Flair For Fine Food

Peter Gilmore loves nothing more than messing around in his vegie garden at home.

- Alan Deans

Right now, one of Australia’s most celebrated chefs is experimenting with cucumbers. “This season I am growing five different types of cucumbers. Little ones, crisp cucumbers, different types of Japanese cucumbers to see what has the best flavour when cooked,” he explains. “Last season I got my farmers to grow six or seven types of winter squash pumpkins, also to see what is the ultimate flavour from the best heirloom pumpkin that I could find. There is always something new to discover.”

So-called garden to plate restaurants, which grow and harvest their own vegetables or fruit to serve to their foodie customers, have been around for a while. Gilmore doesn’t have the luxury of restaurant gardens at the two Sydney restaurants he heads up, Quay and Bennelong, because they rest on either side of busy Circular Quay.

“The biggest change in my career came about 10 or 11 years ago when I moved into a house with a backyard and I planted a garden. I started with herbs and simple vegetables. The whole idea of growing things deepened my knowledge about produce. Ten years ago you couldn’t buy a purple-coloured carrot. Carrots were orange, that’s the way it was. I started to realise that not only were there purple carrots but there were white carrots and yellow carrots and red carrots and beautiful pink turnips and incredible greens.

“By growing them myself, and then asking my farmers, who I was starting to build a relationship with, to grow them for my restaurant, my palate was boosted by different produce. Other chefs started to ask the same thing from their suppliers. Then more farmers started growing them and, before you know it, the diversity occurred. I feel that I was a catalyst for that change.”