Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent

Ex-Oakridge chef George Wintle founded his Eat the Issue mental health forums after a friend of his was abused at work and ended up in hospital. George's mum Rae Bonney is a mental health advocate and campaigner so he's grown up thinking it's fine to talk about how you're feeling. Inspired by him mum, George proposes practical ways to create a kitchen culture of encouragement and enrichment. Follo...

Veteran chef Steve Kilminster speaks to Dirty Linen from rehab in Townsville, where he's recovering from alcoholism, anxiety and depression. He talks about the long hours, low wages and culture of drug and alcohol use that has made him extremely jaded about hospitality. It's a full-on chat but Steve is keen to dismantle the 'push on' mentality that he reckons pushed him down some dark tunnels. Fol...

Nathan Toleman is one of Melbourne's most dynamic restaurateurs. With wife Sarah, he's progressed from a suburban cafe 13 years ago through a series of increasingly ambitious businesses that have culminated in Hazel and Dessous in Flinders Lane. Nathan puts mental wellbeing front and centre in his business culture, with meditating and farming part of the routine, though he admits he's finding it a...

Restaurateur Kate Bartholomew owns Coda and Tonka in Melbourne's CBD. She talks openly about her obsessive compulsive disorder, post-natal depression and the shame she felt when her restaurant Oter failed after a tricky two years trading. It's an honour to have Kate on Dirty Linen for this big, deep, brave, trusting conversation. https://www.instagram.com/katebartholomew/?hl=en https://www.codares...

Sydney chef Jared Ingersoll is best known for putting the farm at the centre of the table at Danks Street Depot. He's out of restaurants now, working at tech company Canva. As part of mental health week on Dirty Linen, he opens up about opening up, the bullshit of bravado and the strength that lies in vulnerability. It's not an easy chat but it's bravely, entirely human.

Country restaurateur Annie Smithers generously and courageously shares her mental health journey. We talk boundaries, working hours, medication, persistence and what it's like to be gay in hospo. She's a brilliant storyteller and an excellent human. It's an honour to have Annie on the show.

Dr Paul Valent is a psychiatrist, traumatologist and expert in the psychological impact of disasters. He's also Dani's dad. Dr Dad shares his thoughts on how the pandemic is affecting people's mental wellbeing and reminds Dani to always look carefully when she crosses the road.

Liam Crawley is a chef, business owner and founder of Hospo for Life, which offers counselling and other services to help hospitality workers with mental health. To find his own peace and success, Liam has overcome family challenges, learning difficulties, bullying, drug addiction and homelessness.

To kick off our focus on mental health in the hospitality industry, we're talking to a Tasmanian restaurateur with a unique perspective. Bianca Welsh owns Stillwater in Launceston. After a difficult experience helping a staff member through a mental health crisis, she decided to learn more about how people tick. Bianca spent seven years studying psychology and has found it immensely helpful in bui...

Israeli chef Ehud Malka owns Left-Handed Chef in South Melbourne. He's faced huge tests in his life - army service, 100-hour weeks, financial stress, immigration anguish - but this second shutdown may just be the hardest thing he's ever faced. At least there's hummus...

Sam Pinzone is a hospitality consultant who's worked for everyone from Neil Perry to Jacques Reymond. Now he helps restaurants and cafes survive and thrive, even during a pandemic. He talks strategies for business owners and chefs, candidly shares his own struggles with mental health, and tells us why he's totally against putting nasturtiums on a menu.

Denise Hung is an international student, hospitality worker, yoga teacher and all-round amazing person. Dani met her through the Attica Soup Project - and if there's one thing we can say about the bastard COVID times, it's that it's let Dani meet a whole bunch of brilliant, inspiring people. Anyway, Denise reckons this time is a gift and she shares a meditative surprise with us in this episode. We...

Ascot Food & Wine's Dave Stewart has been so anxious about steering his business through the pandemic that he called an ambulance one night thinking he was having a heart attack. We spoke on the day he was shutting his beloved neighbourhood business for a second time.

Hannah Green owns Etta Dining in Brunswick East, which borders locked-down Brunswick West. She believes in a warm welcome and the value of true hospitality. Etta reopened on June 18 in expectation of dining restrictions easing on June 22. Restrictions didn't ease, cases increased and her neighbours - many of them her beloved customers - are now locked down again. We talk about change, stress, safe...

Eric Rivera owns Addo in Seattle, USA. He's a Puerto Rican in a white city, an ex-finance guy who lost everything and ended up training as a chef. He went on to cook at progressive restaurants including game-changing Alinea and applied his sharp analytical brain to the business and the creative possibilities of restaurants. Through the pandemic, the US mess and Black Lives Matter he's created new...

Tim Mann is the man who killed brunch. His all-day cafe, bar and restaurant Grub in Melbourne's Fitzroy reopened after the shutdown without an egg or an avocado on the premises. He's used the pandemic as an opportunity to reconsider every single part of his business and to see if he can't make it work for him, not just as an enterprise, but as part of a fulfilling life that's not all eggs, avo and...

Ken Burgin is a hospitality consultant who reckons he's stopped hundreds of hospo wannabes from sacrificing their own homes and futures for a starry-eyed food dream. He's a realist and a numbers guy who loves helping people see the beauty - and the necessity - of a nice set of numbers. He sees the pandemic as an opportunity to reset and refocus.

Rebecca Yazbek is owner of Nomad, a fire-focused Sydney restaurant that caught fire itself last year. Bec has an interesting take on the hospitality industry, coming into it sideways, driven by passion and ideas. She's a creative thinker, a supply chain obsessive, and she loves using technology to work smarter not harder. This week on Dirty Linen we're talking about hospitality business models. Wh...

This week on Dirty Linen we're rethinking restaurants. We're talking about hospitality business models, what works, what doesn't, what's harder than it used to be and how can COVID be an opportunity to do things differently - for the better? We're starting the week with a veteran chef from Tasmania. Steve Cumper has been cooking since the 1980s - he's done fine dining in Australia and Europe and h...

During Dirty Linen's first week, Melbourne's COVID cases have risen and Victoria has turned into a pariah state. Unsurprisingly, diner confidence has plummeted, cancellations have increased, and the recovery timeline has been pushed out. We wrap up the week by talking to two very different restaurateurs - Ganeev Bains, owner of ISH Indian restaurant in Fitzroy, and Toby Kingsley, manager at Cherry...

Caterina Borsato is a legend of Melbourne hospitality. Her city basement lunch lair Caterina's is a favourite of lawyers and business folk. It's a true 'if these wall could talk' kind of place. She's stared down recessions, curveballs and crises aplenty in the 20 years she's been here but COVID19 has pushed her to her limits - and beyond.

Jason Chang owns Melbourne's Calia in the city and Chadstone shopping centre, as well as Yu Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant which the pandemic has permanently shuttered. He shares his experiences of racism, both overt and systemic - why are tortellini prized and dumplings pedestrian? Chang is a smart operator with big plans and strong vision - oh and he's getting a robot!

Lino Scidone is the straight-talking, passionate owner of La Camera, a Southgate institution that's built up loyalty over two decades among staff and regular diners. As Lino says in our chat, hospo folk are resilient but the recent rule changes - on top of three months of pain - almost broke him.

We start the podcast by talking to hugely respected and influential regional restaurateur Alla Wolf-Tasker from the Lake House in Daylesford..It's a deep chat that covers the recent headspin but also dives into the art of hospitality and why you'd do it anyway, when compliance is so challenging and profits are slim. Dirty Linen covers the issues the hospitality industry finds hard to share in publ...

Dirty Linen explores the behind the scenes of the food industry, covering the issues the hospitality industry finds hard to share in public.