Dirty Linen - A Food Podcast with Dani Valent

After wishing someone would open a wine bar in their neighbourhood, Tresna Lee and Shane Farrell finally decided they better do it themselves. Gemini in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Coburg has now been open 18 months but it’s been far from an easy ride. Tresna shares the origin tale, the slow path to breaking even, and the investment they are making in community every step of the way. https://ge...

Adelaide cook and restaurateur Laura Sharrad is competing on MasterChef Australia’s Back To Win series. After coming second twice, is a fairytale finish in her future? We talk about the different versions of Laura that have competed in the popular reality show, how she’s coping with the loss of her one-time boss and MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo, and the challenges of balancing motherhood and a...

Ice cream is the path to happiness but what about when the path takes you to ice cream? Jinal Desai bought Carousel Ice Cream Cakes in 2019, not realising that the decades-old Melbourne brand had fans from the 1980s and onwards. Tapping into nostalgia and current trends, she has never regretted the leap from corporate to food and has words of advice for others considering a career change. https://...

England’s three-Michelin star L’Enclume is coming back to Sydney in July for another five-week residence at Bather’s Pavilion. We chat to Bather’s executive chef Aaron Ward to find out what to expect. Will Australian ingredients and UK fine dining meld to create a hospitality experience of distinction? Listen to my 2023 chat with L’Enclume’s Simon Rogan, on the eve of his first Bather’s Pavilion p...

The Age’s chief restaurant critic - and my colleague at Good Food - Besha Rodell has removed her cloak of anonymity. Why now? It’s to promote her excellent memoir, Hunger Like A Thirst. We chat food criticism, the benefits or otherwise of sneaking around, and the state of food media. https://www.instagram.com/besharodell/?hl=en SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE ARTICLES, NEWS, GIVEAWAYS AN...

When you start talking cheese in Australia, the name Will Studd is bound to come up. Cheesemonger, cheese activist, cheese storyteller and definitely a cheese lover, Will has just released a new TV show about artisan cheesemakers around the world. “Cheese: Searching For A Taste of Place” is a six-part series that celebrates what’s great about indie cheese and outlines the challenges small producer...

How do you spin a demoralising disaster into an opportunity for community and positive energy? Laura Goldberg owns Hurricane’s Grill, a Sydney (and China, Indonesia and Dubai!) chain with a secret rib baste recipe. She’s also recently launched Women in Cafes and Restaurants, a platform to elevate, nurture and inspire. https://hurricanesgrillrestaurants.com.au SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUS...

When he launched Timbre in Tasmania in 2016, Matt Adams told nearby backyard growers that he’d exchange their excess produce for dining vouchers. Without any kind of strategy or a plan, that’s turned into a restaurant that is fed by and feeds community, upending its owner’s notions about what a food business actually is. How does it work? How does it feel? And how can you have a slice of it? https...

Central Victorian farmer Rob Lockhart grows wheat, oats, lambs and beef but potatoes are his main deal. We talk about the ups and downs of farming, small town life and SpudFest, a festival that takes over Trentham on the first weekend in May. https://www.trenthamspudfest.org.au/ SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE ARTICLES, NEWS, GIVEAWAYS AND BEHIND THE SCENES https://deepintheweeds.us6.lis...

Claire Morgan is a farmer, maker and regional advocate, helping people understand where their food comes from and how important it is to have thriving rural towns. She’s growing chickpeas and making chickpea brownies and along the way she’s showing locals and visitors that Rupanyup really is a ‘town with pulse’. This episode is part of a special Dirty Linen and Producers series about the Grampians...

Founder and director of The Wimmera Grain Store, Jenny Moore has a grain farming background and now wholesales locally grown chickpeas, lentils, faba beans (pulses) and value-added products into the Australian domestic market. She takes us strain into the sorting shed where lentils are being graded, then we head back to the showroom to nibble healthy chickpea snacks. This episode is part of a spec...

What does a caterer do when she gets too big for her home kitchen? Maybe she moves into the under-used local golf club kitchen and semi-accidentally turns it into a restaurant. That’s more or less the story with Cat Clarke, chef, teacher, Dimboola gamechanger. We enjoy a delicious chef’s table country lunch with plenty of native ingredients then sit down with Cat to talk hospo culture, country foo...

For the first time in almost 800 episodes, Dirty Linen does a wine tasting podcast. We are guided by one of the best, wine merchant Simon Freeman from Grampians Wine Cellar, hanging out in his Halls Gap store with spectacular mountain views, talking Grampians Grape Escape, Halls Gap dining tips, and the journey from hospitality to retail. The idea was to have more time for family…how is that going...

Adrian Manikas · Grampians Peaks Walking Co Anyone visiting the Grampians (Gariwerd in the local Aboriginal language) is struck by the mountainous landscapes, dramatic rock formations and abundant wildlife. Adrian Manikas knows the place better than most: his Halls Gap company leads guided and catered walking tours through the national park at various levels of luxury. Good food is important to th...

At the southern end of the Grampians, chef Robin Wickens uses the Royal Mail’s market garden to supply produce for his pub bistro and fine dining restaurant Wickens, which is set in bushland in a glassed pavilion. We meet up with Robin for a garden tour, before heading back to the restaurant for a 10-course degustation with matched wines. Dinner is creative, exciting and fun, one of regional Austr...

Three hours west of Melbourne, south of Ararat, Mount William Station is a generational sheep and cattle property that now offers luxury accommodation and dining. It’s a great place to get away from it all, and also makes an excellent base for exploring the region. Chef Dean Sibthorp is originally from England: he serves hearty, composed set menus in the homestead dining room, truly giving guests...

We continue our Illuminating Lumen special series in today’s chat with Chloe Sparks from Dog Creek Growers. Chloe is a small farmer who supplies to Lumen People. What are her challenges? Why does it matter? Are small farms more resilient than large ones? Illuminating Lumen is a deep-dive Dirty Linen series looking at the difficulty and delight of running an independent restaurant. Listen to our fi...

We’ve been following the Journey to Barragunda in a series of episodes celebrating a creative new regional dining experience. Well, Barragunda has arrived! We check in with chef Simone Watts to hear about the 40-seat restaurant’s launch and the clamour of opening. How has it been to welcome people into a space that was built only in her imagination for so many years? https://www.barragunda.com.au/...

Why is it so hard to run an independent restaurant these days? Dirty Linen is seeking answers in Illuminating Lumen, a new deep-dive series alongside Lumen People cafe and wine bar in North Melbourne. We’re back with co-owner Emma Sheahan for our second episode, talking joy, tiredness, perspective and policy. As an election looms, what levers would she like to see pulled? https://www.lumenpeople.c...

At the base of the Blue Mountains former journalist Gemma Deavin and her family are producing Mount Henry Honey that truly captures a sense of time and place in each jar. https://www.mounthenryhoney.com.au/ SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE ARTICLES, NEWS, GIVEAWAYS AND BEHIND THE SCENES https://deepintheweeds.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=d33e307cf7100cf947e2e6973&id=d17d8213f5 Follow T...

Our Journey to Barragunda continues with Hayley Morris, a key person in the Barragunda Dining story. It’s fair to say the restaurant would not exist without her passion for sustainable food projects, and a family foundation that can fund them. We talk about food and hope, the complexity of doing good, and the ambition to spur broader change through the example of one small but mighty restaurant. h...

Dan Kittredge blows my mind about ten times in this episode. The American farmer, food producer and soil evangelist grew up on an organic farm in the US but he’s now going way beyond organics, developing theories and practices around Nutrient Dense Food. He’s travelling around the world teaching and will bring his masterclass back to Australia in April. Learn more: https://www.dankittredge.com/ SU...

Deep in the Weeds and Dirty Linen are proud to present a special series in association with Tasting Australia, which celebrates South Australian food, drink and culinary culture from May 2 to 11. We’ll be sharing tales in the lead up to the festival as well as heading over to eat and drink the very best of the state. In our second episode of the series, we talk to Drinks Curator Meira Harel. How d...

Laurie Woolever is an American writer, former chef and author of a new memoir called Care and Feeding. She was Mario Batali’s assistant in New York and worked with Anthony Bourdain for nearly a decade. We chat about restaurant culture, addiction, writing, eating and simple pleasures in crazy times. https://www.instagram.com/lauriewoolever/?hl=en SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR EXCLUSIVE ARTICLES,...

How do you create an identity for a restaurant? How do you change it? Are there rules for making it feel right? We chat about change, growth, style and authenticity with Kirbie Tate, owner of Kirbie in South Melbourne. Kirbie is in a space she's inhabited for a decade but it's only now that she's put her name on the door. Why? https://www.instagram.com/kirbiesouthmelbourne/?hl=en Dani's review of...