ripped away from their mums soon after birth. Instead, cows and calves stay together through to weaning. Cathy ensures a calm, happy life for her own cows, and sh...

Just about everything we do at Dirty Linen and across the whole Deep in the Weeds food podcast network rests on farming. Without productive farmers we don’t have restaurants, we don’t have those resonant, connected stories of cuisine and culture that we love so much - and that we know you appreciate too. And fundamentally, without farmers, we don’t eat. It’s basic. We also know that we need to cea...

We love celebrating the next generation of hospitality professionals at Dirty Linen. When we heard 16-year-old Liam Scotchmer was a full-time barista at Single O in Sydney's Surry Hills, we had to get him on for a chat. Liam shares his coffee obsession, from early lattes in Newcastle to his first job in Berlin and the self-directed learning journey which took him from a disruptive school classroom...

Campos is one of the best known coffee brands in Australia, supplying its beans to around 700 cafes across the country. Founded in Sydney in 2002, there are three flagship stores, in Sydney, Brisbane and now Melbourne. We have a wide-ranging chat with commercial director John Ronchi, touching on specialty coffee, the perils and advantages of scaling a business and why he believes government policy...

Andrew Yeo (Yeo Farm) runs a small lamb operation on 100 acres in Bulahdelah on the Mid North Coast of NSW. It’s a small farm dedicated to the locals where Andrew runs 160 Australian White Sheep to bring fresh pasture raised lamb to the area. https://www.yeofarm.com.au Follow The Producers on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/producerspodcast/ Host Dani Valent  https://www.instagram.com/danivale...

It’s a cafe, it’s a provisions store, but most of all it’s a smokehouse. By Kai is a unique offering in Sydney’s Surry Hills, run by chef Kai Ellmann and his wife Pawitra, a passionate Thai cook. They combine all their influences to create a very Australian business. https://www.bykai.com.au/#home Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dirtylinenpodcast Follow Dani Valent https:...