Hospitality Magazine December 2011 - January 2012

No.679 December 2011 - January 2012

hospitalitymagazine.com.au

foodservice

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accommodation

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beverage

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management

She'll be apples We investigate the booming demand for cider

FRY AWAY

The social scene

Tips for getting the best results from your fryers PLUS 5 top fryers in profile

Facebook? Twitter?

Social media and your workplace

Win a trip to Shanghai See details page 5

Mystery diner

Print Post Approved PP349181/00109

Melbourne's Embrasse reviewed

LOCAL PRODUCE CHAMPION

The passions that drive Matt Wilkinson

PUBLISHER Michelle Graves michelle.graves@reedbusiness.com.au EDITOR

Editor’s Note

Rosemary Ryan Ph: (02) 9422 2880 rosemary.ryan@reedbusiness.com.au JOURNALIST Danielle Bowling Ph: (02) 9422 2667 danielle.bowling@reedbusiness.com.au CONTRIBUTORS Christine Salins Ken Burgin Tony Berry ADVERTISING NATIONAL Rhonnie Merry Ph: (02) 9422 2481 Fax: (02) 9422 2863 rhonnie.merry@reedbusiness.com.au GRAPHIC DESIGNER

ular closures (and even more spectacular phoenix risings a la Tony Bilson).

In the accommodation sector as well there’s been plenty of colour and movement with new hotels opening and existing ones getting multi million dollar makeovers.

Plus it’s been a big year for pubs with a market that’s traditionally been dominated by independent players seeing a strong move towards consolidation. And there has also been the burgeoning of the — yes I hate the word but it’s the only one

HERE we are at our last issue for the year and of course like everyone else wondering where 2011 went. Oh to be ten again when it felt like it took an eternity to get to the magical time of Christmas and school holidays that just stretched into the distance, all hot and hazy and never ending.

But here we are and looking back it’s been an overwhelmingly eventful year for the hospitality industry in Australia with major activity around new restaurant openings, as well as some spectac-

we have — gastro pub.

Down in Melbourne companies like The Pub Group have been busy adding to their portfolio of hotels that have a focus on slickly designed interiors and interesting, well cooked food — under the guidance of chef Paul Wilson.

In Sydney, groups like hospitality giant Merivale have also been going gangbusters turning pubs into food destinations that are designed to meet consumer demand for fun places to enjoy good company, interesting drinks, and good food that’s all wrapped up in a value for money package.

And in the club sector — while much of the noise has been about trying to shout down the Federal Government’s proposals to intro-

duce its new mandatory precommitment poker machine legislation — there’s also been a revolution going on with increasing numbers of clever club managers beefing up their food and beverage offering as way to attract more customers, and grow the business.

But now the industry is pedalling like mad and powering into the silly season, the busiest time of the year. We here at Hospitality hope it’s a supremely successful festive and holiday period for you and also would like to wish you a very prosperous 2012.

We thank you all for your support over the past year.

See you in February.

Rosemary Ryan

Ronnie Lawrence Ph: (02) 9422 2741 PRODUCTION CO-ORDINATOR Laura Panameno Ph: (02) 9422 8772

contents

laura.panameno@reedbusiness.com.au UCTION DIRECTOR PRODU Troy Stevens Ph: (02) 9422 8748

4 News

12 Workplace

The year that was.

Industry leaders look back on 2011 and ahead.

Tips for handling social media use in the workplace.

6 Openings

14 Imbibe

Latest restaurant arrivals opening their doors.

Tempranillo wine makers spread the love.

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8 Mystery diner

16 Hospitality chef

Melbourne’s Embrasse restaurant reviewed.

The passions that drive chef Matt Wilkinson.

10 Secret ingredients

27 Burgin

Q&A with chef and restaurateur Robert Marchetti.

Digital tools to give your business an efficiency boost.

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accommodation

I

beverage

I

management

She'll be apples

FRY AWAY

The social scene Facebook? Twitter?

Social media and your workplace

Tips for getting the best results from your fryers PLUS 5 top fryers in profile

Win a trip to Shanghai See details page 5

hospitalitymagazine.com.au

There’s a growing interest in ciders that’s being tapped into by some canny operators.

22 Come fry with me Expert tips for extracting the greatest results and efficiencies out of your cooking oils and fryers.

PLUS 5 top selling fryers reviewed

ON THE COVER:

We investigate the booming demand for cider

Mystery diner Melbourne's Embrasse reviewed

Print Post Approved PP349181/00109

MATERIAL The publisher does not accept responsibility for any editorial or advertising material forwarded or held in storage nor will material be automatically returned. Whole or part of this publication cannot be reproduced without prior written approval from Hospitality’s management.

19 Cider rules for summer

No.679 December 2011 - January 2012

foodservice

Average Net Distribution Period ending September 11 13,677

Features

LOCAL PRODUCE CHAMPION

The passions that drive Matt Wilkinson

Gracing the cover of our final issue for the year is Melbourne chef Matt Wilkinson whose philosophy on food and cooking is revealed in our profile starting on page 16.

The UK-born chef first made a name for himself in Australia working with one of Melbourne’s most dynamic and respected restaurateurs Andrew McConnell, and has since continued to attract attention for his passion and commitment to good food that’s underlined by a love of supporting local producers and growers. He was also in

the headlines this year for claiming the title of the World’s Best Sandwich Maker.

In Danielle Bowling’s profile Wilkinson talks about the strategy behind his successful restaurant Pope Joan and also about his upcoming new ventures that will soon be unveiled in Melbourne.

Plus Wilkinson shares with us the recipe for one of the most popular dishes on the Pope Joan menu, a dish that he can’t dare remove from the menu for fear of a lynching from his hundreds of loyal customers.

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

3

news

Trends

New year ahead: Outlook 2012 For the Australian hospitality industry 2011 has been a busy but tough year for operators. But what’s ahead for next year? In part one of a two part report we asked the leaders of some key organisations to sum uip the year and gaze into their crystal balls for what’s ahead.

FOR THE Australian hospitality industry 2011 has been a busy but tough year for operators across the various sectors from restaurants and cafes, to hotels, pubs and clubs.

While the Australian economy remained in good shape, hanging over the year and causing unease for consumers has been the uncertain economic climate in Europe and the US, unease that makes people think twice about how they spend.

And while the corporate inbound travel market has continued to be strong the muscled up Australian dollar had more Australians making the most of the chance for a cheaper overseas holiday rather than holidaying at home, and made Australia less attractive for overseas visitors.

Plus there’s been the dampener across all sectors of the continuing challenge of the labour shortage that’s hitting service industries hard across the board particularly hospitality, as well as rising costs for both staff and utilities.

So what’s ahead for 2012? More of the same or some new challenges?

As 2011 wound up we asked some of the leaders of the industry’s peak representative bodies covering different sectors of the industry to sum up the key events of the year but also to gaze into their crystal ball to tell us what’s ahead.

Restaurant and Catering Australia chief executive officer John Hart said the Australian restaurant sector this year had been a varied one for different parts of Australia but with some common pressures.

“It’s been a very busy year but it’s a tale of stark contrasts between the areas that are doing really well and the areas that aren’t,” Hart said.

“We’ve had some soft spots — the Gold Coast for example. We’ve just had five restaurants close down in Hastings Street and more in the surrounds. Yet the capital cities have had a good strong corporate market and there’s been a lot of activity.

“Household spend on eating out 4

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

Restaurant & Catering’s John Hart (left) and Tourism Accommodation Australia’s Rodger Powell.

has been on the increase — it’s actually up 87 per cent on five years ago — and many places have done very well.”

Hart said one of the big trends this year was the strong shift towards increasing corporate ownership of restaurants with most of the many new restaurant openings this year coming from existing restaurant groups or established restaurateurs.

“You’re seeing companies opening their third or fourth or fifth restaurant,” he said. “It’s a way to get the economies of scale to be able to make a buck.”

Looking ahead Hart predicts a good Christmas trading period for restaurants albeit softer than last year.

Then in 2012 he predicts a major focus for the industry will be the upcoming interim review of the Fair Work Act and the new Hospitality Award, followed by the review of the minimum wage.

“You will have the busy Christmas period and that will again show up the stress fractures for the industry in the numbers of people that we’ve got and all of the wage pressures that have to be dealt with in the industry,” Hart said.

And of course the labour shortage will be a tightening noose around the industry’s neck, said Hart who points to the recent Deloitte Access survey that again confirmed how un-

der employed the industry is. ”The Government will be making some announcements around training funds but it’s just tinkering around the edges,” he said. “The Deloitte Access survey showed that we were nine per cent under employed so with a gap like that there’s a lot of backfilling that needs to be done.”

It’s an issue that’s also high on the agenda for the accommodation industry.

Rodger Powell, managing director of Tourism Accommodation Australia, the new body launched by the Australian Hotels Association in April said the labour squeeze will be a continuing concern into 2012.

“And I stress that this should not be interpreted as a skills shortage, not a labour shortage,” Powell said.

“Hospitality companies typically are great trainers and invest a lot in training. But Australians, for a variety of reasons, are not applying for these jobs...so we need another source of labour. I would advocate that we need a temporary worker visa — a new class of visa to allow temporary workers into Australia across a whole range of industries.

And not at discounted rates, I don’t want to devalue the Australian labour industry. But we do need a pool of labour.”

Powell said a major positive ahead for the industry in 2012 is the work now being done by Tourism Aus-

tralia under new managing director Andrew McEvoy and chairman Geoff Dixon. “I think Tourism Australia’s new campaigns are working well and will continue to gain momentum and go from strength to strength and that will help our inbound industry.”

Also in tourism, another major issue for the hotel industry, said Powell, will be how to make it easier for Indian and Chinese visitors who want to come to Australia. “We are constantly availed of the fact that China and India are our future and our hope and yet they are two of the countries that can’t get electronic visas for Australia,” he said.

“I think we have some really basic entry level infrastructural work that has got to be done if we are going to have any hope of competing in those markets.”

Powell says he believes next year will continue to be a mixed one for the industry as it was this year with capital city hotels experiencing good growth in revenue while regional operators did it tougher.

“It’s been a strong year for capital city hotels — they have done very well of the back of corporate business and most city hotels have seen RevPAR increases. Many hotel owners are for the first time achieving reasonable commercial returns on their investments. And there has been a huge amount of investment in capital city hotels and that’s very encouraging and a sign of confidence.

“But the stellar rise of the cruise industry and the attractiveness currently of travelling off shore means domestic tourism in regional Australia has struggled.

“And obviously next year a lot revolves around what happens in Europe and in the US — that will certainly impact on our traditional markets.” By Rosemary Ryan See the February issue of Hospitality for part two of this report where we speak to the pubs and clubs sector. hospitalitymagazine.com.au

news

Trends

Food off the back of a truck

in brief Bilson (and family) reopen

Moves to introduce US-style food vans to Australia have sparked concern.

THERE’S been excitement and also concern over moves by the Sydney city council to encourage the launch of food trucks supplying meals to diners following the popular trend in the United States.

The City of Sydney has invited expressions of interest from operators who can deliver gourmetstyle take-away food from vehicles that will move between different locations in the city. The pilot program is one of several measures the city is taking to improve and diversify its nightlife offering.

"People have been telling us it's hard to get a restaurant-quality meal in Sydney after 10pm, and they want more access to quality casual dining," Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said. "Mobile food trucks can help fill the role of providing high quality food at different places throughout the night."

Food trucks have become a sensation in U.S. cities like New York, LA and Portland, where some of them have built a cult following

HOSPITALITYMAGAZINE.COM.AU

MOST READ STORIES Food trucks headed for Sydney

1 2

Yarra Valley pinot noir makes history with top wine awards win Busy year for Accor as four in line for Mirvac hotel portfolio

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Bilson preparing to reopen restaurant this week

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Perry joins pop up trend for lunch at Rockpool

Source: hospitalitymagazine.com.au November 28 – December 2 2011

hospitalitymagazine.com.au

with highly-decorated trucks and signature dishes such as tacos, pancakes and Korean BBQs. “These businesses offer good quality food and a welcoming vibe.

They've generated a real sense of excitement around their businesses and we want to bring that excitement to Sydney," Moore said.

The city hosted workshops recently that attracted more than 30 participants keen to trial food truck ideas. Ten of the most interesting and innovative ideas will be picked for the pilot program, which will start in January and run for a year.

The move however has sparked concern from restaurateurs paying high rents for their bricks and mortar sites that the introduction will impact their businesses.

The council has responded by assuring operators that the areas the trucks are allowed to operate in will deliberately not include areas close to existing cafes and restaurants. “This is not about driving away customers from ex-

isting food outlets, said the council’s Night Time Economy manager Suzie Matthews.

“It's about increasing options where none currently exist. We want to encourage new and innovative ideas that will add life to the city, while also supporting existing businesses.”

One food van operator already operating in Sydney said he doesn’t believe food trucks would damage existing businesses.

Gary Mah, who last year launched Little Piggy Van in Sydney’s north west with partner Ian Wijaya as an extension to their restaurant Cibo e Vino, said he believed more quality dining options would only encourage diners to eat out more. “I don’t think the food trucks will take away their revenue,” Mah said. “I think they will draw more people into the city and what they will do is hopefully create more foot traffic at night and I think [restaurateurs] would be better off embracing it and trying to complement it.”

Win a trip to Shanghai!

HOW would you like to head to Shanghai in the Year of the Dragon to sample everything the amazing Chinese city has to offer?

Well you’ll have the chance if you enter our competition to win a trip for two to visit the trade event Hotelex Shanghai next April.

We’re now in the third year of our annual competition which is run in conjunction with the organisers of the show.

Last year’s winner Joe Hlusko, then chef de cuisine at Crown’s Number 8 restaurant, said he had been amazed by the show and Shanghai. “There was a massive range of products at the show covering everything that a world class establishment would need,” said Hlusko, pictured at Hotelex Shanghai.

“And the dining scene in Shanghai was quite interesting. I sampled plenty from the best of both worlds — traditional Chinese and modern western.

Head to hospitalitymagazine.com.au to enter.

Tony Bilson sparked some anger from creditors after reopening the doors of his Sydney restaurant Number One Wine Bar in November, just weeks after his company went into liquidation. Bilson said he was pleased to be reopening the restaurant. "Yes it's terrific, I'm very happy," he told Hospitality magazine.

Bilson was back heading up the kitchen while daughter Lily was managing front of house, and son Eddy looked after the bar.

Victorian is Australia's best apprentice He may have come later than many to a career as a chef but Colin Wilson has shown his passion for the profession being named Australia's best apprentice at the 2011 Australian Training Awards. The awards are the peak national awards for the vocational education and training sector, recognising and rewarding organisations and individuals for their outstanding contribution to skilling Australia.

Who will grab $10,000?

This year it was much awarded Melbourne chef Nicolas Poelaert who grabbed the $10,000 cheque at the annual Chef of the Year competition.

Who will it be next year? The new organisers behind this year's annual Foodservice Australia Expo trade show which has hosted the event for the past two years has confirmed the event will return as part of the line up of the next show when it takes place in Sydney in May.

Seasons greetings from the Hospitality team All the team here at Hospitality magazine wish you, our dear and valued readers, a very prosperous and joyous Christmas and a very happy and successful 2012. This is our last issue for the year. See you all again in the new year!

Correction A photograph on page 21 of our November issue was incorrectly captioned. It was actually a picture of Houghton Wine’s winemaker Ross Pamment. We apologise for the error.

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

5

openings

Osteria Balla With his new restaurant in its prime location at Sydney’s newly transformed Star casino, Stefano Manfredi says he’s seeking to “redefine” the classic osteria Milanese with its menu built around the heart of traditional Italian cuisine and reflecting the Milanese food culture.

Opened: September Owner: Stefano Manfredi Head chef: Gabriele Taddeucci Seats: Up to 160 The food: Choose from antipasti including cecina al forno, a chickpea and pecorino pancake, or crostini di funghi e lardo, ciabatta with mushrooms and cured pork to primi including the traditional Ribollita, twice cooked bread and vegetable soup, pasta like Manfredi’s gnocchi gnudi, spinach and ricotta gnocchi with burnt butter and parmesan, or agnolotti verdi, pasta filled with wildgreens like nettles and borage. Plus there’s a wide selection of seafood, meat and vegetables cooked over the 100-yearold ironbark on the Balla wood-fired grill.

Address: The Star, Pyrmont P: 1800 700 700 W: star.com.au/dine/signature-dining/balla

Umi Sushi + Udon

Neild Avenue

The newest offering from Sydney restaurateurs Jessie and Terence Chau, Umi Sushi + Udon is a Tokyo-inspired urban sushi restaurant in the new Darling Quarter complex. The traditional Japanese Kyoto style décor aims to create a sense of nostalgia taking diners back to the early days of Japan.

Neild Avenue is the latest restaurant venture from the team of Maurice Terzini and Robert Marchetti who already have successes like Icebergs, Guiseppe Arnaldo and Sons, and North Bondi Italian Food up their sleeves. The $3m fitout in the up and coming dining vicinity of Rushcutters Bay was courtesy of Italian-based Australian, Carl Pickering, of Lazzarini Pickering.

Opened: September Chef: Miyamoto Yasunari Owners: Jessie and Terence Chau The food: Umi serves more than 100 different types of traditional and fusion sushi plus freshly made Japanese Sanuki-style udon with the chewy texture that only fresh udon can provide — it’s believed to be the only restaurant in Sydney serving Sanuki-style udon made freshly each day on site. There’s also Wagyu Beef Tataki, Chawen Mushi, and Pork Gyozas. All to be washed down with one of the wide range of sakis on the menu.

Address: Darling Quarter, 1 Harbour St, Darling Harbour, Sydney P: 02 9283 2006 W: darlingquarter.com 6

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

Opened: November Executive chef: Robert Marchetti Owners: Maurice Terzini and Robert Marchetti The food: Food of the sun, healthy with lots of grains and pulses and vegetables and with all meat and fish on the spit is how chef Robert Marchetti decribes his new menu. Eat fish like John Dory and Leather Jacket slashed with chermoula and coal grilled or whole ducks and chicken cooked over a coal spit. Or perhaps some milk fed goat or lamb souvlaki?

Address: 10 Neild Avenue, Rushcutters Bay, Sydney Phone: (02) 02 83534400 Website: idrb.com hospitalitymagazine.com.au

Great food deserves great tableware.

Contact WWRD Customer Service on 1300 852 022 to enquire about our Royal Doulton Commercialware distributors. Pattern featured: Loop.

review

Embrasse restaurant Named The Age Good Food Guide Young Chef of the Year 2010, Nicolas Poelaert continues to attract praise for his one hat French restaurant Embrasse. Our masked diner wasn’t disappointed when he headed to the Carlton restaurant.

mysterydiner ON A balmy Melbourne evening, the bride and I are joined by our regular dining companions and head out to one of their special restaurants; Embrasse, nestled in one of my favourite streets in Carlton, Drummond Street; lined with triple story terraces and interesting cafes. It’s only a stones throw from where Nicolas began his Melbourne food journey as pastry chef at the original Vue de Monde back in 2003 when he arrived from his native France. However, it appears that experience with Michel Bras in the south of France was elemental in developing his fascination for flowers and vegetables and these play a signature role at Embrasse — almost enough to make me consider being vegetarian…almost.

There is an excellent degustation option here and it is designed table by table according to your tastes and hunger. How sensible and customer friendly.

Must come back for that at another time. This time however, we opt for the standard menu offering very non standard fare. A platter of spoons arrives as an appetiser, two each; one confit beetroot garnished with a delicate flower, the other artichoke puree with black sesame seeds and a sprig of dill. Smoked bread rolls are offered and are accompanied by house made butter presented as a pat on a cold block of slate. I wondered aloud how to smoke bread and was advised that the flour was smoked, not the roll. Naturally; why didn’t I think of that? Anyway, they were really good. We began with a lovely white, long forgotten on these shores, a Fume Blanc from Oakridge..

Like other conceptual food places, Embrasse simply lists the ingredients and then you either take a leap of faith or have the excellent floor team explain them to you as a dish. We opt for a mixture of both and explore the list in earnest. A lovely restaurant in rural France awakened in me a love of sweetbreads that had been long dormant. Here they come with a smoked maple syrup glaze ($24), spring cabbage, salt bush and a rich smear of fromage blanc. I am entranced as they are perfectly cooked and the glaze adds a sweet element to the savoury base and slightly bitter cabbage. The bride started with poached WA Yabbies ($21) which came with sashimi grade raw prawns settled on top of cucumber heart with a turned new potato aside. Baby asparagus spears pointed skyward from cauliflower custard splodges and it is all surrounded in a small pool of carrot juice.

The excellence of the produce shines in this beautifully constructed plate.

My friends insist that whatever we have for mains must be accompanied by a pot of Aligot ($14). The 8

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

A class act: the Embrasse dining room.

waiter, understanding this need, brings us one at the start of the main course and one a little later to make sure that it remains hot and so ridiculously rich. This is potato at its most decadent with Tomme Fraiche cheese whipped into the mash and it is served by rolling it around two forks as it is too sticky for a spoon. This heart stopping delight is paired with some excellent mains; Pork fillet ($42) for my beloved is

cooked sous vide to soft pink through the centre before being brushed with maple syrup and glazed in the pan. It is as tender and moist as any pork I have ever had and came with some sensational vegetables; burnt carrot and butternut as a puree looked similar, but tasted incredibly different, along with pickled melon, horseradish and shavings of French breakfast radish. It’s complex in presentation and cooked with hospitalitymagazine.com.au

review

Embrasse’s signature Chocolate Mushrooms with Forest Floor dessert.

terrific technique. My thick chunk of Wagyu Rump ($44) was as black as pitch thanks to a glaze of squid ink with a little butter whisked through to bind and shine. It came with asparagus three ways (green and white tips and puree), some terrific smoked rice wine vinegar, reduced to a gel, and a golf ball sized potato croquette that seemed to consist of fluff and crunch. An assortment of leaves and flowers also adorned the plate in an artful display. A bowl of vegetables helped balance the second helping of Aligot and we managed to wash these down with a fine bottle of Heathcote Shiraz from Green Stone.

Dessert here provided one of my dishes of the year. Unfortunately for me it had been ordered by our friends and they were willing to share a little, but I wanted it all… Sure my warm Mandarin Pudding ($21) was a fine finish to the meal with its exquisite texture and taste and aerated white chocolate complimenting the lemon sorbet and liquorish meringue, but the Chocolate Mushrooms ($19) with ‘forest floor’ and dark chocolate mousse looked like something from the garden in Charlie’s Chocolate factory with mushroom cups of rich choc hazelnut cake, white stalks of marshmallow, sorrel granita and leaves, all presented in a broad black bowl. I would go back just for this; it was brilliant in design, creativity and execution.

The whole experience at Embrasse proved why Nic was awarded a Chefs hat in consecutive Good Food Guides hospitalitymagazine.com.au

The details Embrasse restaurant 312 Drummond Street, Carlton, Melbourne P: (03) 9347 3312 W: embrasserestaurant.com.au Head chef: Nicolas Poelaert Owners: Nicolas and Tara Poelaert Open: Lunch, Friday to Sunday from 12pm. Dinner, Wednesday to Sunday from 6.30pm.

The verdict: The Embrasse experience leaves you with no doubt about why Nicolas Poelaert has received so many awards. This is a restaurant that knows exactly what it is doing with the entire team working seamlessly to deliver. It’s a class act that more diners should be beating down the door to get in on.

and also picked up the Young Chef of the Year gong last year. It is a restaurant that knows exactly what it is doing, with floor team that are in tune and a chef in sensational form who even wanders out on to the floor at the end of service to check on his night. It is a class act with my only concern being that I easily got a table on a Thursday and there were still a couple spare. Embrasse needs people to see how good a small restaurant can be. Book a table and prepare to be impressed. hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

9

newsextra

secretingredients Chef and co-owner of an ever-expanding restaurant empire, Robert Marchetti has in the last weeks been overseeing the launch of two new ventures in Sydney — Neild Avenue and La Macelleria. We managed to grab him for five minutes out of his busy schedule to grill him.

Tell us about your career so far?

I started as a kitchen hand at age 13 and have been working every day since as a hotel operation manager to waiter to chef, and now a restaurateur. Experience and lots of drive is the key. It’s an over used word but I’ll say it anyway — I’m a good all-rounder.

You’ve just opened La Macelleria. What can customers expect when they visit?

We wanted, as friends and partners Peter Andrews of Andrews Meat Industries, Eric Jansson and Maurice Terzini, to open a new age meat shop with a panini bar making old fashioned sandwiches filled with brisket, corned beef, pastrami and our own salumi range of osso collo cured pork neck, chilli, pickles. We have brought back the sausage roll into the new century. It’s a foot long and filled with Berkshire pork sausages wrapped in puff pastry and rolled in nigella, poppy and sesame seeds. We are operating with a classic butcher approach with old school cuts like full bone in milk fed lamb chops with the whole foot long bone that has all its extra meat and flavour attached. We also have two enormous rotisseries cooking whole free range and organic chickens with all the trimmings of roast potatoes to gravy and steamed spinach.

And Neild Avenue has also just opened. Describe it for us.

Food of the sun, healthy with lots of grains and pulses and vegetables.

All the meat and the fish of the spit like whole John Dory and Leather Jacket slashed with chermoula and coal grilled. Whole ducks and chicken cooked over a coal spit. And milk fed goat and lamb souvlaki. The restaurant is focused on NSW wines predominantly and we produce wines with our friends at Ross Hill in 10

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

the Hunter Valley. James Robson, his father and partner Greg Jones worked with us to produce amazing wine in custom kegs to drink by the carafe. But not the crap that some people are doing — bottle quality without the middle man, bottle mark up. We believe this is the way people should drink everyday wine.

The restaurant has two amazing theatrical houses that move up and down over the dining room which plays with the light and creates different dimensions to the restaurant’s atmosphere.

What inspires you?

Street food and really old school cooks — mostly peasant farmers that have a better understanding of how to maximise and best treat produce. Definitely not a cook with fake truffle oil and a stick mixer.

Yuck.

What’s your favourite ingredient at the moment?

Berkshire pigs that are ethically killed and raised. They have so many uses and taste great in our smallgoods range.

Apart from your own, what’s your favourite restaurant?

Fratelli Paradiso Challis Avenue Potts Point. My mates Marco, Enrico and Giovanni own it and they know how to please. They have a great floor team that bend over backwards for anyone and the head chef is Japanese and speaks fluent Italian and cooks better Italian than any Italian chef I know. They have a great wine list plus they put up with me most days so that’s a plus.

Your pick of the menu there?

Hand made daily pasta and a great fat t-bone.

What’s been your most memorable food experience?

Robert Marchetti’s Turkey “Saltimbocca” Serves 4 12 slices turkey breast skinless 24 thin slices prosciutto 12 large sage leaves 1 lemon, squeezed bunch chopped flat leaf parsley 2 tbspn unsalted butter 2 tbspn all-purpose flour Salt and pepper Top each turkey slice with two sage leaves and wrap two slices of prosciutto around the turkey to make the “saltimbocca”.

Bash them lightly with a meat hammer so the prosciutto sticks to the meat. Dust some flour on each saltimbocca.

Drizzle the pan with olive oil and heat up to moderate heat.

Arrange the saltimbocca in the pan with prosciutto facing down. Cook for two to three minutes and turn over and cook for another two minutes. Lift up onto a hot plate. Deglaze pan with juice from a squeezed lemon.

Add a knob of butter and some chopped parsley. Add seasoning to your liking and drizzle sauce immediately over the saltimbocca.

My mum’s gnocchi she makes it 20 minutes before we arrive and if we are late we get cracked over the head as she loves it just rolled and boiled, soft and delicate.

What will be the next big foodservice trend?

I don’t know or care. They are usually off target. People will always want food that is treated with love and care. I focus only on what our clients and we want. That’s it.

What are the biggest challenge ahead for restaurants?

Making money. The current government is incompetent with wage laws and won’t let in enough migrant workers that are willing to work here. All my kitchen hands (that are paid above the award) have worked with us for more than four years. They are now cooking or waiting and have moved up the ladder. They are mostly Indian, Nepalese or Chinese. Not one Australian ever comes to apply for a

job in any of my five places for kitchen hand work and it’s where I started when I was young. We don’t have unemployment problems so why not let the migrants in. At this rate most restaurateurs are struggling to find staff and balance their budgets as food and wages rise with inflation.

It seems to me that no government body is listening.

What do you think is the key to keeping staff motivated?

A clear vision and opportunity to grow within the group and assistance to help them fulfil their goals.

You’ve been handed $2m. How would you spend it?

Training for the next ten years.

What would be on the menu at your last supper?

My mum’s cooking.

If you weren’t a chef you’d be… …a nun. hospitalitymagazine.com.au

food.

IT’S MY BUSINESS.

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Drive profits and create savings for your business by discovering the latest foodservice and hospitality products at Fine Food Queensland. Featuring over 300 exhibitors, this is your chance to meet face-to-face with industry specialists. Take the opportunity to attend free seminars covering the key issues affecting your industry and find new ways to evolve your business.

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workplace

Getting social in the workplace Social media is everywhere today and some people can’t get enough of it. Kelly Flahavin from Restaurant and Catering Australia’s workplace relations team offers some tips on managing its use in your workplace.

SOCIAL media has many benefits for the hospitality industry, from promoting the business to recruiting new staff. Clients and employees can now ‘like’ or ‘check in’ to a restaurant and customers can leave reviews via their smart phone while enjoying their meal. Employees at cafes and restaurants often use social media at or outside of work. Disgruntled employees now commonly publish through social media websites their negative and sometimes harmful opinions about their employer. How do you know what is acceptable and when do they cross the line?

Spending excessive time on social media at work can be grounds for disciplinary action if the appropriate policies are in place and regularly enforced and if the employer can prove that the social media use was excessive and during work hours. But behaviour outside working hours may also impact employment if it breaches an express term of an employee’s employment contract. An employer may have reasonable grounds for disciplinary action if an employee posts comments on social media that may, for example, harm the company’s reputation, harass or bully colleagues, or breach confidentiality policies.

In one recent case before the Fair Work Australia Tribunal an employee made comments on his Facebook page about not being paid correctly. He did not mention where he was employed, but he did make a comment about how another employee will be “going down tomorrow”. He had several colleagues on his Facebook page which interpreted this as a threat and advised the employer. The employee was dismissed on grounds of serious misconduct.

He applied for Unfair Dismissal. The business had several relevant policies in place, including a Code of Conduct policy stating that employees should communicate politely with colleagues and not use offensive language. The employer also had bullying and harassment policies in place. The court found the employee’s behaviour was taken to constitute serious misconduct and the application was dismissed. The fact that the comments were made out of work on a home computer did not make any difference.

In another case an employee wrote negative comments about her employer on her Facebook page. However in this case, it was not found that the comments would have been damaging to the employer’s 12

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

business and her dismissal was considered unfair. This employee was financially compensated for the dismissal.

The Tribunal has also examined a case where an employee was dismissed for making a cardboard car from company resources at work. The employer received an anonymous email with the image of the cardboard car as it was posted on Facebook. The employee was summarily dismissed for theft (as the car had unused plastic cups as headlights, which were alleged to be a waste of resources), damaging the company name, and occupational health and safety issues. A supervisor was present on the day the cardboard car was created and did not issue a warning at the time. The dismissal was found to be unfair and not grounds for summarily dismissal.

It would have been grounds for a formal warning letter only. The former employee was compensated accordingly.

These examples show that courts will look at the individual circumstances of each case before making a decision. If an employee has used social media inappropriately, it is still important for the employer to offer procedural fairness by following proper processes for disciplinary proceedings, including termination. It is a

‘Disgruntled employees now commonly publish through social media websites their negative and sometimes harmful opinions about their employer.’

good idea to seek professional advice before dismissing an employee.

Social media risks can be managed by developing and enforcing workplace policies that encourage the appropriate use of social media. These policies need to make clear that harassment, bullying or disparaging comments will not be tolerated.

Employers should create specific Social Media policies or update existing Code of Conduct policies to include inappropriate behaviour in social media.

In cases where performance isn’t found to be serious misconduct, employers should provide a formal warning letter detailing the consequences of their continuous behaviour — for example that repetition or continuation of this particular behaviour will result in termination. The letter should also set out how they can improve and also provide them with a time period to improve. It’s also important to be consistent with all employees and act on all inappropriate behaviour and potential breaches of company policy promptly.

Kelly Flahavin is Workplace Relations Advisor at Restaurant & Catering Australia.

Your cant contact the team on 1300 722878 or visit restaurantcater.asn.au. hospitalitymagazine.com.au

imbibe

Time to Tempranillo A group of wine makers who are passionate fans of Tempranillo are working to raise awareness about the regional differences in wines using the varietal being made across different regions, writes Christine Salins. ouisa Rose is convinced that if Tempranillo had been brought to Australia in the 1820s instead of Shiraz, the country would now be a sea of Tempranillo.

The chief winemaker for Yalumba and Hill Smith Family Vineyards likes to paint a picture of a “parallel universe” in which the father of the Australian wine industry, James Busby, brought out cuttings of Tempranillo from Spain instead of Shiraz from France. And she ponders what the industry might have been like today if winemaking pioneers John Macarthur and George Wyndham had planted Tempranillo instead of Shiraz. “Tempranillo is that versatile,” says Rose. “Shiraz makes up 25 per cent of grapes that are picked here, and in Spain that’s Tempranillo.”

Rose describes this relative newcomer on the Australian wine scene as a robust variety that grows vigorously. Like Shiraz, Tempranillo thrives across a broad area, each region bringing out varietal expressions that can be poles apart.

Last year, a group of self-confessed Tempranillo fans, Louisa Rose among them, decided they wanted to explore some of those Tempranilo devotee: Mount Majura winemaker Frank van de Loo. regional differences. Thus, a winemakers’ biodynamically, is perfectly suited to Tempranillo. collective, TempraNeo, was born.

“Mount Majura is 660m above sea level and a cool One of the driving forces behind the group, Adeclimate. And yet Tempranillo can also do well in a laide Hills winemaker, Peter Leske, of La Linea, got warm climate like McLaren Vale, that's the fasciin touch with a few winemakers he thought might nating thing,” said Brown. be interested, including Frank van de Loo, of CanOther McLaren Vale wines shown included berra’s Mount Majura Vineyard. Other founding Samuel’s Gorge one of only a few in the tasting unmembers include Tar and Roses (Alpine Valleys and der cork, and Oliver’s Taranga Small Batch, a big Heathcote, Victoria), Gemtree Vineyards (McLaren inky wine with abundant oak and cherry notes.

Vale, South Australia) and Mayford (Porepunkah, One of the highlights of the tasting was Topper’s Victoria). The group held trade tastings in MelMountain from a 900m vineyard in the New Engbourne and Sydney last year, and this year expandland region of NSW. With a hint of eucalypt and ed the program to include workshops for consoft tannins, it compared more than favourably sumers and the trade in Melbourne, Brisbane, with the Mount Majura Tempranillo, an intense, northern NSW and Canberra. exotic wine which also has a touch of eucalypt.

Although the group wants to keep its memberAlthough it sells more Pinot Gris, Tempranillo ship small, they are keen to show wines by other has become the flagship for Mount Majura, which producers to further people’s understanding of the began producing it in 2003. variety. As part of that goal, they brought togethClonakilla had stolen the limelight for the Caner 18 Tempranillo wines from around Australia, berra District with its Shiraz Viognier and somekicking off with Yalumba’s Running with Bulls thing different was needed for a small producer to which Rose says are so named “because the boss be recognised. “The typical Canberra district vineran with the bulls [in Spain] once”. Both are bright yard is a fruit salad of French varieties. I think to and juicy with subtle oak, the Wrattonbully one a find the perfect variety for our vineyard you have little more savoury and fuller bodied of the two. to look beyond that list,” said van de Loo. The bright fresh flavours were in complete con“We need varieties that belong here. I think you trast to the pungent earthiness of Gemtree Vinecan make very nice Pinot from here but not great yards Luna Roja. Winemaker Mike Brown plantPinot. When we first started making Tempranillo ed Tempranillo 11 years ago after working vintages in 2003 I was excited because it was a whole step in Spain and observing its versatility. He says his up in terms of character and personality. We feel site, in the foothills of McLaren Vale and managed

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the depth and personality in the wine is revealing the character of our place.”

Whereas cooler climate wines tend to have more perfume, spice, red berry flavours and fine firm tannins, Tempranillo from warmer climates tends to be more powerful and concentrated with ‘darker’ characters such as black cherry and chocolate.

Yet for van de Loo, one of the keys to Tempranillo’s regional differences is not so much whether it comes from a warmer or cooler region as whether it comes from a maritime or a continental climate. “I'm not saying one is better than the other; it's just that it accounts for some of the differences.”

He could be onto something for other inland/continental wines in the line-up showed a consistency of bright sweet fruit, medium body and elegance. These included Pfeiffer Winemakers Selection from Rutherglen, Sam Miranda from King Valley; the classy Mayford from the Alpine Valleys region of Victoria; and Capital Wines’ The Ambassador.

Continuing with the line-up, Sanguine Estate from Heathcote was big and alluring; Glandore Estate from the Hunter Valley had a spicy earthiness, Stella Bella from Margaret River was tannic and savoury; and Bunkers The Box, also Margaret River, somewhat shy of fruit.

Opinions were divided on La Linea because of its overtly pretty, fruity aroma and flavour. La Linea released its first Tempranillo in 2007, although Peter Leske and his partner in the vineyard, David LeMire, have years of experience with the variety.

They have two very different Tempranillo vineyards at each end of the Adelaide Hills; this one was from the coolest of the two, Llangibby. “Because of its fragrance, Tempranillo rewards people drinking them in their youth,” says Leske.

The lowest priced wine in the line-up, Tahbilk Nagambie Lakes ($15.45), was well-received, as was Tar & Roses from the Alpine Valleys/ Heathcote regions.

Tar & Roses winemaker Narelle King said while varietals such as Nebbiolo and Sangiovese can be challenging for consumers, Tempranillo is “one step away from a nice Shiraz and one step closer to a Sangiovese or Nebbiolo”.

Therein lies Tempranillo’s potential to be assimilated into the national drinks list. Like Shiraz, it has a broadly appealing palate. “It’s similar to what we are used to drinking but different enough to be appealing,” said Rose.

It also complements the increasingly popular tapas style of dining. “It's a variety that goes very well with food,” says Gemtree’s Mike Brown. “In the next decade, Tempranillo will really come into its own.” hospitalitymagazine.com.au

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hospitalitymagazine.com.au

hospitalitychef

Local love from produce champ Trends in wining and dining will come and go, but the value of local produce and passionate producers is here to stay, says Melbourne chef Matt Wilkinson. Danielle Bowling reports.

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here are two trends in the foodservice industry Melbourne chef Matt Wilkinson is definitely not a fan of.

The first is the push for 'labelling' food — 'modern Australian' is a good example — and the second is ramming those labels down diners' throats so it becomes almost mainstream.

Wilkinson's big passion is local food, that's why he says that if he had to label his food, it would called be 'Melbourne'. But he makes no effort to tell his diners just how local the dishes at his East Brunswick restaurant Pope Joan are.

“At the end of the day I'm not cooking for the public,” Wilkinson says. “It might sound arrogant, but Pope Joan is a cafe with food that I would want to eat myself. I'm really anti the whole local, sustainable trend and how everyone's really pushing it. The diners here know my philosophy.”

After landing in Australia in 2000 and kicking off his career at Vue de Monde in Carlton, followed by a stint at Alevansi, Wilkinson took a job as sous chef with Andrew McConnell at Circa the Prince, where he eventually became head chef.

It was at this time McConnell “took my blinkers off”, Wilkinson says, and exposed him to a range of different flavours from around the world, breaking the young chefs’ self-confessed “modern French with a British style”, and instead letting him really explore his passion for fresh produce.

“My one love has always been growing vegetables and knowing who the producer is, so when I took over at Circa I really went for what I believed in, so buying direct from producers and getting rid of the middle men,” says Wilkinson. “I've got about 60 or 70 different producers who have become good friends.”

In July 2010, after five years at Circa, Wilkinson opened Pope Joan. It serves Clockwise from top left: Matt Wilkinson; vegetables are a big passion; award-winning Welsh Rarebit sandwich; Pope Joan’s rice pudding with blueberries;. Images courtesy Mr Wilkinson’s Favourite Vegetables, Murdoch Books. hospitalitymagazine.com.au

breakfast, brunch and lunch, and the menu is based completely on what's in season and as local as possible. “Obviously I don't limit myself,” says Wilkinson.

“The produce has preferably got to be Victorian. I don't have tomatoes at the moment because they're coming from different parts of Australia, so I'll wait until the Victorian season starts.

“But then, say pomegranates are in season, and I'll use some from this area but I won't use California ones. If pomegranate season is coming to an end in Melbourne but they've still got them in Western Australia I'll take them for a while until I've changed the menu. “It's got to be Victorian, otherwise it's Australian, and then after that I don't get it.”

Sourcing local produce means Wilkinson has created some strong relationships with producers and has a deeper understand of the produce, how it was grown or reared and how to best prepare and use it. Most importantly though, he says, it's about the taste.

“When it's in season, that's when it's most tasty,” Wilkinson says. “If my tomatoes come from Daylesford or even down in the Peninsula I know the weather climate that they've had. They haven't travelled that far so when I'm getting them they're at their freshest and I'll use them straight away.”

Wilkinson says he's visited 60 per cent of his producers' farms and talks with them on the phone weekly or fortnightly. Having a menu based on local produce is as much about promoting and committing to the producer as it is celebrating the ingredients.

With that comes a need to realise that things can go wrong and supplies can be unreliable.

“You write the menu around what's coming into season, you don't write the menu with just things that you like or what you think people will like.

“So obviously, working with the farmers direct, you know that if they've had a problem with drought or water or flooding they'll tell you straight away and you just have to work with them to change it. You can't just go to a vege supplier and say 'give me corn'.

“I'll take it off [the menu] because more

Matt’s picks FAVOURITE FOOD-RELATED BOOK? The Alice B Toklas Cookbook. It’s full of beautiful writing about food in the pre-war, WWII and post war times from America to France.

FAVOURITE RESTAURANT? I’ve got a few: Embrasse, Attica and Gastro Park.

FAVOURITE PLACE TO SHOP FOR FOOD AND INGREDIENTS? Collingwood Children’s Farmers’ Market run by the VFMA on the second Saturday of every month.

FAVOURITE MEAL EXPERIENCE? It was three years ago at a place called Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York State. It’s a farm/restaurant and education centre and I love how the chef, Dan Barber, uses all in season ingredients in a simple way with amazing flavour combinations and textures.

often than not if that producer can't get it it'll be coming from NSW or Queensland.”

And while Wilkinson isn't as committed to organics as he is local, he says you usually get one with the other. “I think when you're buying local and seasonal, you're following and buying the organic way. They go hand in hand,”he says. “It's not a major concern for me. I'm after the most tasty ingredient. And more often than not the most tasty stuff is not conventional, it's organically grown, even if it's not certified. They follow the practices of biodynamics and really care about their business and their land.”

Apart from supporting local food and producers, Wilkinson is also an advocate for taking simple, common dishes and re-creating them as something special. It’s a strategy seen to great effect in his recent crowning at the World Sandwichship Competition that was held as part of the Crave Sydney International Food Festival.

“There are waves of trends with food, like macarons,” he says. “People now know more about food. They want to try different things and the sandwich can seem quite boring because to everyone it's just a quick hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

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hospitalitychef

Rose-geranium-stewed blueberries with creamed rice pudding

BUCKET LOADS O F F L AV O U R

This dish has been a favourite from the day we opened at Pope Joan. I change the fruit to whatever is in season but I always poach it with a little rose geranium, which gives it a gentle perfumed floral fragrance that works stunningly with the rich creaminess of the rice pudding. Matt Wilkinson Stewed blueberries 200g blueberries, fresh or frozen 110g caster sugar 1 leaf and stalk of rose geranium Creamed rice pudding 75g arborio rice 1/2 vanilla bean, seeds only 500ml milk 100g caster sugar 1 gold-strength gelatine leaf, softened in cold water, then squeezed to remove excess water 250 ml double cream, gently whipped to soft peaks

T RY O U R N E W AIOLI GARLIC M AYO N N A I S E Now in 10kg buckets

Just in time for seafood season, Birch & Waite’s fresh-chilled Aioli Garlic Mayonnaise is now available in convenient 10kg buckets. For more information visit www.birchandwaite.com.au

SUPERIOR QUALITY | FRESH CHILLED MADE IN AUSTRALIA

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hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

Stewed blueberries: Place the blueberries, caster sugar and rose geranium in a two litre capacity saucepan and place over medium heat. Gently cook for 14 to 18 minutes or until the blueberries start to break, then take off the stovetop, remove the rose geranium leaf and stalk and refrigerate until needed.

Creamed rice pudding: Place the rice and one litre of water in a two litre capacity saucepan and bring to the boil, then take off the heat and strain.

Put the rice back into the pan and add the vanilla seeds and milk. Place the pan over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 20 minutes or until the rice is fully cooked or all the liquid has been absorbed. Take off the stovetop and stir in the sugar and gelatine until dissolved. Spread over a tray and refrigerate until set.

Once set fold through the whipped cream, then pour into a serving dish and place back in the fridge to firm.

This should take 30 minutes.

To serve, spoon pudding over some of the stewed blueberries and juices.

Recipe and image from Mr Wilkinson's Favourite Vegetables by Matt Wilkinson, publishing March 2012 by Murdoch Books. See image page 16.

lunch. But it can be so much more.

“You need to go back to basic cooking principles. Good produce, that's fresh. If you've got a sandwich with stale bread it's going to be a shit sandwich.”

Two of Wilkinson's top sandwich creations were his pulled pork sandwich with mayonnaise, pickled carrot, pickled cornichons, salad leaves and cheese served warm. So popular is it at Pope Joans that it’s one of those dishes Wilkinson can never take off the menu.

The sandwich which claimed him first prize in the World Sandwichship Competition though was made up of ham, three different types of tomato pickle and was served with a Welsh rarebit fondue and a local cider.

Along with claiming the top sandwich title and running a successful restaurant, Wilkinson has a few other irons in the fire. He’s currently working on a book titled Mr Wilkinson's Favourite Vegetables, and in January will open a bar, the Bishop of Ostia, right next door to Pope Joan.

He’s also planning his new The Hen and Coq fine dining restaurant, opening in 2013. Plus there’s his business partnership with Spudbar, a gourmet potato fast food franchise. Oh and he's also a dad to an eight month old.

And while these ventures are all based in Victoria, it would be safe to assume that Wilkinson's honest, local, fresh, 'Melbourne' cuisine will be making a name for itself around the country in no time at all. hospitalitymagazine.com.au

beverage

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IT’S ALL APPLES FOR CIDER The demand for cider is booming as drinkers discover there’s more to the drink than they might have tthought, hought, writes Danielle Bowling.

hospitalitymagazine.com.au

tep aside beer and wine — cider is making a name for itself in the Australian drinks market, and has been the fastest growing alcoholic beverage for the past two years.

Despite growing 37.2 per cent in the 2009 December quarter alone, cider, made from crushed apples, still only accounts for 1.4 per cent of liquor sales by value, according to AC Nielsen. But if Australia's small cider producers and cider-promoting bars and pubs have anything to do with it, this will change very quickly.

James Kendall from Small Acres Cyder based in the New South Wales’ regional city of Orange is riding the wave of cider's booming popularity and doing what he can to increase it, including holding lunches and dinners to educate Australians on different ciders.

Kendall also hosted this year's Australian National Cider Awards, which left Kendall and his wife Gail amazed at the number of producers out there. “We surprised ourselves because we started searching for craft cider producers thinking that we'd get seven or eight and we ended up with 93 entries and a list of about 25 to 30 producers around Australia,” he said.

The Kendalls established Small Acres Cyder in 2007 after Gail, being English, was complaining that there were no decent ciders in Australia. “We opened our cellar door with one product, it was a very traditional west country English style of cider and we've grown from there,” Jame Kendall says. “We're now five years down the track and our product range is six ciders and one perry [alcoholic beverage made from pears].”

Small Acres Cyder produces a 750ml bottle range, which targets restaurant beverage lists and upmarket bottle stores, and has also recently launched a 330ml range called Small Acres Pomme.

The common theme across his entire offering, Kendall explains, is that they're all traditional, genuine ciders. “So the more traditional or real ciders use cider variety apples,” he says. “We've got about 20 different varieties in our orchard like Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Somerset Readstreak and Stoke Red, and those apples are a bit like the wine grape is to the wine maker, they've got a completely different structure of acids, tannins and sughospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

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beverage

ars compared to the eating apple.

“The second key difference is that the real cider makers will make it only from whole, fresh picked apples, so we'll just use apples straight off the tree and press them and the juice that we get from those apples is what we use to make our cider. In a real cider there's no added water, there's no added sugar, there's no added flavouring," he says.

Genuine ciders are also the focus at The Cidery, which operates like a winery would, producing on-site then sharing and selling its ciders to the public.

Pat Corrigan has been making cider for 25 years, 12 of them at The Cidery, and over the past few years he's noticed a definite increase in people's interest in both drinking and making cider and he credits a big part of that to the UK's influence.

“The increase in popularity of cider in the UK has filtered through to Australia and it's more acceptable now to drink cider than it was say 20 years ago,” Corrigan says. “And then I also think that a lot of wineries and breweries have encountered the challenges of the recession that's been experienced globally, that they then look to something they feel would be commercially more successful, so there's been a rapid increase in the last four or five years in the number of beverage producers producing cider.”

The Cidery produces and sells one perry and seven ciders, including two non-alcoholic choices, ranging from Scudamores Scrumpy, a completely still, dry cider with an eight percent alcohol content, to the Sweet Rosie, a fresh and naturally sweet sparkling cider.

Corrigan says it's impossible to say which ciders are most popular, because like wines, different palettes prefer different styles. “It's a bit similar to a winery making a range of wines or a brewery making a range of beers,” he says. “The reason you have a range of beers and a range of wines is to appeal to a range of palettes, so we have a spectrum of taste experience with our ciders.

“But we do sell more of the characterful ciders in the winter and more of our fresher, lighter ciders in summer."

Ben Day, venue manager at Melbourne’s Young and Jackson pub, cottoned on to the cider wave at the right time, turning an under-utilised rooftop beer garden into a lively summer themed cider bar with nine on tap, 25 to 30 in the fridge and one in a French oak barrel.

“About two years ago we started to notice a change in the drinking trends of people,” Day says. “We get a lot of footy trips at the end of the year, local footy trips travelling from interstate, and I noticed about 80 per cent of them were drinking cider, 20

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

Young and Jackson’s summer-themed roof top bar has more than 30 ciders available.

‘Going forward I'd like to provide more rotational taps so we can put on all these fantastic ciders that local brewers are doing at the moment.’

Small Acres Cyder is one of the artisan producers leading the revolution in Aussie cider.

and sometimes 100 per cent, and for me, seeing Aussie blokes doing that, I thought there was obviously something in that, so it made my ears prick up.”

While the pub’s Roof Top Cider Bar stocks the big cider names like Monteiths and Bulmers, as well as imported brands including Rikorderlig, Kopparberg and Cheeky Rascal, Day pays special attention to the more small-scale, local producers.

“There's a huge emphasis on Australian craft cider. I really try to stick with the craft element of Australia in this pub. Going forward I'd like to provide more rotational taps so we can put on all these fantastic ciders that local brewers are doing at the moment.”

Top sellers at Roof Top Cider Bar include Bulmers, Gypsy, Cheeky Rascal (in apple strawberry and apple raspberry flavours) and Swedish import Rikorderlig.

Another big seller, but mostly in the winter months, is the Cider Bar's selection of warm ciders, which sell out every day, usually by 6pm, says Day. “We have urns that we put them in,” he says. “One is Rikorderlig which we just put in straight away, another is Westons which comes out of a cask, and the other two we make on-site every single morning, fresh. So basically we just make up one batch, a full urn of a few litres and then once that is sold it's sold.

“We put spices and all different sorts of things in it. We also use Napoleon cider from the Yarra Valley which we have on tap so we take some of their cider, mix it with brandy, pomegranate and a few other spices. There's also the Young and Jackson Hot Apple Pie which takes the Scrumpy from the French oak barrel and hospitalitymagazine.com.au

beverage

The range from The Cidery.

Winning drops For a drink that holds a relatively small percentage of the Australian beverage market, this year’s Australian Cider Awards definitely pulled a crowd. There were 93 entries and about 30 producers from around Australia taking part.

The major award winners were: BEST IN SHOW Henney’s Cider Co of Herefordshire UK – “Henney’s Dry Cider” BEST AUSTRALIAN CIDER CUB – Matilda Bay – “Dirty Granny” BEST AUSTRALIAN PERRY This award was shared between entries from: The Hills Cider Company, Pear/Perry Napoleone & Co — Pear Cider Traditionelle

it tasted exactly like warm apple pie.

It was incredible. We just mixed it with different spices, like cinnamon.”

Meanwhile, in the Sydney suburb of Coogee, a new bar that opened its doors in November is also out to capitalise on the rising popularity of cider. The Bunker has been established underneath the Coogee Diggers club and, like Day, chief executive officer Phil Vannan has noticed cider's surging popularity and is aiming to tap into it with an extensive range of ciders on offer.

“Bulmers came on draught prior to last summer and I can't remember what beer it replaced, but lets say that beer was doing a keg a week, with Bulmers we instantly went to three or four kegs a week,” says Vannan. “Now ciders sit next to beer and it's just accepted that you've got to have a couple of good ciders next to a couple of good beers.”

The Bunker, which stocks five different ciders including Monteiths, hospitalitymagazine.com.au

Kopparburg and Rikorderlig, is aimed at the 30-plus age group, the people that not only live around the Coggee area, but also have the money and the interest to experiment with their drinks, Vannan says.

“I think if you get the mainstream, big brewery producers the price range is pretty similar to beer, but for instance the Rikorderlig on our drinks list, a 500ml bottle is $12 and the two 330ml bottles — Monteiths and Pipsqueak — are $8, but our guests know that they're quality and they're prepared to pay for it.”

“You can't really have any sort of bar these days without having cider.

It used to be a second thought, it used to be, “oh yeah, we've got Strongbow”.

“But now you've got to have more.

People know about the Swedish stuff, they know about the imported stuff, they know about the ones from the small producers. So you've got to have a good offering.” hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

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frying

The good oil

From inefficient oil filtering to patchy fryer maintenance systems,there are plenty issues that can sstop top you getting the most life out of your oil.

Fryer expert Brandon Clarke offers his advice for more efficient frying.

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remember my father had a quirky saying when I was young that went, “I own the car, but I’m still paying off the petrol”.

While it always sounded a bit humorous, it would seem to be an apt description where deep frying and oil are concerned.

In fact, over the life of a deep fryer it’s likely you will spend upwards of seven times the cost of the fryer on constantly replacing the oil. Imagine spending more than $25,000 on oil for one 20 litre deep fryer over a seven year period.

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hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

And what if you had three fryers? It’s hard to imagine spending $75,000 on oil isn’t it?

But there’s plenty you can do to try to reduce the cost of your oil. Let’s have a look at what impacts the life of oil and some simple steps to help reduce your overall oil costs while still maintaining the quality of your food.

Factors effecting oil life Heat degradation: There is generally an urge to turn the thermostat to full bore

when peak times arrive, unfortunately all this does is rapidly break down the oil. In fact, once you go beyond 190C, the breakdown due to heat degradation increases by as much as 20 times.

Air: The addition of air causes oxidation of the oil. This generally leads to a build up, otherwise known as “Gummy Residue”. This build up adds to the rapid breakdown of oil.

Moisture: Another enemy of oil is often accidentally added when the contents of a frozen bag are emptied directly into the hospitalitymagazine.com.au

Turbo charge your kitchen line up.

Waldorf Fryers have long set the benchmark for durability, speed and economy. For high volume operations, the FN8130G HPO Fryer takes speed and performance to another level again. Increased production (up to 50kg/hr) and superior recovery times are made possible through a blower system that pushes greater volumes of air and gas through specially designed ceramic fibre burners. More heat is absorbed by the oil, resulting in lower flue exhaust temperatures and lower production costs per kilo. All this plus our stainless steel fryer tanks carry a 10 year limited warranty.

www.moffat.com.au Toll Free 1800 023 953

MOFFAT 1251

frying

baskets whilst they are above the fryer.

This practice also causes the oil to spit and can be dangerous to the operator.

Product load: A common misconception is that fryer baskets can be filled to the top.

Over filling baskets has a tendency to cause the temperature to drop significantly, allowing more oil to be soaked up by the product as it takes longer to seal on the outside. Fryer baskets were designed to be filled half way only.

Fryer maintenance: A by-product of frying is carbon. The carbon builds up on the fryer tank which creates a thermal blanket reducing the fryer’s efficiency.

Temperature of product: The temperature of the product when it goes into the fryer is also critical. Some products are only designed for frying when frozen. Others work better when blanched and then finished later from a thawed state.

Oil quality: There are many types of oils available, both solid and liquid. They all have varying life expectancies. As a general rule the cheaper the oil the shorter the life span. Particularly in the case of increased frying temperatures, which will also impact the life span of the oil.

Reducing the cost So all this said how can you reduce the impact of the cost of oil on your business?

Put simply the best method is to filter as often as possible. There are basically three ways to filter your oil.

• First is the manual style, and oldest method, utilising a cone type filter (a Chinaman’s hat), which involves draining the oil through a filter cone into a large saucepan or pot, then pouring the filtered oil back into the fryer. This method is somewhat time consuming and can be dangerous if done when the oil is still very hot. While effective to a point the workplace dangers can be a problem.

•The second method, using a portable oil filter, is also a useful option. This involves rolling a low level portable filter with a pump and motor in front of the fryer. Then draining the oil into the portable unit and pumping the filtered oil back into the tank through a hose with a stainless steel wand. This is also a viable option even though it has other factors involved such as storage of the portable unit and the requirement of an available power point to plug the unit into.

• The in-built filtration system is by far the best option for extending oil life. The inbuilt system allows for filtering to be done whenever it is required and with most systems usually takes no more than five minutes per fryer. Remembering that filtering at least three times a day, after the 24

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

Secrets to a longer life (for your oil) • Choose a good quality oil.

• Make sure you have a regular program of maintenance for your fryers.

• Don’t overfill your fryer baskets.

• Don’t heat your oil to too high a temperature. Temperatures over 190C cause rapid degradation of oil.

• Don't empty bags of food into the fryer basket over the fryer.

• Filter your oil as often as you can. At least three times a day is ideal.

• Clean your fryer tank daily.

• Make sure you have lids or covers on your fryers. Air and moisture are your oils’ enemies.

• Ensure the product going into the fryer is at the correct temperature.

lunch rush, after the dinner rush, and then at the end of the night, the oil life is extended dramatically.

What it costs Let’s look at the typical costs of oil in a one year period based on two standard 20 litre fryers and two wide body 36 litre fryers without filtering based on a five day oil life.

For two 20 litre fryers: Fryer unit oil capacity — 40 litres.

Shortening life of five days (73 changes) 2 drums at $50 per drum = $100 $100 x 73 = $7300 annual oil costs And for two 36 litre fryers: Fryer unit oil capacity — 72 litres Shortening life of: five days (73 changes) 3.6 drums at $50 per drum = $180 $180 x 73 = $13140 annual oil costs When you multiply this out the oil costs for two standard fryers is at least $50,000 over a seven year period. Imagine how much you could save by simply filtering your oil as much as possible.

Got your attention? Well here are some more processes that can help reduce your oil costs.

Clean your fryer tank daily. Keep the sides

and upper edges of the frypot clean. Removing the gummy residue that tends to build up on the sides and edges of fryers is essential. This should be wiped off daily.

Ensure you have fryer lids/covers. Air and moisture also affect the life of your oil, so it’s important to ensure you put lids on every night to limit these effects. This ensures that condensation from your exhaust canopy as well as airborne particles cannot get into the oil.

Boiling out the fryer tanks. As mentioned, a by-product of frying is the carbon build up on the fryer tank. Fryers should be boiled out from time to time with water and an effective powder or liquid cleaner. This will limit the carbon build up and ensure your fryer works at its optimum level.

Following these procedures and tips can dramatically increase the life of your oil.

In many cases by at least double!

Brandon Clarke has been involved in the fryer business for more than 20 years and is now an industry consultant specialising in frying systems and solutions. You can contact him at fryingguy@kimiragroup.com or 0408 660 260 hospitalitymagazine.com.au

frying

Buyers guide: Fryers In the market for some frying equipment? We asked the makers and distributors of the top frying brands in the market to give us the low down on their latest arrivals and market leading equipment.

WALDORF 800 SERIES What is it?

The Waldorf 800 Series range of cooking equipment. It’s manufactured in New Zealand by Moffat and combines the robustness and performance typically found in American equipment with the refinement so often associated with the European equipment.

Explain the key features of the fryer and why a foodservice operator should choose it.

To deliver continuous high volumes of fried food and cope with peaks in demand you need a high performance fryer. One that occupies less floor space and less hood space is the Waldorf Fast Fri fryer. This fryer is able to achieve greater performance and output levels than two standard fryer combined.

How energy efficient is it?

The Waldorf 800 Series fryers include a super efficient blower system which pushes greater volumes of air and gas through specially designed ceramic fibre burners. Producing an intense, even infra-red heat the burner system ensures more heat energy is absorbed by the oil. The results are low-

hospitalitymagazine.com.au

er flue exhaust temperatures and more importantly, lower production costs per kilo. The Waldorf 800 Series range of fryers are available in single or twin pan capacity as well as gas or electric models.

How much space does the machine need? What kind of foodservice operation is it suited to?

Waldorf fryers have long set the benchmark for durability, speed and economy. The 800 Series builds on this tradition with a redesigned range of fryers available in 450 or 600mm single or twin pan versions. These units are used anywhere from a small café to a large production kitchen.

What is the capacity of the machine?

Purpose designed to offer continuous production of up to 60 kilograms per hour, Waldorf Fast Fri HPO fryers have a superior recovery rate avoiding downtime waiting for oil to reach the ideal frying temperature between batches.

How easy is it to install?

The equipment requires connection by a licensed gas fitter.

Frying with Frymaster.

temperature safety cut-outs.

Contact: Moffat

FRYMASTER’S OCF (OIL CONSERVING FRYERS) What is it?

Does it have any special safety features?

Frymaster’s new OCF (Oil Conserving Fryers) range which offers the next generation of green benefits and cost savings to the industry.

Standard safety features include oil level and over

Explain the fryer’s features?

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

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frying

OCF Fryers offer the same production capacity as their 25 litre competitors, yet take 40 per cent less oil to fill, resulting in less oil used and less oil discarded. The oil savings are compounded by hightechnology features that take the guesswork out of oil management, protecting oil quality, and maximising oil life to four weeks or more. Each OCF30 Fryer is equipped with the full-featured SMART4U 3000 Controller, which literally walks the operator through every facet of operation and maintenance. The Oil Attendant technology automatically senses the oil level in the frypot, and adds oil as needed from an in-cabinet supply. This automatic top-off feature helps maintain the freshness of oil in the frypot, and ensures the highest quality output of fried foods. It also simplifies operation and maintenance so the staff can concentrate on customer satisfaction with minimal handling of oil. The controller even alerts when the in-cabinet oil supply needs replenishing. The builtin FootPrint PRO filtration system encourages more frequent filtering, which preserves oil life and ensures consistent, great-tasting food. The simple, two lever process prevents unplanned filtration and dangerous extension into busy work spaces.

How energy efficient is the fryer?

The OCF fryers use 10 per cent less energy. With 40 per cent less oil in the frypot, heat-up is faster and requires less energy. With less oil in every process, the savings continue throughout operation and maintenance. And, to help reduce energy waste, the SMART4U 3000 Controller features a COOL Mode which holds the oil at a lower temperature during idle periods.

in the mid west of America that’s been manufacturing frying systems for more than 50 years. They are the main line supplier to McDonald’s Australia and also supply to the Hungry Jacks chain. It’s the only approved Low Oil Volume fryer to the Hungry Jacks system.

waste tank and for the truck to come along and remove for waste.

Contact: JL Lennard

Explain the features of the machine?

Pitco was founded in 1918 and is the oldest manufacturer of deep fryers in the world. They manufacture more than 135 types of gas and electric frying equipment and are the largest manufacturer of deep fryers in the world.

The fryers are low oil volume fryers which means they fry the same amount of product but in 40 per cent less oil. The key features include the cost savings that can be achieved, the consistent quality of fried products it produces, its intelligent filtering technology and the energy efficiency.the fryers offer.

How energy efficient is the fryer?

The 40 per cent reduced oil capacity and the filtration system create substantial savings on energy consumption. The Henny Penny Evolution Elite fryer has been awarded the Energy Star Efficiency rating of 85 per cent.

PITCO SOLSTICE SUPREME FRYERS What is it?

How efficient is the fryer in energy consumption?

Pitco fryers are available in both gas and electric.

The all New Solstice Supreme have the highest independently rated efficiency rating of any gas fryer in the world at 78 per cent.

How much space does the machine need? What sort of operation are they suited to?

The fryers can come in a single well through to a four well system so are available to fit a wide range of specifications.

Pitco fryers are suited to almost any type of operation from Stadiums like the MCG and Sydney’s Olympic Stadium, traditional fish and chip outlets, to general cafés. Sizes range from 384mm wide right up to production units that are 905mm wide.

What is the capacity of the machine?

What’s the capacity of the machine?

Capacity varies between models with a standard fryer able to produce approximately 30 kilograms per hour and a production unit as much as 155 kilograms per hour. Almost any combination is possible to meet your output requirements.

For electric fryers, simply plug into an electrical outlet and turn on. Gas installations require no more than connecting to incoming gas supply.

The low oil volume feature of the fryers means the capacity is 14 litres versus that of normal frying vats that would hold 26.5 litres. From a food production capacity the frying time depends on the product being cooked. But they have gone through rigourous testing procedures to ensure that they can keep up the demand of a McDonald’s store at full capacity.

Does it have any special safety features?

How easy are they to install?

What are the safety features of the machine?

The SMART4U 3000 Controller features 20 programmable product buttons for one-touch cooking. Controllers in the same battery communicate for staged, sequential filtration, and even alert the operator if more than one drain valve is opened.

Open frypot design allows for safe, easy, unobstructed cleaning and maintenance. The high-limit safety shut-off switch resets automatically with no tools or intervention required. Electric models feature element-lift handles, and self-standing elements that stay out of the way without being propped. The Oil Attendant Auto Top-Off feature keeps the frypot full while minimising oil handling.

Contact: Comcater

Very easy. The electrical fryers are on castors with locking castors and you can wheel the fryer into position and then plug in the electrical plugs to the wall sockets behind the fryer and off you go. With the gas fryers, again these have locking castors and you can wheel into position and connect the quick disconnect gas flexi pipe to the gas outlet on the fryer and plug in one 10 amp plug for the electric controls.

All Pitco fryers have standard safety items fitted to comply with Australian Regulations such as flame failure and over temperature cut outs etc. Some also have upgraded safety features such as micro switches on drain valves to shut the burners off in case the drain is opened whilst the fryer is running.

How much space does the machine need? What kind of foodservice operation is it suited to?

The ‘footprint’ of the OCF Fryer is the same as a traditional electric fryer. It is suited to any high volume operation where oil and energy costs are high.

What is the capacity of the machine?

Frymaster OCF Fryers can produce 35 kilograms of fries, frozen to fully cooked, per hour, and 32 kilograms of fresh breaded chicken strips per hour.

How easy is it to install?

HENNY PENNY EVOLUTION ELITE FRYERS What is it?

Henny Penny is a private company based in Ohio 26

From left: Pitco fryer fitted with new Spinfresh equipment; Waldorf 800 series fryer; Henny Penny fryer.

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

How much space does the machine need? What kind of foodservice operation is it suited to?

Does it have any special safety features?

They include a full automated filtration system so operators don’t have to handle hot oil. The fryer has an automated top up jib system for each vat, where oil is automatically pumped into each vat to keep it at its optimum frying level so there’s no manual topping up. Plus it has an option of having a pipe system connected to it for any waste oil to be pumped through the pipe system into an oil

How easy is it to install?

Pitco fryers are set up for ease of installation and operation.

Explain why a foodservice operator should choose this machine?

Pitco fryers are heated by tubes, this means the heat source is directly in the oil with a large surface area coverage. They provide the fastest heat up and more importantly temperature recovery during peak periods to ensure maximum output.

This means your customers get served faster.

Contact: Spyral

Continued on page 30 hospitalitymagazine.com.au

management

Digital path to efficiency Want to work smarter in your business? Ken Burgin has some handy digital tools to boost your efficiency.

ALL OF us need to manage time and information more efficiently. There’s so much to do, see, filter, remember and understand. As the river of information keeps washing around us, here are some great free tools I use to make the process easier and keep on top of a busy week. I hope you’ll find them useful too.

Evernote lets you save notes anywhere and access them from your PC, mobile phone or iPad. I use it to keep track of useful websites — one click on the Evernote button in my browser and it’s automatically saved. I also add my calendar spreadsheet, pdf files, and any other files I may want to use later. Searching Evernote is easy — just like Google. You can find a word in the title of an article or anywhere in the text. For example if you save web recipes for a Mango Mousse, they will all come up when you search for ‘mango’. You can even record notes if you’d rather speak your thoughts instead of writing them down – great for two-finger typists. You can also share the notes with others making it a handy resource for the management team.

Dropbox is where I store word documents and spreadsheets to work on with others. Currently we’re preparing our webinar programs for 2012 — two or more people can access the one document through a Dropbox account and keep updating it. Just like Evernote, when it’s uploaded from your PC or smart phone, it’s also available on another PC, iPad. Blackberry or Android. Work with your chef and manager on the new menu, the monthly sales spreadsheet, changes to a function package or anything that needs several good minds.

Need help to write down flashes of inspiration before they disappear? Simplenote is my choice.

When I jot down ideas on my iPhone or iPad, they’re securely available in the browser on any PC. Open a free Simplenote account, write your notes, and they’re available anywhere. At a recent conference, I ditched pen and paper and took my notes using Simplenote on the iPad and I can now access them in the office to copy and paste useful information. I have collected shelves of content from past conferences — great information but such a hassle to find the content when I want it.

Now the information is readily available, being read and put to good use.

Sometimes the last thing you want to do is write: explaining to a designer how you want the menu layout changed, or showing a new staff member how to login and view their online roster. Jing to the rescue — it’s simple screen recording software that lets you ‘video’ an explanation so people can watch and listen. The recording is then hosted online by Jing and you can share a link to your explanation — it’s as easy to watch as YouTube, but with your voice and your content.

I’ve also become a good photo-fixer, without hospitalitymagazine.com.au

‘Don’t just post anything – the secret to building your reputation for great photos is to edit ruthlessly.’

having to get a degree in Photoshop. It’s all done with the online service at Picnik.com. I can use it to do quick edits to photos for a brochure, Facebook Page or my website, without having to use a designer — things like brightening a night shot, cropping the size, or adding text to a picture, even creating a collage by mixing two or three pictures together. And for anything that needs more than a couple of minutes, send the job to Fiverr.com, where you can have simple design jobs done for $5. Your time is worth much more than that.

Speaking of photos, what are you doing with all the happy snaps collected on your hard drive?

There must be hundreds of photos of staff, parties, chefs at work, great food, groovy cocktails and happy customers. Let’s get them out of the computer and working to promote your business. You probably already use Facebook’s gallery, and the free photo site Flickr.com gives more opportunities to share with superb gallery and slide show options. But don’t just post anything — the secret to building your reputation for great photos is to edit ruthlessly. Take twenty photos and select the best five, then brighten them using Picnik.com and crop out ugly bits on the side. Taking good photos is one of the new ‘digital skills’ that modern hospitality professionals need, just like using a spreadsheet and effective Google searching. Practice taking photos without a flash, and focus on interesting details or individuals, not just single shots that include everyone.

Finally, let’s bring everything together on your new iPad — it’s a digital tool that gives you all the tools at your fingertips. Skim through the news using a free app like Zite or FlipBoard, type up your brainwaves using Simplenote, and save a great web page for future reference using Evernote. It won’t take long before people praise your digital wizardry and skills. Enjoy your new reputation.

In 2012 we will be bringing you an exciting opportunity to learn more, while you sit at your own computer. A series of webinars will bring you a step by step process for fast tracking your skills and results in the exciting world of social media.

Watch this column for more details.

Ken Burgin is a leading hospitality industry consultant. To find out more visit profitablehospitality.com or call 1800 001 353 hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

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management/comment

doctorhospitality

Gastropub? Don’t make me sick Let’s ditch the verbosity on menus and keep it simple in 2012,

What software should I use for the nutrition labels on the jams we sell at our café?

Good news. The Australian Food Standards Authority has just updated their free, online 'Nutrition Panel Calculator'.

The website is helpful on how to use the calculator. Enter your recipes and it works out the nutritional composition and formats it for use on a label. If it’s not exactly in the shape or size you need, it’s easy for a designer to change.

Our apprentice is hopeless with money. Can we hold back some of his pay as compulsory savings?

Nice idea, but not legal. Why not show how he can top up his superannuation with the official Government Cocontribution Scheme. This is designed for lower-paid workers and gives them up to $1000 per annum to match similar extra superannuation payments they make.

Schemes like this work best if you promote the idea for all staff, so no-one feels like the ‘problem child’. Work out the figures to show that it’s relatively painless on a weekly basis but will have impressive results.

People ask if they can work for free in our cafe to get industry experience. As an owner I like the idea, but is it legal?

Internships and work experience are meant to be primarily for observation and learning. The focus has to be on a real benefit for the student. If they’re being used for the same production or service as other staff, and the work is mainly for your benefit, this could be classed as ‘employment’. Check the information and examples about ‘internships’ at www.fairwork.gov.au. Be careful.

A big coffee franchise has opened nearby. I feel flattened. How do I get my enthusiasm back?

It’s your mind we need to work on, to keep you positive, energetic and an inspiration to your team. Focus on how you can grow local sales and rise above the competition.

First, become more visible to your local market: create a vibrant and chatty Facebook Page, start a weekly competition for customers, and support local community groups. You’re the smiling face of the business so make sure people know your name and what you stand for.

Second, fanatically promote the quality of your coffee — no-one expects that from a franchise. And finally, you need to improve staff selling skills – are they suggesting second coffees, sweet treats and side orders?

Our manager has covered up for a function organiser who’s made mistakes. What should I do?

Okay, so why is there so much secrecy that you’ve only just discovered this? It’s normal for some things to be kept from the boss, but if the manager is afraid to share issues with you and has allowed it to continue, you have a culture of fear rather than accountability. Staff should understand that it’s cover-ups that are the real sins, not the mistakes that occur every now and then. Mistakes can be worked on, and solving them is good for group development, but secrecy is destructive.

Have a burning question for the good doctor? Send it to him via rosemary.ryan@reedbusiness.com.au

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hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

pleads our columnist Tony Berry in his last missive for the year.

AN eye-catching bit of laudable news found as I trawled through cyberspace is that the Brits, having discovered and embraced the G-spot, have now decided they need it no more. It’s been banished to antiquity, if those who sit in self-styled authority over the foodie world have their way. No more references are to be made to the G-word.

In this case, however, it refers not to matters sexual but to the marketing and purveying of food. Those in charge of the often quite pompous pages of the UK’s top dine-out directory have decided to ban the term “gastropub”.

This awfully bilious word is no longer to be used within the pages of the Good Food Guide, the UK equivalent of our own similarly titled critical directories of capital city dining. According to the guide’s decision makers, gastropub is terminology for a faddish phase that passed its use-by date.

Which is all very well and good. After all, like so many of today’s hastily created words, it is a quite ghastly concoction. It is more suggestive of the results of eating a shonky oyster than anything to do with culinary excellence or convivial dining.

Many former sticky carpet pubs have rushed to rebrand with the gastropub tag without a thought to the less pleasant implications especially in view of Australians’ penchant for abbreviating the language. “Let’s have a bite at the gastro” isn’t a phrases to tempt tastebuds.

But such distortion of the language has long been a quirk of the restaurant trade. Which is why so much that is put before us is described as fusion cuisine when it should be more accurately labelled as confusion cuisine.

Another example from this lexicon of loathsome adjectives is the discovery that we now seem to be in an era of what is often enthusiastically described as “deconstructed” food. Those who come up with such a description may very well know what they are talking about but it’s odds on that it’s gibberish to those who are deciding where next to spend their dine-out dollars. After all, what is deconstructed toast or a deconstructed black forest cake, two descriptions recently encountered in a perusal of much-praised menus? A mound of browned breadcrumbs perhaps, and a collation of preserved fruits astride a slab of baked flour, butter and eggs? Who knows? Who cares? As Gertrude Stein so famously write, “a rose is a rose is a rose”. And similarly toast is toast is toast. End of story.

Equally bizarre is the recurring use of the word “shaved”. So many items now appearing on local restaurant listings have apparently been tonsorally tidied before being placed on our plates. Two examples from the above menu perusal are shaved calamari and radish. Please, please explain how one shaves calamari and why, and for what possible benefit to the customer beyond pretentious presentation. Similarly, are radishes so disgustingly hirsute that they need a visit to the barber before they are fit to cosy up with other salad ingredients?

The list of mystifying appellations goes on and on. And it is to no one’s benefit, least of all the paying customer. Maybe it is a reaction to the smoking ban that chefs are now offering cigars in another guise — a foie gras cigar, as appears on one menu, or a cigar of eggplant as offered on another.

Surely it’s not long before we’re confronted with a shaved and deconstructed aubergine cigar sitting on a bed of sea lettuce (now the fancy name for seaweed or kelp). And it will no doubt be accompanied by the latest trendy item listed simply as chlorophyll, which to most punters’ minds raises thought of toothpaste, dentists and careful flossing after meals.

Of course much of this is done to pander to the followers of fashion, those who put appearance before substance, who are bewitched by fancy phraseology that obscures rather than elucidates. It’s known as gilding the lily and is reminiscent of the populace slavishly praising the emperor’s new clothes. It is food as art, with all its pretentiousness and pseudo meanings, rather than food as an occasion, as sustenance and as one of our greatest pleasures.

Superb ingredients such as those so many chefs boast of using don’t need to be boosted by all this verbose verbiage. Meticulous mingling of flavours and creative culinary constructions need no wordy embellishments. And the rubbity dub needs no noxious tags to let punters know they can have some posh nosh with their VBs and red neds.

Keep it simple guys.

For many years known to Hospitality readers by his nom de plume E S Scoffer, Tony Berry is a former editor of this magazine as well as a travel editor, restaurant reviewer, chef and restaurateur. He's also the world's fourth fastest half-marathoner in his current age group. hospitalitymagazine.com.au

whatsnew

shelfspace 1

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1 Go anywhere glass. On a mission to prove there’s a stylish alternative to drinking from plastic stemware when imbibing outdoors, and just in time for the festive season, the team at Glass No More brings you the Govino range of stemless glassware. Govino stemless glassware range are made from a food safe 100 per cent BPA free polymer that reflects the wine's colour and aromatics much like crystal. They’re available in three styles: red wine glass, white wine/cocktail glass and the champagne flute. They are shatterproof, reusable and recyclable.

Designed into the glass is an ergonomic thumb notch on the side, giving the user a secure and comfortable grip for swirling and drinking wine. The notch also acts as a stem without a stem, preventing heat transfer into the beverage and potential finger smudging on the crystal-clear surface of the glass.

Originally created as a trade tool to help wine salespeople showcase their wines whenever and wherever proper stemware isn't accessible, the range is ideal for other cold beverages as well. See glassnomore.com.au 2 Come fry with me. McCain Foodservice Advantage has launched

hospitalitymagazine.com.au

its handy new Good Fry Guide on DVD as a service to help its customers produce the best fries possible. The guide includes a comprehensive range of advice on how to maximise the appearance, quality and taste of your potato fries — from storage, right through to serving, with valuable tips, hints and advice given along the way. For example, did you know that when you receive your fry delivery you should check them for signs of drop damage? Fries are very sensitive and a case of fries dropped from chest height could result in damage to onethird of the fries, resulting in a loss of one in every 10 portions (depending on your serving sizes). Go to mccainfoodservice.com.au to request your copy.

3 Falafels for you. Family-run Larderfresh’s Falafels are made with 100 per cent fresh ingredients, contain no preservatives or additives, are gluten, wheat, egg and dairy free, 98 per cent fat free and a good source of dietary fibre. Produced fresh daily, Larderfresh Falafels are available in a 4kg heat and eat precooked bag for the hospitality industry. Unlike other falafels in the market place, Larderfresh has recently improved the

recipe by cooking with rice bran oil.

This reduces the fat content (by 4 per cent) and doesn’t produce trans fatty acids and other toxins. The rice bran is a strong antioxidant, and can help lower the levels of LDL cholesterol, and is also rich in Vitamin E. It’s the fast, healthy vegetarian meal/snack alternative. The product also delivers convenience with no defrosting or pre-mixing required ready to be used with dips or as an appetiser, stuffed into a freshly baked pita or flat bread, or maybe layered with crisp garden vegetables and topped with your favourite sauce. See larderfresh.com.au 4 Prawns in demand. As we head into the summer celebration period demand for prawns is skyrocketing and 100 Islands Whole Cooked Vannamei Prawns are here to help meet that demand. 100 Islands Whole Cooked Vannamei Prawns are imported from Thailand, a major producer and exporter of prawns for more than two decades, and marketed in Australia by Marine Product Marketing. Ideal for seafood buffets, in salads, as an appetising entrée or main meal accompaniment, 100 Islands Whole Cooked Prawns feature the finest quality, colour,

texture and taste. The prawns are carefully harvested by hand to ensure they are delivered alive for processing and within an hour of harvest are cooked and processed in accordance with international standards including HACCP, GMP and ISO 9001 2000.

Following cooking, the prawns are cooled according to a modern sanitation process, then shock-frozen at -60C to -70C so they retain their fresh, sweet flavour. Find out more at marineproductmarketing.com 5 Wine on the go. The designers of the new Lupé product call it “wine designed to go where glass can’t”, while offering a great tasting wine in a convenient, 100 per cent recyclable package. It allows wine lovers to take wine to previously inaccessible places creating an entirely new offering for the wine industry. The single serve wines have been carefully selected by the developers the Beattie family of winemakers and include a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Victorian Rosé, Victorian Chardonnay and a Coonawarra Shiraz. The single PET goblets are heat sealed and are being used in various situations from outdoor events to hotel mini bars. For more information head to lupewines.com.au

hospitality | december 2011 - january 2012

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what’son

hospitalitydiary MARCH 2012

al Hall of Industries, Sydney.

Under new owners, there's lots happening at this must see show.

See foodserviceaustralia.com.au

11-13 Fine Food Queensland; Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre; Fine Food Queensland is the largest food industry event in northern Australia for the hospitality industry. See finefoodqueensland.com.au

AUGUST 6-7 Lunch!; Royal Hall of Industries. A new show from the organisers of Fine Food lunch! is aimed at serving the needs of the growing quality lunchtime food-to-go market. See divexhibitions.com.au

APRIL 9-12 Hotelex Shanghai; Shanghai New International Expo Centre Shanghai. Now in its 21st year Hotelex Shanghai continues to grow as one of the leading trade shows in China for the hospitality industry. See hotelex.cn

SEPTEMBER 10–13 Fine Food Australia; Melbourne Convention Centre. Australia’s largest trade event for the hospitality industry is a not to be missed show.

See finefoodaustralia.com.au

MAY 27-29 Foodservice Australia; Roy-

Buyers Guide: Fryers Continued from page 26

LOTUS ITALIAN ELECTRIC PASTRY FRYERS What is it?

A specialty fryer with a large surface area for frying donuts, pastry products and also useful for fish fillets.

Explain the features of the fryer.

It’s a specialty fryer designed for

Chefs compete at Fine Food Australia.

floating pastry items and battered fish where the larger surface area is important for higher production (rather than kilos of yield with items submerged in oil). The many of the machine include a large draining shelf, and a large shallow single basket with two handles. Other features nclude removable discharge for bench top models and removable basin with filter for oil saving on cabinet models.

How energy efficient is the fryer?

What’s the machine’s capacity?

Our standard models are electric so all the energy is in the oil. Gas models available.

There are three models in the range — 17 litre, 24 litre and 31 litre.

How much space does it need?

Simply place on bench, stand or cabinet base, plug in and cook.

They are available in widths of 600mm, 800mm or 1000mm and 700 mm deep.

What kind of foodservice operation are these fryers suited to?

They are ideal for pastry shops and fast food restaurants.

How easy are the fryers to install?

Does it have any special safety features?

Yes very accurate temperature control with high limit override.Safety lock on drain.

Contact: Scotts Ice

P R O D U C T S 30

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