On the Pass

JED GERRARD, HEARTH, PERTH

At Hearth, you’re using native ingredients that aren’t regularly seen on menus, such as youlk.

Can you tell us more? Youlk is a small native root vegetable from the Ravensthorpe area of the Great Southern region. It has a crisp, juicy taste similar to a radish. What about your boab tubers?

They’re from the Cockburn Ranges in East Kimberley, where they are wild-harvested by a lovely lady and taken back to her garden in Kununurra to be cultivated. The boab tuber grows like a carrot and has a texture like a water chestnut. What’s another interesting

ingredient you work with? Our Mottainai lamb from Lancelin is fed on carrot and olive waste, the by-product of the neighbouring carrot farm and olive grove. Fire is a big part of Hearth. How

does it inspire the menu? We are currently glazing Western Australian dhufish with macadamia miso and cooking it directly over coals; covering white onions with a hot ash at the end of the night – we peel

the skin in the morning and serve it with Berkshire pork; and we smoke rainbow trout from the Southern Forest region over meadow hay and serve it with sorrel cream. What are some sustainable

approaches you take at Hearth? All our produce comes from Western Australia, so it cuts down on our carbon footprint. We only source line-caught fish. We grill all our vegetable scraps on the hearth and make a vegetable jus to dress our potato purée. And we smoke all fish frames over the hearth and make a stock for our fish sauce. Is there a chef that inspires you?

Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York. He runs the wastED community of chefs, producers and suppliers working together to re-conceive waste and hosts pop-up dinners utilising all waste. He’s also focused on supporting and improving endangered vegetable seeds. Hearth, The Ritz-Carlton

Perth, 1 Barrack St, Perth,

WA, hearthrestaurant.com.au