Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent

With Melbourne still in lockdown, we chat to inspiring micro-business owner Christy Tania of Glace Desserts. Christy refuses to be a victim of difficult circumstances. While admitting every day is scary and hard right now, she continues to create, energise, refashion and take control. She shares ideas for mindset and self-care as well as business strategy. https://www.instagram.com/christytania/?h...

As lockdown eases in regional Victoria, we chat to Liam Thornycroft, owner of Cliffy's Emporium and Beppe in Daylesford. Given the diner and density restrictions, Liam has been crunching the numbers and working out if and when to reopen with his staff's needs foremost in his mind. He's also dreading checking postcodes to ensure Melbourne diners aren't sneaking in and hoping that kindness, patience...

As Melbourne heads towards the end of the circuit breaker lockdown and into its extension, we chat to someone who is used to getting no government support. Adam Walsh is from the UK and has been working at Mesa Verde. But with no work at the moment, he's reverted to his old side hustle making candles and selling them on Instagram. Adam is studying fitness and he gives us all some tips for mental a...

Ideally, we would spend our time with Guy Grossi talking about ragu and tiramisu but with Melbourne in lockdown and much to worry about, we talk mindset, strategies, passion and determination - oh and lasagne because there's always time for lasagne. http://www.grossi.com.au Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deepintheweedspodcast/?hl=en Follow Dani https://www.instagram.com/...

How's it going for international students? Mexican American Robert Holguin came to Melbourne on a whim and a working holiday visa in 2019. He loved it...until the pandemic set in. After a long, lean lockdown he enrolled in a commercial cookery course and paid for a student visa. Unfortunately, the whole thing feels like a scam. On the up side, he loves his job in the kitchen at Shannon Martinez's...

The night Melbourne went into lockdown, Dirty Linen host Dani Valent was supposed to be dining at the Royal Mail Hotel, four hours west of Melbourne. Oh well. In lieu of eating the food, Dani talks to chef Robin Wickens. We chat about what would have been on the menu, maturing as a cook and mentor, and about the 'copycat scandal' in 2006 when Wickens was called out for replicating dishes from famo...

LOCKDOWN #4. As Victoria goes back into lockdown, we talk to Etta Dining's Hannah Green. With cases in Brunswick and other nearby suburbs, Hannah thinks locking down is the right thing to do. She flipped quickly to takeaway to try to create stability and income for her staff. She's depleted and drained but trying to keep things in perspective and focus on what's really important: health, kindness,...

Staffing! How do you hire, train, inspire and hang onto staff and what are some menu creation strategies that allow you to operate with less experienced workers? We dig into it with experienced consultant, trainer and chef Mark Normoyle, co-owner of Luna’s Food & Wine in Melbourne’s St Kilda. https://www.lunas.com.au/ Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deepintheweedspodcast/...

Andrew Prior parlayed his stint as a contestant on MasterChef Australia 2013 into a food tour business, first in Melbourne and since 2016 in France. At the end of 2019 he was flying high after a super successful trip through the Cote d'Azur. Since then it's been tough - food tourism and pandemics don't really vibe. We speak as France opens up to outdoor dining but with daily cases in the thousands...

Chef Jenna Abbruzzese owns Kitchenette in Hawthorn with her partner Megan Griffey. They entered the pandemic with a cheek-by-jowl 20-seat cafe, now completely refashioned as a take-home providore. Feeding the community in this new way is intimate and connected but there was some deep sadness as they worked through the change. https://www.ourkitchenette.com.au Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https:...

This week on Dirty Linen we’re looking at hospitality business models. What kind of tweaks and rethinks have people made to craft businesses that are more viable and perhaps better aligned with their hearts, souls and visions for a balanced life? Today we’re in Kyneton with sometime publican Melissa Macfarlane, who with her husband Frank Moylan started the pandemic running a gastropub at the Royal...

Today we welcome Turkish student and chef Tugce Bayrakdar back to Dirty Linen to talk about hospitality employment from the perspective of an international student. Tugce is currently working at Attica Summer Camp and having a great time, but she reflects on a stressful working history in Australia. Students like Tugce are often uninformed, underpaid and exploited, putting strain on their studies,...

We continue to ponder staffing in a great discussion with veteran Brisbane chef and restaurateur Shannon Kellam. Shannon and his wife Clare own French restaurant Montrachet as well as Lumiere Culinary Studio and The Kneadery bakeries. Though he has old-school values, Shannon has needed to innovate, creating a production kitchen to manage his chefs' hours and maintain his high standards. He offers...

We continue to examine the huge topic of staffing from different angles. Today we’re talking to an expert on labour markets. Chris F Wright is Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Business School. His research focuses on employment relations and labour migration and he's written extensively on hospitality. https://www.smh.com.au/national/peter-costello-said-australia-would-never-be-a-gu...

Staffing. It’s all anybody in hospitality is talking about. Noone is answering ads. Owners are working crazy hours. Employees are stretched. There are impacts on menus and service. We begin a series of conversations about staffing with Tony Twitchett, executive chef of the landmark Transport Hotel and Taxi Kitchen at Melbourne's Federation Square. https://transporthotel.com.au/taxi-kitchen/ Follow...

Talking trolling...How damaging are negative online reviews? We talk to cafe owner and coffee roaster Penny Wolff about the Brisbane-based #saydontslay campaign which encourages diners to speak directly to business owners, rather than posting mean comments or one-star reviews. https://wolffcoffeeroasters.com.au/products/penny-wolff https://www.instagram.com/dandeliondriftwood/ Follow Dirty Linen o...

We head back to India in this moving chat with Mumbai chef Saransh Goila of Goila Butter Chicken. Saransh launched a meal-giving service #covidmealsforindia a month ago, connecting home cooks with people stuck at home with COVID. The situation is catastrophic but Saransh believes the only way forward is with hope and action. One day, surely, we can meet again in Mumbai for street food snacks. Dona...

Dirty Linen stays on the topic of India in this chat with prominent Indian-Australian restaurateur Jessi Singh. Jessi is opening new restaurants in a more-or-less COVID-free Australia while stressing out about the awful situation in his home country. He paints a picture of chaos, corruption and tragedy, as well as expressing his frustration that Australian has forbidden travel from India. https://...

Dirty Linen is spending the week talking India, where a devastating COVID wave is sweeping through the country. We start in Goa, where Suchint 'Suzie' Kaur Dhillon runs Suzie's Restaurant in the village of Assagao. With a COVID-positive rate of 60% and a government in denial, things are pretty bad but Suzie can see a silver lining in the equalising nature of the pandemic. https://www.suzi.es Follo...

We head to Bowral to talk skills, training, staff shortages and nose-to-tail respect with Centennial Vineyards owner-chef Robin Murray. Wondering how to slip haggis onto a menu? Robin sheds some light. https://www.centennialvineyardsrestaurant.com.au Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deepintheweedspodcast/?hl=en Follow Dani https://www.instagram.com/danivalent Follow Deep I...

Pastry chef Lucy Whitlow made the most of lockdown, creating food-related art and exhibiting it in her home. For herself. While wearing a fur jacket. We talk vulnerability and the myth of the invincible chef, Melbourne glorious Melbourne, and cheese, lots of cheese! https://www.instagram.com/lucywhitlow_/ Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/deepintheweedspodcast/?hl=en Follow...

On the surface, chef Zac Sykes seemed to be riding high with a string of head chef jobs at prominent Sydney restaurants including Coogee Pavilion and North Bondi Fish. But he was battling addiction to alcohol and a turbulent swirl of drug use and other unhealthy habits. After some big lows, he cleaned up, started looking after himself and took a long break. Returning to the kitchen was as scary as...

We head to Mildura to chat to chef, restaurateur, politician, TV host and brilliant, passionate raconteur Stefano De Pieri. Stefano's new show Australia's Food Bowl premieres on SBS later this month. On the face of it, it's a celebration of the Murray-Darling River Basin and all the food that's grown in it. But the undercurrent is activist: water rights, crop choices and tangled politics have dama...

Dirty Linen celebrates 200 episodes by going back to the legend who kicked off episode 1 in June 2020. Alla Wolf-Tasker is owner and founder of Lake House, the 35-year-old Daylesford restaurant which pioneered a kind of who-needs-to-go-Europe-anyway kind of experience - so appropriate for 2021. We talk recovery, staffing, local tourism, autumn bounty, tough decisions and gleaming leaves. https://w...

What kind of chef can you become when you put ego aside? John Rivera was powering to success as a fine dining chef when a lower than expected Good Food Guide score knocked him sideways and pushed him to change tack. Enter a pandemic and things got shoved a little more sideways. A COVID ice cream hustle has turned into a fulltime business and Rivera is feeling happy, balanced and optimistic. https:...