Australian Gourmet Traveller - (08)August 2020 (1)

News

Itʼs Mabu, itʼs the vibe

Cafe Mabu Mabu is passionate about celebrating

native ingredients and now chef and owner Nornie

Bero, who is from Mer Island in the Torres Strait, is

encouraging punters to follow suit at home with her

new line of house-blended salt and spice mixes.

There are nine to choose from, including saltbush,

a desert herb mix, ground wattleseed and

pepperberries. $12.50 each, mabumabu.com.au

ON THE PASS

with ALANNA SAPWELL, ESMAY

Tell us about your new pop-up, Esmay. I’m going to be taking over the

space at Wasabi for three months. I love Noosa – I did my apprenticeship

there. After time off [during lockdown], I have a renewed purpose and

I think it’s going to be a good learning curve for me to see the

restaurant as a whole, not just from the kitchen.

How’s the menu going to be structured? More than ever people don’t

have deep pockets, but we still want good food and wine. I’ve used that

as my base, then structured it backwards from there. We’re going to

break it down into just two or three courses – we want to give people

that restaurant experience, where they taste a lot of different things,

but at a cost that’s still approachable. There will also be an ever-

changing selection of hyper-seasonal snacks.

And what will that look like on the plate? Given it’s right on the water,

I’dbecrazynottodoseafood.Somethinglikea bigJohnDoryonsome

mushroomsandGeraldtonwax.Therearea fewisomealsthatI will

bebringingintotherestaurant,withsomefine-tuning,likeroasted

spatchcockwithblackgarlicstuffedundertheskin,withbreadsauce.

I’dforgottenhowdeliciousthatsortofcomfortfoodcanbe!

YoualsohaveaccesstoHoneysuckleHillFarm,tellusaboutthat.

Wasabi’sDanielle[Gjestland]hasherHoneysuckleHillFarmaround

30 minutesfromtherestaurant.Shehadsaidshedidn’treplant

anythingandreallyundersoldit butit’samazing– allthesenative

Australianingredientsarealreadythere,andsomanyuniqueJapanese

ingredients.Sotherewillbethingsonthemenufromthere,which

wewillonlyhaveonfortwoorthreedays.EsmayPop-upatWasabi,

2 QuambyPlace,NoosaHeads,Qld.esmaypopup.com.au

AsMelbourne returnsto

lockdown,restaurantdelivery

serviceProvidoorcontinues

toaddtop-tiervenuestoits

platform. providoor.com.au

Transport yourself to vacay mode with Jacoby’s

new cocktail tinnies. The ready-mixed Trader

Vic’s Mai Tais are produced by the Enmore tiki

bar in collaboration with Curatif, and combine

aged and unaged rums, Pierre Ferrand Dry

Curacao, Crawley’s Orgeat syrup and Angostura

Bitters with limes sourced from the New South

Wales Central Coast. $45 for four, curatif.com

22 GOURMET TRAVELLER

PHOTOGRAPHY KARA HYNES (ALANNA SAPWELL).