26 GOURMET TRAVELLER
Out of the flames
TOP END
It was a Sunday afternoon – 25 February,
2018, in fact – when Martin Spedding learnt
his restaurant was on fire. The owner of Ten
Minutes by Tractor was only 500 metres away
at his Mornington Peninsula home. “I got a
call from the restaurant and jumped in the
car very quickly,” he says. He grabbed a fire
extinguisher and sped towards the flagship
restaurant that he runs with his wife, Karen,
at their Ten Minutes by Tractor winery at
Main Ridge. When he got there, he witnessed
smoke and flames that had risen nearly
10 metres high. And even though he’d
arrived at the scene quickly, the fire brigade
was already there. “There wasn’t much else
we could do,” says Spedding.
The cause of the fire was a self-combusting
hand towel that had exploded in the dryer.
“We lost everything, including 16,000 bottles
of wine,” says Spedding. While the damage
was serious enough to close down the
restaurant and cellar door, thankfully no
one was injured. Within a week, Ten Minutes
by Tractor’s staff moved operations to their
sister restaurant, Petite Tracteur, down the
road, and they were able to set up a Ten
Minutes by Tractor pop-up at the site. They
also took their wines (and head chef Adam
Sanderson’s dishes) on the road to guestdinners and tastings at venues such as
Melbourne’s Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
and Sydney’s Nomad. It’s an unfortunate
coincidence that the latter restaurant suffered
a similar fate recently; Nomad has relocated
to a pop-up down the street after its ceiling
caught fire in September. Spedding,
understandably, reached out to Nomad’s
team, “to offer any assistance we can, just based
on the experience that we’ve had,” he says.
Now, almost two years after the fire, Ten
Minutes by Tractor is unveiling its rebuilt
restaurant this month (with the cellar door
due to reopen in summer). It is 30 seats
bigger, includes a new private room, and will
offer museum vintages from the winery, as
well as Adam Sanderson’s produce-showcasing
menu: think bavarois made from local goat’s
cheese, Yarra Valley caviar with Hawk’s
Farm potato, and rhubarb rose geranium
jelly produced with Ten Minutes by Tractor’s
Blanc de Blancs wine.
The fire’s aftermath has made things
challenging, says Spedding, but it has
come with a silver lining, too. It has let them
“reconsider what we want the restaurant to be
over the next five to 10 years”.
1333 Mornington Flinders Rd, Main Ridge,
Vic, (03) 5989 6080, tenminutesbytractor.com.auTwo years after a fire nearly wiped out the iconic Mornington
Peninsula restaurant, Ten Minutes by Tractor is back in business.Darwin’s wet season runs November
to April but there’s now good reason to
brave the city’s monsoonal downpours.
English artist Bruce Munro, whose
Field of Light installation in Uluru has
attracted 250,000 people since opening
in 2016 (and has been extended
indefinitely), will launch Bruce Munro:
Tropical Light in Darwin on 1 November.
Top End tourism officials, who
have rebranded the season “tropical
summer”, hope the exhibition, open
until 30 April 2020, will attract visitors
during what’s usually a quiet time.
Eight large-scale illuminated
sculptures will form the centrepiece
of a free, self-guided art trail through
Darwin’s CBD and Waterfront
precincts. Rounding out the 2.5-
kilometre trail are works from six
Territory artists. Aerial photographer
Paul Arnold, fresh from a collaboration
with kaftan queen Camilla Franks, will
install printed vinyl clouds on the
Waterfront’s Sky Bridge Walkway to
make it seem like visitors are walking
in clouds. Bev Garside’s solar jellyfish
lights will adorn trees lining the trail.
Munro’s works will evoke the
region’s natural beauty, wildlife (think
cockatoos) and spectacular sunsets.
“Darwin is a jewel that sparkles
under a tropical sun,” he says. His
Water Towers, a version of a piece
that was originally shown at England’s
Salisbury Cathedral, comprises 30
colour-changing towers made from
illuminated water bottles. He’ll also
acknowledge the wet season with Light
Shower – 3000 drops of light suspended
from the Wave Lagoon canopies.
Savvy Darwin operators have
launched a range of experiences
for exhibition-goers. They include a
progressive three-course dinner along
the Waterfront ($95 a person) and
a 45-minute twilight cruise timed
to catch the exhibition come to life
($65 a person). tropicallight.com.auLeft: Ten Minutes by Tractor
owners Martin and Karen
Spedding. Above: Kangaroo
en croûte with caramelised
cauliflower, pepperberry,
Alambra farm edible flowers.