HAPPY RETURN

Top chef Mitch Orr reunites with the flavours he loves, this time back at Pilu at Freshwater, and bottling the famous sauces from his Acme days.

MITCH ORR – one of Sydney’s great pasta chefs – doesn’t cook at home. “It’s true, I love being a customer at a restaurant. If I’m working six nights a week, then I will spend my one night off at a restaurant enjoying the creativity of my friends and other chefs in the city.”

Orr is back in the kitchen at Pilu at Freshwater (pictured above) following a 12-year hiatus, while also working on a range of jacked-up jar sauces called Made by Mitch. “I wanted to take what everyone loved at Acme, and turn it into something they could recreate at home.”

The new range includes two of Acme’s most iconic pasta sauces

– the shiitake XO, and black garlic and burnt chilli – and a macaroni-and-pig’shead pasta pack. “It’s been a while, but people still miss them and want to eat them, and this lets me do most of the work for them at home.”

Orr’s fans are already putting in their requests, with the kale and pecorino pesto next on the list. “I’m not rushing things, it’s important for me that the quality is there.”

While he will continue to develop the range, it will always come second to his work as a chef. “I think it’s really important that restaurants come back, and we are going out and supporting the hospitality sector – it’s a key part of the Australian lifestyle and the focus needs to be there,” he says.

“Personally, I love being back in the kitchen, I love being in a busy service, it’s just pure adrenaline – but I also want to have those products for people to enjoy at home in a different way.”