Welcome to Yes, Chef! A monthly newsletter in which food writer Sophie Hansen shines a light on our regional chefs. This week, we meet Victoria's Jo Barrett.
Chef Jo Barrett's bio is as impressive as it is varied. She's won awards (2024 The Age Good Food Guide Chef of the Year), and collects accolades wherever she cooks. She was executive chef at Oakridge Winery's hatted restaurant in the Yarra Valley and then at her own, Little Picket in Lorne. She has represented Australia at the World Championship of Pastry and written a cookbook (Sustain).
But these days, you won't find her in a fine dining kitchen. Instead, you'll have to head up into Victoria's high country and look hard, because she might be in camo, in the mountains or in the kitchen of her new venture Wildpie.
In 2024, when the lease on Little Picket, the restaurant that Jo started at the Lorne Bowling Club on Victoria's Great Ocean Road (which also won a hat in its first year and a following besotted with the rotating menu celebrating regenerative and organic produce) finished, Jo decided to do something different.
Something, she says, "that properly connected me to the food system and actually did good." So she and a team of like-minded food professionals founded Wildpie, a company that focuses on taking the issue of Australian wild game and invasive species and turning them into handcrafted wild pies.
"Our aim," she says, "is to encourage conscious consumers to think about, buy and eat organic and free-ranging proteins that have become a part of a national population management program. Wildpie reduces food waste and takes this problem and turns it into something delicious".
One year into this new venture, Jo says Wildpie is ticking along well. "What we are doing has been really well supported and accepted; perhaps that wouldn't have been the case a few years ago." And when asked if we'll ever see her back in a restaurant kitchen, Jo tells us, "I do miss the buzz of service, and being in a big kitchen. But I'm also loving having more work-life balance, more freedom. But at heart, I'll always be a chef. So, yes, one day I'll be back in the kitchen."
Chef Jo Barrett. Welcome to Galah.
I don't come from a particularly foodie family where a dish was made as a tradition or regular item on the home menu rotation. Both my grandmothers were incredible cooks, and it's the dishes they prepared that instantly give me the feeling of home, warmth and comfort, like being a little kid again.
I can never recreate them perfectly, and I don't make or eat them often, but Mum’s meatballs always take me home. We made them together a few times, and she would serve them with steamed broccoli and potatoes, and on occasion, pasta.
They were pork-based, with onions, garlic and herbs, and I think her secret was a handful of dried rice. She would braise the large meatballs in a tomato sauce, and they would be soft with little pieces of rice poking out the surface that were slightly browned and had absorbed lots of flavour. I can picture it now, and her.
At the moment, making cakes and baking for others is bringing me a lot of joy. It feels like a celebration of the person or people I am baking for – even if it's not for a birthday or occasion that calls for a cake. I worked in bakeries for a long time – Tivoli Road Bakery and Falco in Melbourne, and then in the pastry section in kitchens such as Oakridge.
And I have always cooked at home on my days off. Although there was a stint where baking birthday cakes felt like an obligation, and I'd avoid it whenever possible. When I opened Little Picket, there was so much to do, from planning the weekly menu and picking the vegetables to prep and butchery, that the dessert menu almost felt like a chore too, which was such a shame after spending so many years collecting and honing those skills.
Lately, there has been a change. I have loved reading recipes and cookbooks about baking and the stories behind the recipes. I've loved the ceremony of it all – whisking eggs, creaming butter, folding in flour, kneading dough, stirring chocolate – and taking the time to think about who I'm baking for. My partner, Dave, has even started baking with me, and I recently watched him bake his first recipe of scones. It's nice to have this feeling back.
Chicken broth with orecchiette, kale, heaps of pepper and olive oil. I know it's a bit cliché with the chicken broth. But it's the ultimate soother. The time and process of making broth are gentle and feel very honest.
Those qualities, combined with the nutrients it gives, are often what you need when you're feeling a little fragile. But it’s the added texture of the kale, sliced into small strips (you could use cavolo nero or curly kale) that really does it for me. They have the perfect amount of chew and don't go chalky like spinach can, or slimy like silverbeet tends to.
Orecchiette has the same quality and doesn't just disintegrate, but holds a bit of texture. The olive oil and pepper tie it all together like a big hug. This dish has been a huge pick-me-up on big working weeks, when feeling under the weather and even as a bit of self-care.
I'm currently cooking at Wildpie. It's a big shift from owning and cooking in a restaurant. It brings a whole new set of challenges – recipe development, product innovation, and creative ways to make this incredible meat part of people's weekly menus.
Together, we operate a facility in Beechworth where we process wild-harvested deer. The facility includes a boning room – similar to a butcher shop – where deer are broken down into retail and wholesale cuts, as well as a 'value-you-add' section where we transform those cuts into a range of products: pies, sausage rolls, dim sims, ready-to-heat meals, and bone broths.
We work with a network of professional shooters who ethically harvest wild deer. The animals are transported to an approved processing facility for inspection in line with Australian Game regulations before being cold transported to Beechworth. This gives us full traceability across the entire production chain – something we're incredibly proud of.
The mission behind this project is to turn an environmental challenge into an opportunity. Invasive deer populations in Australia are culled through costly government programs, and too often, the carcasses are left to waste. We see this as a missed chance to utilise a wild, nutrient-dense, lean protein source. By creating products that make venison approachable and easy to incorporate into everyday meals, we're helping reduce food waste, promote sustainable eating, and protect our natural habitats.
Beechworth is stunningly beautiful with tree-lined streets and mountains. The town is known for its well-preserved gold rush-era architecture, with stone buildings and wide verandahs that give the main street a strong sense of character.
It's very different to anywhere I have lived before, especially after living on the Great Ocean Road. The natural beauty around Beechworth is what I enjoy the most. There are lots of hiking tracks, mountain bike trails, hunting spots, really good fly-fishing rivers, and so many birds. The town has a population of 3,000, which is neither too big nor too small.
No surprise, but I am really excited about venison at the moment! I was a vegetarian as a teenager, and if I weren't a chef, I could easily live on vegetables only, so I am surprising myself by saying venison. It's a wild food and there is something very special in having access to a protein like this that is ethically harvested, antibiotic-free, high protein, nutrient dense and lean AND is solving a problem by eating it.
I'm enjoying finding ways to prepare each cut for the best result. It's leaner than beef or lamb, so it requires a little different treatment. However, you can achieve very similar results. I stick to the hot-and-fast rule with a long rest for steak cuts or the low-and-slow rule for braising cuts.
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Royksopp, Tears for Fears, The War on Drugs OR Red Clay Strays.
Hot sauce and Kewpie.
My knives. Solidteknics pans, YETI coffee cup and a whisk I got in Tasmania from Miss Arthur, it's incredible.
Campari and soda.
Banana and blueberry smoothie, avo on toast and 100 lattes (lattes are my Achilles heel).
Ingredients
For the tomato and caraway yoghurt
Method
Serve venison with the tomato and caraway yoghurt and mixed garden leaves.
If you’d like to experience Jo’s cooking in one of the most unforgettable and beautiful ways possible, she is collaborating with a bunch of good eggs to put together a three-day experience at Flinders Island (5 -8 December), which you can bid for until Thursday 26 September, and it’s all part of a fundraiser for a friend in need.
See you all next month for the October instalment of Yes, Chef! And as always, if you know of a regional chef we should profile here, please let us know.
Sophie x
