Chef Will Playing for Keeps in Stansbury

BY DION HAYMAN

A school leaver’s ambition and a publican’s master vision more than a decade ago have melded to catapult the Dalrymple Hotel in Stansbury into the gastronomic stratosphere.

The hotel’s rise to stardom is a triumph and lesson into how to keep a budding, young chef on the books - one who like all his mouth-watering dishes was made from scratch.

Robbie and Georgie Rankine’s pub has become a site of pilgrimage for food lovers from far beyond the peninsula to savour the dishes of 32-year-old culinarian Will Glazbrook.

Will was the school leaver - one with a burning ambition to own a hotel. Robbie was and still is the publican. The Rankines bought the Dalrymple, which lies a tick over a two-hour drive from Adelaide, in December, 2004.

“We tried to change the hotel a fair bit without changing it too much because we are aware of the fact we are in the country and country people don’t like change a whole lot,” Robbie said.

But before long, fate would bring Robbie and Will together - change was coming to Stansbury.

“We were lucky enough to come across a young lad straight out of school who wanted to own a hotel,” Robbie recalled.

“I helped him with his year 12 research project and that was to design the perfect bar for a hotel.”

The pair had met through a common connection in Minlaton - Robbie used to run the Minlaton Hotel with his father.

Will was a high achiever with designs on entering the hospitality industry.

He just wasn’t anticipating the route he was about to take.

“I said to him, ‘how about you do a chef’s apprenticeship?’

“And he said, ‘well, I don’t want to be a chef’.

“I said, ‘I know but you’re 18 and it’s a good way for you to start off your hospitality journey I suppose.”

Two days later, Will, who had at that time barely cooked an egg, was handed his toque blanche and began learning the ropes under then head chef Georgie.

“It was never really a career path of mine, I’ll have to say,” Will said. “Robbie convinced me (and twisted) my arm.

“I finished school on Tuesday and started full-time with Rob on the Thursday.”

Will’s application and dedication to the career he had never entertained and scarcely wanted couldn’t have been more impressive.

“He managed to win apprentice of the year and dux his class the whole way through TAFE and so on and became our chef at the hotel,” Robbie said.

But the Rankines would have to wait before fully realising the return on their investment.

“He finished his apprenticeship and was with us for about another six to eight months and then he nicked off.”

By the time Will returned from Darwin, a seamless reunion was problematic.

“We didn’t have any vacancies at the pub then so he went down to Yorketown to the Melville Hotel.

“He cooked down there and did very

well and had a real following until I rang him up one day and said, ‘mate you live in Stansbury, this is your home, how about you come back?’”

That was seven years ago.

But Robbie didn’t want to risk losing Will again so this time put plans in motion to make both of their dreams a reality.

“I was wary of the fact that he wanted to own a pub,” Robbie said. “Maybe three or four years ago, pre-Covid, we were talking about the possibility of buying other hotels.”

After one false start, that opportunity finally crystallised last year with Robbie, Will and another partner buying a third share each of the Yorke Hotel in Yorketown.

Now here comes some Alanis Morissette-level irony that makes the fly in your chardonnay look palatable.

The Yorke no longer sells meals! You cannot buy anything more than a toastie or pizza in the pub owned by the most decorated chef on the peninsula.

“We’ve got this incredible, ridiculous notoriety for the standard of food we do in Stansbury,” Robbie said. “We did food down at the Yorke for eight months and it just didn’t work. The market at Yorketown is completely different to Stansbury and we found it almost impossible to crack.”

Yorketown’s indifference to dining out has definitely been Stansbury’s gain.

Now here comes some Alanis Morissette-level irony that makes the fly in your chardonnay look palatable.

Will followed a judge’s commendation in 2020 with back-to-back wins in the Bistro Casual Dining Country category at the AHASA awards.

“It was insane,” Will said.

“You can’t describe how fantastic it was not only for me but the whole team that we lead.

“It still blows my mind that we can compete at such a high level and a high standard from something that started off as just a small country pub.

Georgie, Will and Robbie accepting the 2021 AHA|SA award.

“When I started my apprenticeship in 2007, I never thought little old Stansbury would become a thing.”

Roll an eye down Will’s menu heavily influenced by Asian fusion and if you dare wander past the lobster sliders, you’ll find share plates like kingfish sashimi, Korean chicken bao and prawn and ginger dumplings.

A scallop pizza looks a stand out while more decadent options include roast barramundi with jungle curry, snake bean and papaya or a chicken lamb gai salad.

“Our reputation for food drives us,” Robbie beams.

“We changed the way food was served down on the peninsula.

“I feel like Georgie and I bought a bar with a dining room attached and now I feel like we run a restaurant with a bar attached these days.

“We’re sort of known as a special occasion pub.

“If you lived anywhere around here and you said to your wife, ‘where do you want to go for your birthday?’, she’d choose us.”

A hectic January saw the Dalrymple serve 9700 meals, edging past its output in 2021 and bouncing back from last year when crippling Covid restrictions severely impacted the industry.

Gin cured salmon, horseradish and dill.

During the Covid lockdown in 2020, the Rankines cooked five nights a week for three months, delivering meals up to 25km away to many towns on the lower Yorke Peninsula, just to keep the business afloat.

Now, it is thriving again with its seaside deck offering glorious views across the gulf and its popular “Dalstillery” featuring 16 craft gins as well as espresso martinis and margaritas on tap. There’s always a function on the radar that helps maintain the turnover between peak seasons. Robbie’s hoping it will be third time lucky on April 30 for the hotel’s pièce de résistance, ‘A Day at The Dal’, after the first was soaked in autumn rain and the second fell foul of the pandemic.

“We showcase our food, we involve the local brewery at Watsacowie in Minlaton, my son has his own YP Wood Oven Pizzas, we’ll have the oyster guys out there and hopefully some pretty good entertainment.”

The Pacific Estate Oyster farm remains one of Stansbury’s and the Yorke Peninsula’s best kept secrets. South Australia’s governor, Sir Anthony Musgrave, may have sold the town short in 1873 when he renamed what was then known as Oyster Bay to honour a friend.

But the secret is well and truly out about Will’s talents with no shortage of offers to poach him from the Dalrymple.

“Everyone’s trying. And they should too!” Robbie said.

“But he likes living over here, his family’s here and I think his future lies here.

“He’s the nicest bloke you’ll ever meet in your life. There aren’t too many 32-year-olds around that have his moral structure and work ethic.”

Now he’s in the market, the prospect of growing his hotel portfolio is also attractive to Will, who hasn’t been disappointed by his foray into pub ownership.

“You wake up one morning and you’re like ‘I did it!’” he said.

“It’s always been my thing to run multiple pubs. It just feels surreal to get what you worked so hard towards and it sort of drives you to want more.”

Perhaps one day, the Dalrymple might even pass into the hands of that same brash teenager who dreamt about building his very own hotel empire.

“I sort of envisage the time that he buys the pub off me, ‘cause none of our kids want to,” Robbie said.

Will, Georgie and Robbie in the front bar of the Dalrymple.