On a rare day off Bar Rochford chef Louis Couttoupes might be found wandering through a forest for mushrooms, or perhaps he’ll head down the coast and pluck molluscs off rocks, or reach over a neighbour’s fence and gather chestnuts to turn into a chocolate and chestnut cream dessert that sent customers into raptures when it was on the menu.
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Couttoupes admits he’s been too busy of late to get out much - claiming their first hat in the Goodfood Awards recently might have something to do with that, owner Nick Smith said they had a record night last week - but when he can he likes to get his hands on produce even before he’s thinking about what he can do with it to get it to the plate.
“The thing I love most about Canberra is you can literally grow produce yourself 15 minutes from the kitchen and it’s on the plate that night,” Couttoupes says, ruing the fact his personal plot at Pialligo has literally gone to seed given his lack of time; he’s hoping the self-sowing lovage, borage and fennel will find its way to the menu at some point.
It’s this immediacy, this philosophy, that has helped Bar Rochford make it to another guide, Truth, Love and Clean Cutlery: A guide to the truly good restaurants and food experiences of Australia, edited by Jill Dupleix.
“Every place we list serves delicious food. That’s a given,” writes Dupleix in the introduction.
“After that our guiding principle has been the care taken by the people who run the restaurant. Care in sourcing the food and how it is produced; care in dealing with its staff, customers and community; and care for the environment, in terms of energy, waste and water.”
Couttoupes says he hates to use the word holistic, but that’s what the approach is.
“If we can work seasonally, if we can minimise waste, if we can treat produce and people with kindness, we’re on the right track,” he says.
“I’m a bit cynical, I think a lot of people cash in on the fad of it, they use the right words but in practice it’s not what is happening behind the scenes. But it’s something we should all be aiming for.”
He’s a big supporter of local producers, naming Brightside Produce at Captains Flat and Fig Tree Farm at Wee Jasper as “true local heroes”.
Emily Yarra and Michael Kobier at Brightside Produce are doing everything right, says Couttoupes.
“They have one acre … but rather than expand beyond capacity they simply say this is what we can manage and prefer to focus on quality, delivering produce boxes to the public and supplying a handful of restaurants.
“They work really really hard and they grow really tasty stuff.
“They pick on Tuesdays and it's here by 2, 3pm that day and we have it on the menu that night.”
Another thing Couttoupes loves about Canberra is that it forces him to cook seasonally.
“If you go local you need to be genuinely seasonal, that throws up challenges … but it’s what makes it exciting for me,” he says.
He has a man on a neighbouring plot at Pialligo who’s paying more attention to his crop, supplying him with kilograms of asparagus, “but I know that season will be over in a couple of weeks … and I’m thinking about what is coming next.”
But there’s more to it than where a kitchen is sourcing its food from.
Couttoupes talks about some great snapper he’s been getting, how he decided to serve up the tails and heads, as well, and now can’t move the fillets off the menu.
He’s concerned about how people in the industry are treated, starting a discussion about wages, hours, harassment in kitchens that he is keen to continue.
He wants to connect with customers, push their boundaries, open them to new experiences, take them beyond what’s served up on the plate.
“Here, rather than just cooking food that people want to eat, we’re trying to cook food that is produced in a way where people are connecting with it as well.”
Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery: A guide to the truly good restaurants and food experiences of Australia, Edited by Jill Dupleix. Blackwell & Ruth. $34.99.
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