Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent

Mary-Jane Daffy is a veteran cafe opener, owner and adapter in Melbourne's south-east. She's launched a bunch of new businesses at Carter Lovett in Elsternwick over the past six months and is wondering which will persist as we creep out of lockdown. MJ is a clear thinking pragmatist with strong views on hospo's pre-COVID problems - we talk staffing, wages, prices, surcharges and community. She's a...

James Broadway's pandemic includes closing one 17-year-old restaurant and building a market garden, bakery and supply box store at the infant Tedesca Osteria on the Mornington Peninsula. But that's not the real conversation. James goes big and deep, talking about the true meaning of hospitality and the unexpected ways he thinks the art of hospitality can be wielded to build a better society. Don't...

Today on Dirty Linen we head back to regional Victoria, to Dianne Ray's The Shared Table in Buninyong. She shares her views on kindness and what 'we're all in it together' might mean and along the way we talk about why opening to dine-in trade can actually be harder and less financially viable than take-home meals. When Dianne talks about food I feel like she's putting a bowl of something on the t...

Chayse Bertoncello and his brother Blayne own and run O.My restaurant in Beaconsfield in Melbourne's outer south-east. We talk to Chayse about the differences between lockdown 1 and 2, the importance of community, the rhythms of farming and being so connected to produce that you know the name of each cow you eat. https://www.omyrestaurant.com.au Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https://www.instagra...

Emma Handley is owner-chef at Templar Lodge in Tawonga in north-east Victoria but much closer to Albury, NSW, than Melbourne. My last restaurant meal before lockdown was with Emma - I was researching a bushfire recovery story. We talked about the fires that ruined summer and pondered the pandemic. Now Emma has just reopened (again) to seat outdoor diners in the snow. 2020! Follow Dirty Linen on In...

We hear a lot about the mental health impacts of the pandemic but what actually might they be and how do we deal with them? We start the week with integrated wellbeing specialist and counsellor Rae Bonney (who also happens to be the mother of episode 24's George Wintle). "How does it feel to be you today?" she asks. https://www.instagram.com/rae.bonney/?hl=en Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram https:...

Melbourne chef Robbie Bell was on the cusp of launching a food distribution business when the pandemic hit, forcing many restaurateurs to turn their in-house creations into retailed food items. It was a timely move. He steps us through some of the pain points of launching a food brand and shares heaps of practical tips for those who might be considering bottling that sauce. We also talk about hosp...

Dirty Linen darts out of the hospo space into academia. We talk to Dr Quentin Stevens, Associate Professor in RMIT University’s School of Architecture and Urban Design. Quentin is a leader in the field of 'Temporary and Tactical Urbanism' and has many creative ideas about outdoor dining. We talk city beaches, goodwill, what 'cutting red tape' might actually mean, and the opportunities for entrepre...

Jason Jones was an 11-year-old pianist in a country fine diner when he fell in love with hospitality. Putting steaks in boxes isn't the warm service experience he lives for but he's managed to make delivery fun. We talk about dealing with uncertainty, staff shortages, the tricky prospect of outdoor dining, the fact that sometimes you might need to spend five days in bed, and his belief that Melbou...

Agustin Hernandez is an out-of-work Melbourne chef who intersects with the pandemic in interesting ways. He cooked for guests in hotel quarantine, he lived for years in one of the social housing towers subject to a hard lockdown in early July, and he's considering a future which may not be in kitchens. What does a 53-year-old chef do when he's out of work and feeling like employers look towards yo...

When chef Simone Watts lost her casual shifts at the start of the pandemic she soon noticed that the job might be gone but the adrenaline wasn't and being unable to release it through a busy shift was making her anxious. She's channelled those bad feelings into a redoubled passion for connecting with nature and wants to become not just a chef but a storyteller. https://www.instagram.com/simonewatt...

Regional Victoria is allowed to open! But COVID-safe restrictions mean it's not yet worthwhile for everyone to throw open the doors. Anne-Marie Banting co-owns the Daylesford Hotel and they're going to keep the 'old girl' closed for now. Daylesford is still too cold for outdoor dining and the town relies on Melbourne visitors who aren't allowed up the highway. We talk regions, renewal, the light a...

Regional Victorian restaurants are allowed to open today. YAY! We speak to Sonia Anthony, owner of Masons of Bendigo, and a champion of local produce and small farms. Restrictions mean Sonia is allowed to have 10 people in each of two dining spaces - it's a far cry from the 100 covers a night she used to be used to but it's something, it's a start, and she's feeling hopeful. https://masonsofbendig...

When COVID came a-calling, Ben Shewry gave himself one day to feel sorry for himself then set about saving his business. We talk about privilege, leadership, employing for character, making soup for visa holders, my mum's opinion on Attica's cheesecake, and why Melbourne will eventually be OK. https://www.attica.com.au https://www.instagram.com/benshewry/?hl=en Follow Dirty Linen on Instagram http...

Mark Glenn was head chef at Cumulus Inc in Melbourne but he's escaped to Canberra for a challenging new job at Pialligo Estate. We talk about the Melbourne he's left behind, the scarily lax quarantine arrangements in the ACT, what it's like to work at Andrew McConnell's Trader House group, and the challenges that a Melbourne exodus will wreak on an industry that is going to need able, committed pr...

We continue to chat about the Victorian shutdown and the slow move towards partial reopening. Today it's Andy Mullins, part of the group of mates and brothers who are Sand Hill Road, owners of nine pubs in Melbourne including the Espy and Garden State. Andy loves Melbourne with all of his heart and he's hurting big for its plight. He contemplates the present and throws some energy at the future. h...

When we speak to Bao Hoang, he's not long off a call with PM Scott Morrison: Bao is representing the perspective of small-to-medium enterprises and culturally and linguistically diverse communities on a coronavirus recovery taskforce. In the meantime, he's running Roll'd, a mostly takeaway Vietnamese chain with branches around Australia. Hoang saw the pandemic coming and he's helped Roll'd neatly...

JY Lee is a co-owner of Anchovy in Richmond, alongside her partner chef Thi Le. Anchovy is small and so nimble that it changed cuisines overnight at the start of the pandemic. Around the same time, while many businesses were standing down staff, JY and Thi committed to the considerable cost of sponsoring a young UK chef because she seemed like a great fit. They're still innovating, trying out new...

Today we head to LA to speak to Veronica Fil, a founder of plant-based cheese company Grounded Foods, alongside chef-wizard-husband Shaun Quade (ex-Lume in South Melbourne). Veronica has a background as an economist and marketer, and she has very perceptive, data-driven views on food businesses. Also, she's just emerged from an operation in a COVID-soaked LA hospital because flesh-eating bacteria...

Ryan Moses owns Naughtons Hotel in Parkville, near Melbourne Uni. He thought he had a pretty good business model with diverse income streams, but drinking, dining, retail, functions and accommodation still couldn't outplay a pandemic. Ryan is losing money every week the pub stays closed so pushing the reopening timeline towards late October is a harsh blow. He talks plans, hopes, dreams and fears,...

As Victoria comes to grips with an extended lockdown and a slow path to reopening, Dirty Linen chats to Salvatore Malatesta, owner of St Ali. During COVID, St Ali has morphed from a coffee company to a brand-driven online platform selling everything from sanitiser to butter to pizza bases. The answer is always creativity, says Sal, so how exactly can Victoria's hurting hospo industry apply creativ...

What if a new way of running restaurants was not to run a restaurant at all? Melbourne cook Helly Raichura started her home-based eating experience as a hobby but she somehow ended up with 30,000 people on a waitlist for her creative Indian dinners. She knows she wants to ditch her HR job and cook for a living but there's so much about the restaurant world that doesn't work for her: the hours, hig...

We're talking about the future on Dirty Linen. Melbourne chef and restaurateur Joseph Vargetto has appeared endlessly energetic during the pandemic, launching multiple new businesses and turning pivot into pirouette over and again. He's a hospo lifer, passionate about the place of restaurants in Melbourne's fabric and hopeful that the industry can exit the pandemic with a united and consistently p...

After three weeks traipsing around the world, Dirty Linen comes back to Australia. It's time to think about the future. We're starting with young Bendigo cook Michael Grogan, who is also studying planning and regional development. We chat food sovereignty, regional renewal and the challenges and opportunities coming out of the pandemic. Might the future be bright after all.. https://www.instagram....

Dirty Linen is thrilled to clock up 50 episodes in a chat with US chef Matt Horn from Oakland, California. There's almost too much to talk about with a Black business owner in the America of 2020. We cover Black Lives Matter, action against racism more generally, the Black pitmasters of the American south, the current California bushfires, the looming election and, of course, the pandemic. Matt is...