Byron Bay
The skies, the beaches, the scenery, the lifestyle ... and now you can add oh, the food, to Byron’s list of charms
If you ever feel like a cuppa while travelling along Australia’s shoreline, pick a few coastal tea tree leaves. When eaten on their own the tannins may leave a dry taste in your mouth, but as Captain Cook discovered back in the day, that’s why it makes an excellent tea substitute.
Sea purslane is a crunchy, salty and juicy succulent with bite; it contains capsaicin, the same compound responsible for chilli’s heat. The base of lomandra plants is akin to asparagus so chew away, but you want to stay away from purple tops — the plant with the pretty purple flowers can melt your liver.
It’s just some of the advice Peter Hardwick imparts as we forage along Byron Bay’s coastline; picking, crushing, smelling and chewing on samphire, sea blite and blue lilly pilly leaves. “It’s a market garden of wild foods,” he says. The 58-year-old forager and researcher has been studying, cultivating and foraging wild foods for the last 40 years and is now picking them for local restaurant Harvest in Newrybar, which runs an experimental Wild Harvest menu on Wednesday nights.
The four-course, $70 menu changes depending on the bounty Peter brings in, but can include dishes like tempura wild greens with pandanus ailoi, flame tail snapper with kelp oil and aniseed myrtle, kangaroo loin with Davidson plum, fermented grains and cranberry hibiscus, and feral guava with coastal tea tree sorbet.
Harvest’s general manager, Moira Waterfall, says the evenings started in June. Initially, there was some resistance, but people now travel specifically for it. “It was a bit confronting at first, because people hadn’t had these ingredients before. But as more people came to try it, it took off,” she says.
Byron Bay has always been a popular holiday destination, but it’s undergoing a dining renaissance. And the foodies are flocking. The inaugural Byron Bay Fine Food & Beverage Festival is on Saturday, June 3 at Elements of Byron and will feature local and interstate chefs showcasing the area’s dining credentials. On the Friday night, the Mixed Dozen gala dinner sees a stellar line up of 12 chefs including Darren Robertson of Three Blue Ducks, Sean Connelly of Balcony Bar and Oyster Co, Ben Devlin of Paper Daisy, Neil Perry and more present a 12-course degustation dinner, plus there will also be cooking masterclasses.
Devlin will be cooking grilled prawns with green rice flakes, chilli and ginger pickle salad, one of the dishes on his menu. Paper Daisy, the restaurant located in nearby Cabarita’s Halcyon House, has only been open two years but has already become one of the Tweed Coast’s culinary attractions.
He’s also using native ingredients in dishes such as coal-roasted fish with finger lime and watercress, caramelised pork neck with pear, kohlrabi and anise myrtle, and grilled baby corn with blueberries, lilly pilly and dulse.
He describes his cuisine as “contemporary coastal” and found himself drawn to using ingredients he was surrounded by.
“When you come down here (from Brisbane) you are exposed to new things and you gravitate towards those that are a good representation of this area,” he says.
“Paper Daisy is a celebration of the area, its ingredients and our community.”
Sarah Swan used to be Neil Perry’s number two, but opened 100 Mile Table in the back of Byron’s industrial estate three years ago. The café serves breakfast and lunch five days a week and does pop-up dinners with a communal menu and BYO. At the recent Smoke and Fire dinner, guests feasted on smoked ham hock terrine, whole lamb basted with rosemary and salt water cooked over coals for six hours, and smoked lavender crème caramel with grilled plumbs.
She believes Byron is hitting its culinary stride. “Byron is just really starting to zoom,” she says. “Since we opened here we can really see that it’s gone up to a different level. People are looking for a sea change and bringing great talent with them; just look at Paper Daisy, Fleet and Three Blue Ducks. You have city-quality restaurants but on a smaller scale. We’re still missing stuff like yum cha, but slowly, the gaps are getting filled.” BYRON’S BOUNTY Husk Distillers Best known for its Ink Gin, a dry gin with a dark blue hue thanks to the inclusion of butterfly pea flower, keep an eye out for the agricole rum. Made from cane juice grown on the property, with no other additives, it’s double-barrel aged a minimum of four years and is about as far from Bundy as you can get. The white, pure cane rum is the unaged version. huskdistillers.com Salumi Australia Yes, they do a fine cacciatore and nduja, but the real prize here is bottarga. They supply this Sardinian delicacy, a cured caviar, to Tetsuya’s, Pilu at Freshwater and the Merivale group. Fresh mullet is sourced from Tweed Heads, the egg sacks are removed, cured in sea salt and dried. The amber product is like a sea truffle. Use it as a flavour or seasoning by shaving it over pasta, pizza or dip for a salty taste of the sea. salumi.com.au/portfolio/bottarga Nimbin Valley Dairy The cheeses here are made from milk supplied by the 75 cows and 200 goats on the property. The signature cheese is a Wollumbin, a white mould cheese similar to the French Vacherin. The French wrap it in birch bark; these guys use Bangalow palm frond. It’s best warmed in the oven and eaten like a fondue. nimbinvalley.com.au Nimbin Valley Pecans and Rice Forget rice paddies; here they use the dry land method so they’re not flooding and irrigating the land. Crops are still small, which means the product you see on shelf or at the markets is less than a year old. Brown rice, when old, can be chewy but this stuff is nuttier than what you’re used to, has body, texture and is nice and fluffy. byronfarmersmarket.com.au/farmers/ view/7 Sustainable Food Farm Rebecca Barnes is an Aboriginal woman growing native Australian ingredients including Davidson plumbs, finger limes, indigenous raspberries, bush tomato and aniseed myrtle on her five hectare farm. She supplies chefs and restaurants, and also makes her own products ranging from finger lime cordial to rosella fruit jelly and rainforest mint vinegar. sustainablefoodfarm.biz Cape Byron Distillery The family behind macadamia producers Brook Farm opened the distillery late last year. Overlooking rows of macadamia trees and a short walk to the forest, it produces a dry gin using 26 botanicals, many of them native. At the festival, they’ll launch their version of a sloe gin, using Davidson plums instead of sloe berries. It’s sweeter that the dry gin, so forget the tonic and sip it over ice for the full flavour. capebyrondistillery.com