Neil Varcoe was a tech executive in Sydney until he bought an old hotel in Carcoar, NSW, population 272. Here’s the fifth instalment of his monthly column for Galah.
1.
I never had a petting zoo at my birthday party. My birthday fell in the week after New Year’s Eve – and everyone was partied out. More often than not, Mum and Dad would collect a Peter’s icecream cake and we’d blow out candles by the pool, between sunscreen applications and yankees. It was no-fuss. This suited me well. I hated fuss.
Nearing my 30th year on Earth, Edwina decided to make a fuss.
2.
“What’s your favourite meal?” Edwina asked as the front door flung open. She’d often do this, enter a room mid-way through a conversation with me.
“Mum’s curried sausages,” I said without hesitation. “She'll be able to give you the recipe.”
This Varcoe family staple was the most exotic dish on the menu. Those yellow snags were mild to the point of barely qualifying as a curry. Sometimes they had sultanas in them. The meal was served with mashed potato. Isabella Varcoe’s Famous Curried Sausages were everyone’s favourite. I was excited.
On my birthday, Edwina served curried sausages just like my mother used to make. I was flabbergasted. How did she manage to get this heirloom dish just right? Mum’s recipe came in a packet.
The most sophisticated Varcoe family recipe can be purchased from Coles. I’m not the man to put in charge of a food and beverage program at an upscale boutique hotel.
3.
Tim Leahy is a farmer who doesn’t have a lot of time. This becomes evident in the way he skips the spaces between words: “Gidaymate! Eyemhavinadinnainsidnee – cumalong.”
The Leahy family have been farming near Bathurst in the NSW central tablelands for three generations. The connection to Australian agriculture goes back further.
Tim is also a co-founder and owner of Margra Lamb. This is a regional business built on the back of the Australian White sheep. Aussie Whites were created by the visionary Gilmore family at Tattykeel in Oberon, 40 minutes as the crow flies from the Leahy family farm. Margra has a micro-marbled finish and a low fat melting point. It’s bred for chefs and is globally unique.
Tim was a year behind me at Stannies in Bathurst, and he’s a hard man to turn down. I also considered “food” the primary problem to solve at Saltash, our fledging hotel. I thought that I might find the answer in the room, maybe even hire our chef. I packed a bag for Sydney.
Tim had convened a room of Australia’s best young chefs at Kiln, the rooftop restaurant at Ace Hotel Sydney. Graham and Kirsty Gilmore sat across from me – Graham is the “gra” in Margra. I was wearing a basic white tee, a look made famous by Jeremy Allen White in The Bear. Graham asked me which kitchen I worked in. I explained that I was “less a chef and more a reheater”.
As dish after dish passed under my nose, the room buzzed with a kind of electricity. I’d never been in a room with fine-dining chefs – in fact, I’d never met one. I thought that they’d be earnest, anoraks. They were not. They had “lead singer energy”. I bluffed my way through the meal and left before they hit the pubs and clubs. I had learned what I needed to know: we didn’t need a lead singer, we needed someone to play the bass.
4.
Consistency is at the heart of success, and that’s certainly true of hospitality. Chefs with “lead singer energy” will inevitably chase the new, always searching for the next culinary summit, the buzziest venue. That’s bad for business. A name chef will bring people through the door, but consistency makes them return — and rebuilding your dining room and reputation when they leave you every two years is not a flagstone for consistency. We decided that a menu created by a leading chef but executed by a good cook was the way forward for Saltash dining.
Seated beside me at the dinner was Alex Prichard, head chef at Icebergs Dining Room and Bar on Bondi Beach. Alex is one of Australia’s hottest young chefs. He turned 30 that evening at midnight. Alex is a rock star with bass player energy.
Alex told me stories of selecting fish off the boats to serve in his dining room. He eyed the plate after every bite like he was solving a maths puzzle. I knew that he was the person we needed — but how?
5.
The next morning we sent Alex an email — I had wedding-day level nerves. We asked if he'd consider consulting on our project, laying out the plan for a hotel that felt like home — with food at its heart.
I spent the day refreshing my inbox, and the next. I was mortified. We were too small a player. How bold to ask one of the best chefs in the country to work on our little hotel project in Carcoar. Then, Alex replied:
“Absolutely not too small fry for me. To be honest, these are the projects I love and am passionate about. Regional dining and producers are the two biggest things I try to hero.”
Chef Alex, to clarify, is not leaving Icebergs, but he will design our menu, and help us select the person to build on it. He’ll also be the first to deliver a masterclass in the kitchen he'll design. And on top of that, he’ll connect us with farmers and producers in the surrounding Orange region and advise on what to grow at Saltash.
The guiding principle will be “a menu that does not judge you”. There will be no foams and no reductions. No ingredients you can't say. It will warm the heart and fill the soul. It will be elevated home-style cooking. And you can rest assured that I'll be eating and reheating, and leaving the cooking to the experts.
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RAG status reporting is used in project management to update executives quickly using a traffic light system. “Red” means trouble, “amber” signals bumps in the road, and “green” means everything is going according to plan. If you see green, someone is lying.
Please see the July report below. Feel free to run it up the flag pole and touch base with any questions by the end of play today.
