Barndiva Down Under

The night before we leave Australia I get jammed up in a dream. I’m in a small plane flying low to the water, face pressed against a small oval window. All I can see are receding tracks of sunlight lit like diamonds in our wake, as if they are being dropped from the hold. The plane isn’t one we’ve taken on the trip that’s just about to end, though it’s similar to the prop we flew from Auckland to Napier which landed on tarmac edged with wild grass just after dawn, breaking through warm summer rain clouds to reveal a landscape that was achingly beautiful, primeval. My dream plane doesn’t touch down and there is no land is sight. I wake up in a dark hotel room in Sydney trying to make sense of a journey that I realize has already begun its inexorable fade into anecdote and history.

Travel is heightened life, a high without drugs (though in our case fueled with a more than sufficient amount of alcohol). The three of us travel much as we live ~ Lukka in command of all the boats, planes and automobiles, me booking the views and cherry picking the restaurants, Daniel plunging off the road to forage plants and flowers, name birds. Except for Singapore (a conundrum of a city) everything we chanced upon in Fremantle, Margaret River, Rottnest Island, Hawkes Bay, Waiheke Island and finally Sydney ~ the people, the landscape, even the notoriously fickle weather ~ opened its arms to us.

As it turned out, because we were chasing summer, we ended up in regions built around food, wine and farming, some caught up in a busy wedding season, all hammered by tourists. Without consciously planning it we’d traveled around the world to drop into communities much like our own. Except they weren’t. While we could discerningly judge the varietals, deconstruct the meals, wheedle our way into kitchens by proffering a parallel connection to craft, we were strangers in a strange land.

There are over 700 varieties of Eucalyptus in Australia, wherever we traveled the air seemed scented with them. "Exotic" flowers like protea, melaleuca, grevillea grow wild, gorgeously colored parrots don't just congregate in the forests but come out at dusk in ordinary neighborhoods, filling the trees.  Stories of shark attacks, while only rarely true, keep the white sand beaches crowded but the sparkling sapphire sea relatively empty of swimmers. Nothing stops surfers. Nothing to stop you, if you decide to just throw caution to the wind, a big beautiful ocean awaits. Kangaroos are curious but shy; snakes, a constant worry, are almost always venomous. The answer we received (more than once) when asked what the protocol was if we got bitten was "just lay back and enjoy your last few minutes." Sage advice? Sarcasm? From the little I gleaned into Aussie nature, a combination of both.

On the North Island of New Zealand there is less that can kill you and the landscape is even more compelling; an ancient terrain suffused with an indelible English gentility, a new world sense of humor. Here, small telling details resonate. In the Hawkes Bay appellation a curtain wall of closely planted trees and vines become towering roadside hedges. Great dining happens at lunch (as it did in Margaret Riverl)  where you dine only a few feet from what you're drinking (and often, what you're eating). Wine tasting is done before you are seated, so in effect you get to play your own sommelier. Every winery has a billboard at its entry that forces you to ask the question, “who is the skipper?”

In both countries you don’t need to inquire where the lamb or beef or fish comes from. Local sourcing isn’t a sales pitch, it’s a way of life. And remarkably, during our entire stay in rural areas in Australia and New Zealand, not one service professional we came across launched into a rote presentation about the wine or food or ‘their’ way of life. The Aussies are in general a bit more up front, the Kiwis more laid back, but both seem innately comfortable in their bones. It reflects in the conversations you share and ultimately what you take away. It’s hard to stay fresh when you work in hospitality, what is genuine the first dozen times you say it can’t help but get stale. Part of the game we seemed to be playing with all our interactions was shifting that paradigm. It was fun.

A small epiphany came while driving through the countryside in Hawkes Bay. Gorgeous vineyards, many sheathed in pale netting, followed the contours of gently rolling hills, but grapes weren’t the first thing you noticed. Pastured animals, olive groves, apple orchards, vegetable, fruit and flower farms ~ all were as prevalent as vineyards. Make no mistake, these are world famous wine communities justly proud of what they produce. To a great extent wine drives vital parts of the economy, yet it seems to do so without permeating everything else. It struck me that perhaps, in the grand impulse to turn everything good we invent, grow, or stumble upon into a successful business model, Americans lose the plot of why we came to loving or needing a thing in the first place. We lose the balance. If we’ve relearned anything these past few years it’s the reminder that Nature is all about balance, human and otherwise.

This conversation about diversity is an important one for us to be having in Sonoma County right now, especially in Healdsburg as we figure out how to manage our incredible appeal as a travel destination while deftly trying to balance the quality of life issues which made us want to live here in the first place. Investing in a sustainable future that encourages diversity isn’t just a way to celebrate the past, but to take it with us as we invariably change and grow. Talk is good, but let's keep it interesting (and yes, listening is even better.) It’s great to be home.

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Fremantle ~ Perth ~ Rottnest Island

In Fremantle we stayed with my great friend (thankfully still crazy after all these years) artist and children's book illustratorFrané Lessac and her husband, the writer, historian and gemologist Mark Greenwood, so we have no hotel recommendations to pass on though I’m sure they abound as it’s a terrific town. Mark spent childhood summers on Rottnest, which is how Frané came to fall in love with it, and boy am I glad we didn’t just go for the day. The island was discovered in the Stone Age by Noongar Aboriginals who named it Wadjemup, "the place across the water.” It had a sad history for centuries, first used by the Dutch as an Aboriginal prison, then a reform school for bad boys, and finally as an internment camp during WW2. But it’s a story with a happy ending after the Australian Government took it over at the turn of the 20th century ~ since then three generations of families have spent summers there. The accommodations are marginally rehabed reform school cabins, but while they are as far from lux as you get, who cares? There are no cars allowed on Rotto, you just tootle around on bikes until you find a small white sand beach to your liking. Surrounded by miles of ocean with only the wind and bird cries to fill your brain, time spent is like taking a Spartan cure. The spell of Wadjemup is especially magical at dusk when the Quokkas come out to play, and late at night when you don’t need a telescope to chart the stars. Cabins are booked first come first served (we lucked out with the lighthouse keepers) but most have functioning kitchens and a place to BBQ. (oh yee- it’s Australia after all.)The Best Meal we had in Fremantle (not counting Chez Lessac-Greenwood) was at Bread in Common. Everything about this laid back kitchen/bakery was wonderful, especially the lamb ribs with chili, mint and black garlic ~ high praise in a country that is rightly known for all things lamb. The Best Meal we ate in Perth was at Print Hall. It's located in the heritage listed Old Newspaper House on St. George Terrace, but the menu is anything but old-fashioned. Under executive chef Shane Watson there is considerable talent in the kitchen here. The Blue Manna crab with curried egg and Avruga caviar was a standout, as was a wood fire grilled Cape Grim beef sirloin with faro, shimeji and smoked onion. Service was Grand Guignol, but the food was remarkable. Definitely worth a visit (which sadly, Nobu was not ~ a soulless meal, served by a joyless staff. Didn’t help that it’s located in a casino). There is a long list of great microbreweries Down Under, but few have the definitive range of Little Creatures where we did a fantastic beer tasting.

Frané Lessac Rottnest IslandBread in CommonPrint HallLittle Creatures

Margaret River NSW

Great hotels in Margaret River are tres cher (the best are over a grand a night) so we checked out Australia’s answer to Airbnb, called Stayz, and found an amazing property called Ooi House that was everything we wanted and more. Modern in the best sense of the word ~ think IM Pei Glass House meets rammed earth and you’re there. Very cool kitchen, DVD library in a sunken viewing room with a fireplace, three bedrooms, and best of all, deep decks overlooking the property which was only a few minutes walk to the river through eucalyptus woods filled with Galah parrots and a mob of kangaroos (and their joeys!)

Lunches were long affairs, each one phenomenal. Shout out to the folks at Voyager Estate who carried Frané’s books in their shop and were kind enough to share roses from their gardens with Daniel, who did the knock out arrangements for a cocktail party we threw at Ooi to celebrate the publication of Frané and Mark's new children’s book, Midnight.  Vasse Felix ~ the food and the wine ~ was also a standout.

StayzVoyager EstateVasse FelixLeeuwin Estate

Hawkes Bay, New Zealand

In a serendipitous move I still can’t explain I had rearranged our entire trip around a stay at Black Barn Vineyards; it turned out to be one of the highlights. Black Barn is thoughtful diversification personified. The property grows and produces its own wine, is the location for Hawkes Bay’s seasonal farmer's market, boasts a stunning outdoor amphitheater for live music and film, AND has a stand alone art gallery that specializes in NZ artists. Last, but certainly not least, it supports a brilliant restaurant and tasting room.

We stayed in Black Barn’s namesake cottage smack dab in the middle of vineyards heavy with grapes as it was getting on for late summer. On one side of our cottage sheep wandered through olive groves, on the other the biodynamic skin company Weleda grazes long horn bulls.

Four partners own Black Barn, but the man responsible for the exquisite design of the buildings and the remarkable landscaping is one Andy Coltart. In true NZ style, once he learned of our interest in all things related to food and design he invited us on a hike down to the Tuki Tuki river, followed by dinner with his lovely wife Susan at their home. We enjoyed the time spent with him immensely, not least because of a long conversation we had about how to encourage selective development. Turns out Hawkes Bay is grappling with some of the same issues "popularity" has brought to Sonoma County and Coltart, who loves to build things, is looking for the sweet spot. FYI: Black Barn has gorgeous places to rent across the north island.

Blackbarn Vineyards

Waiheke Island

On the last leg of our journey we took a car ferry from Auckland to Waiheke Island, landing on the busiest weekend of their summer. It's a small island but incredibly, there were five weddings in play at the larger wineries. The kind folks at Lavender Hill took pity on us and rented us a small room in the manager's cottage, which happily commanded one of the most exquisite views of the trip (it was hard to beat Rottnest). Then again, every view on Waiheke is commanding. If the cicadas don't drive you crazy and you can find a property with a well (water is a problem) you could retire here or do a winter for summer exchange if island life is your thing. Thanks to an accommodating waitress at Batch Winery where we did a tasting and enjoyed (incongruously) high tea, we finagled a table at Oyster Inn, the hottest dinner reservation in town. As it turned out, we never got to the table because sitting at the bar was so much fun. The lovely Tamarah, a native, filled us in on all things Waiheke as she and her crew rocked it, knocking off cocktail after cocktail. Tipsy wedding guests wandered in from various parts of the island and were gently sent on their way, the dress code went from formal to board shorts and flip flops, the crowd at the door never let up. We had quite a few Dealer's Choice cocktails, then a bottle of white to wash down incredibly delicious local oysters, whole grilled flounder, and a kick ass Lemon Tart which, if memory serves me, Daniel and I fought over. A great night.

Lavender HillNikau Luxury ApartmentsThe Oyster InnBatch Winery

Sydney

I first stayed at Establishment Hotel years ago and it’s an even better choice now that the hottest Chinese Restaurant in town, Mr. Wong, has taken up residence right next door. Located down a difficult to find mews street (ok, alley) in the heart of the Market St. business district, Establishment is spare and moody, with dark wood beams and distressed floors. The bathrooms are big and most of them have tubs, which is becoming a rarity. Mr. Wong does not take reservations but if you are staying at Establishment they will call over and snag you a table. Though dinner was delicious, hands down the best meal we had in Sydney was (again) at lunch, at Kitchen by Mike, which takes up part of the industrial hanger-like space Koskela expanded into with its move from Surry Hills. Koskela is a collection of arts, crafts and furniture from all over New Zealand. Kitchen by Mike is a take off on an English worker's canteen, though Mike McEnearney, former executive chef at Rockpool, is as far from a cafeteria chef as it’s possible to be. The sourcing was impeccable, the dishes inventive, bread and coffee (which they also sell along with a range of condiments) the best we had on the trip. Mike once worked for the Conran group in London, which may explain how easily the design and food concept live together here. How did we find Kitchen by Mike at Koskela? We asked a lovely saleswoman who was selling me a sweater in The Standard Store in Surry Hills. She ‘looked’ like she’d know. She did. Seek and you shall find!

You can book Establishment Hotel on their website, but I used Tablet Hotels because that’s where I first found it. It’s not fair to find hotels on ‘good’ travel sites (and Tablet is one of the best) and not use them to book!

Establishment HotelKitchen by Mike - KoskelaTablet Hotels

All text Jil Hales. Photos © Jil Hales

Charlie Palmer's Pigs & Pinot ~ A Healdsburg Favorite

OK, so Dish of the Week was actually Bite of the Week ~ a Proustian breakfast moment Chef served to 300 Friday night at Pigs & Pinot, Charlie Palmer’s sold-out signature food event that takes over Healdsburg in mid-March. For those of you who grew up in the age of Top Chef ad infinitum and innumerable  foodzines and foodblogs, it may be hard to believe that once upon a time the cult of the celebrity chef didn’t exist. Charlie Palmer didn’t invent the concept, but he was one of the first American chefs to draw crowds to his restaurant Aureole in NYC by sheer virtue of his talent alone.  Back then (no, I wasn't going to say "in the good old days”) reputations could only be built by reviews and word of mouth. Palmer generated a great deal of both. In the years since he has built a mini-empire of restaurants and hotels that rivals Nobu’s in size if not influence. What Nobu is to black cod (basically on the back of one recipe), Charlie is to pork (significantly, the entire animal).

I like Pigs & Pinot. It supports a number of worthy charities while functioning as it was primarily intended ~ a two day publicity venture for Palmer and Co. What I like best about it is the classy way it goes about making the connection between food and wine while strengthening a good swath of the local economy. Even as he burnishes his own brand, Palmer manages to advance a quality driven definition of the word sustainable in an age where even the best restaurants are struggling with the temptation to fudge standards in order to survive. Any week of the year around here you can throw a stick and hit a food or wine event; few of them put the whole animal in focus to the extent Pigs & Pinot does. This is a message not lost on the 500 ticket holders that flooded the Hotel Healdsburg 1 & 2 this past weekend, with reportedly double that number on a wait list every year.  The remarkable world-class selection of Pinots guests get to taste are the sizzle, but make no mistake, the meat of this event ~ literally and figuratively ~ is the whole hog.

Most of the press Palmer generates focuses on Saturday, when “celebrity” Chefs from all over the country land in Healdsburg to flex their culinary muscle. But if you live here the real fun is watching the local talent go head to head on Friday night. Though every one of these participating local Chefs will tell you it's not a competition, that they are just ‘doing their thing,’ with few exceptions each secretly hopes theirs is the best pork mouthful of the night. And why shouldn’t they?  Our Chefs are a remarkably convivial group, but the fun at these events is upping your game as you coolly hang out in the hood with guys you compete with on a daily basis. The fact that there is an abundance of talent to go with a healthy dose of competition is what makes Healdsburg a dining Mecca. That nobody cops to being competitive is just part of the charm of living in the country.

In this respect Ryan is no exception, except to the extent that his competitive drive comes more from pride, than ego. He always defers when appreciative diners  ask him to come out and meet them, and while he's forthcoming with the press he never goes in search of them either. Quite the contrary.  Yet he’ll cook a dish over and over again to get it spot on, then think about it some more before Pancho and the team are put through their paces so it's served consistently the same way, every time, for each and every diner. As chuffed as he was when he won the Top Chef competition at Taste of Sonoma two years ago, he couldn’t wait to get out of there the minute it was over. I  suspect that when (though no fault of his own) he couldn’t defend his title this year, his worry wasn’t what people would think when he didn’t show so much as missing an opportunity to go head to head again with another talented Sonoma County Chef.

Americans have a funny relationship with what is, culturally, our inherently competitive nature. Because we always seem to equate success with money (or its corollary, fame) we are congenitally guilty of making the mistake that whoever has the most marbles when the bell rings has “won.”  I’d go as far as to say that our obsession with money and fame ~ no matter how many ‘unhappy’ rich and famous people are paraded before us ~ borders on being a national illness. The mistake here, to my mind, isn’t so much that we haven’t learned money and fame can’t engender happiness (which deep down we probably know) it’s overrating the ephemeral entity of happiness in the first place. Between happiness and true satisfaction I'll take satisfaction any day of the week. Happiness is a beautiful vagrant, its perfume a scent in the air, music that lifts your heart, the touch of someone you love. All good, but for it even to exist it needs someone to blend the perfume, write the music, become the person you love. True accomplishment, whether building character or just a better mousetrap, is complex, and while luck can play a role it's not a sustaining ingredient the way a combination of passion and patience is. The satisfaction that comes from accomplishment ~ whether it brings you happiness or not ~ resides in the way something is made,  how long you spend refining an idea, how many times you paint over a figure before its heart ~ of joy or darkness ~ appears.

Until six years ago when I took on my latest career incarnation as “restaurateur,” I managed to fashion my life in such a way that whether I succeeded or failed (and I did a lot of both) it was always on my own terms.  Even as my game changed over the years, from academia to photography and journalism, ultimately to design, I mostly avoided the world’s judgment in a way that allowed me to work on the quality of what I was producing without fear an audience of strangers wouldn’t like it. Many people don’t see a problem basing their success on something that’s been copied or stolen from its original source. Maybe that's why the world is filled with such derivative crap.

But food doesn’t wait for that certain someone who understands your aesthetic to fall in love and take it home. What takes years to learn and untold hours to source and cook is consumed in the span of a few minutes. Wham, Bam, the verdict is in.  In the past if someone did not like what I created I could console myself that it "just wasn’t to their taste”, or take the time to improve it. With food every dish and every meal must suit a diners taste each and every time…. because with food the customer is always right. That Ryan knows this and works at making our food ‘right’ for every customer, yet does so in a way where he is consistently challenging himself, pushing his own creative boundaries, is remarkable to me.

As for who actually produced the best pork inspired dish last Friday, while I did not taste everything (an understatement considering how much incredible food was being offered) Dino Bugica’s (Diavolo) black sausage was about the best I’ve ever eaten. This man’s talent in all things charcuterie is a wonder.  Ari Rosen (Scopa) had the most beautifully roasted whole baby pig which, in his inimitable style, he served simply. Cyrus’ Chinese bun was perfect respite just at the moment I was suffering from serious pork fatigue. I did not taste Charlie’s dish ~ his lines were moving at a snail’s pace ~ but the burnished pork bellies turning on the spit behind him in the central courtyard looked utterly mouth-watering.

It was not until I returned to our station that I fully registered how our contribution was going over. Until that moment I hadn't put Barndiva into the competitive mix I had running in my brain, which made it all the more delightful when I saw the faces on the crowds inundating our station. This was a different set of folks than we’d had during the first hour of the evening, when everyone was moving through the rooms tasting things for the first time. While many had returned hoping for another taste, most were new faces, that all opened with the same heartwarming gambit: “I heard from everyone this was the best thing here tonight.”

Very cool, right? But the most enjoyable moment of the night was still to come. As I stood watching I was approached by a couple from San Francisco who had returned to our station for “the final bite of the night.”  I had never met them before and they had never eaten at Barndiva, though the woman  ~ dark haired, very pretty ~ said she read the journal. They were extremely knowledgeable about food ~ off to Chicago in a few weeks “just to eat ” ~ but it wasn’t their erudition on all things culinary that struck me as the conversation moved swiftly from our favorite SF haunts through greatest meals ever, to a surprisingly honest appraisal of why eating out had come to comprise “some of the best moments” of their lives.  Though they were obviously passionate about food, they weren’t precious about what they ate. While the room and the ambiance of a restaurant mattered, connecting with informed but not overbearing servers mattered a great deal more.   Though they weren’t in the business they had, through their travels, begun to understand how hard good restaurants had to work to get it right, especially when it came to sourcing. They were, in short, critical but sympathetic. Standing there in the beautiful din of Charlie’s world the possibility suddenly occurred to me that along with the age of the celebrity chef we may be entering the age of the enlightened diner, people who see their patronage as team support, as crucial to the game as the crowds in a grandstand. Dining out is a collaborative experience; diners should be honestly invested in its outcome. Because it's true, progressive diners ~ like the best fans ~ are  the first ones to tell you when you make a bad play (or dish) but it's their cheers, when they come, that are the ones you most long to hear.