OmnivoreSydney
How good was Omnivore Sydney - from 2 - 5 October at the Maritime Museum?
If you went you'll know - and you'll be back.
If you didn't then you should have. You missed something quite spectacular.
The worldwide festival of "La jeune cuisine" - young chefs, new ideas. They brought together some of the most talented rising young chefs in Sydney with some amazing guest chefs from overseas as well. They each set out to showcase and share their skills in a series of Masterclasses.
They made it look easy too - and thoroughly inspired their audiences.
The whole day was superbly hosted by the dynamic and entertaining Simon Thomsen who is so well known in food circles.
She made an amazing hock, tail, ear, head and blood terrine - all the less popular and unfashionable porky bits.
OMG - we got to try this and it was simply amazing! It's a skill to get the layers so even but we now keen to give this a go ourselves some time.
His impressive repertoire includes studying at The Fat Duck in Bray under Heston Blumenthal and we heard stories about this experience.
Josh, an exponent of fin to tail cooking, made a lovely dish from whole yellow fin tuna with radicchio and crisp bulgur "crackling".
Then Gita Seaton took the stage - or the kitchen stage! Gita is best known as the talent behind Nouveau Palais in Montreal.She made hush puppies - a type of corn donut or fritter - which is a classic southern dish.
She served them with a spicy home made ketchup. She then prepared a delicate sake cured kingfish served with kaffir lime on a celery and lime leaf soup.
We then heard from the lively Patrick Friesen from Papi Chulo in Manly in Sydney's north.Hearing his background and journey was just as entertaining as watching him create. He has a great sense of humour as well!
He made a beautiful dish of lightly fried calamari strips with crispy bacon pieces on a bed of dill sauce with scattered crisp potatoes and microherb garnish.
Then Paul Farag of Four in Hand in Paddington Sydney engrossingly educated us all on how to fillet a yellow belly flounder and how to use it all to minimise wastage. This was another beautiful dish that was served with a delicate sorrel and apple emulsion.
The finale for the day - and in fact the two days of Masterclasses - was Nathan Sasi from Nomad in Surry Hills Sydney. He was charming and entertaining as he made mortadella from scratch - we saw it all from go to whoa! He showcased skills from bygone days with flair!Again it looked easy - or easyish - and tasted amazing as he kindly took around a tray of this delicious sliced meat. We both agreed though that we'd prefer to just go to Nomad and eat it there!
Omnivore Sydney was so good. Apart from the great Masterclasses we experienced we also had mountains of great food from Coup De Pates which included pastries, macarons, petit fours, cakes and other tasty treats which just kept being replenished. The water from both Badoit and Evian was also continuous! Talk about being spoiled. We can't wait for Omnivore to come back to Sydney next year!
