Latest / The Front / How celebrity chef Matt Moran won over the bushies who hated him

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How celebrity chef Matt Moran won over the bushies who hated him · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Friday, March fourteen, twenty twenty five. Power bills will
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  Speaker 1: rise by up to nine percent for households in the
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  Speaker 1: coming year, well over one thousand dollars, despite the Albanese
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  Speaker 1: government's promises to bring bills down. That's kicked off a
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  Speaker 1: pre election wave of finger pointing, with Energy Minister Chris
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  Speaker 1: Bowen blaming old coal fired power stations for being unreliable
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  Speaker 1: and expensive, and Opposition leader Peter Dutton demanding Bowen be sacked.
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  Speaker 1: Australia could ramp up production of critical minerals and sell
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  Speaker 1: them to the United States in return for an exemption
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  Speaker 1: from crushing tariffs. That's a plan put to the Americans
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  Speaker 1: by Ambassador Kevin Rudd. It's an exclusive live now at
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  Speaker 1: The Australian dot com dot AU. Celebrity chef Matt Moran
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  Speaker 1: bought a pub in a tiny New South Wales country town,
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  Speaker 1: a purchase he says, kind of made him the town's mayor,
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  Speaker 1: but there were some seriously hostile locals who took a
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  Speaker 1: lot of convincing. Matt Moran will join me as well
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  Speaker 1: as all the power players in Australia's food industry at
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the Global Food Forum in Melbourne Today, we're looking at
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  Speaker 1: what will be growing and eating by twenty fifty as
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  Speaker 1: the agribusiness sector watches Donald Trump's every move with trepidation.
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  Speaker 1: That's today's episode. About a thirty minute drive south of
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  Speaker 1: Bathurst in the New South Wales Central Tablelands lies the
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  Speaker 1: tiny village of Rockley. It's like a time capsule. Ornate
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth century architecture dots the town and one store even
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  Speaker 1: provides a place to tie up your horse. On the
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  Speaker 1: main drag. There's a post office, a police station, a
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  Speaker 1: couple of churches and a pub. But this isn't just
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  Speaker 1: any country pub in Rockley. There's something special on the menu.
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  Speaker 2: Rockley Pub will reopen its doors under new management. Celebrity
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  Speaker 2: chef and restauranteur Matt Moran is the force behind some
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  Speaker 2: of Australia's most celebrated dining establishments, but his latest venture
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  Speaker 2: is close to home.
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  Speaker 1: Matt, tell me, how did you come to be opening
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  Speaker 1: a tiny pub in a tiny town in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of the New South Wales Central Tablelands.
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  Speaker 3: Look, once you become the public, and there you become
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  Speaker 3: mayor and everything else.
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  Speaker 4: That's quite funny.
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  Speaker 3: Actually, there's a lot of history with that town with
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  Speaker 3: my family which I didn't know. Basically, my great grandfather
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  Speaker 3: ended up there at a farm there for about ninety years,
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  Speaker 3: met my great grandmother in Rockley. Actually got married in
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  Speaker 3: the church behind the pub in eighteen eighty three. Strangely enough,
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  Speaker 3: we moved off the farm long story, ended up in the.
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  Speaker 4: Western suburbs, decided to be a cook.
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  Speaker 3: Dad ended up buying a small little farm when he
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  Speaker 3: got the chance in Traga. We ended up in Rockley again,
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  Speaker 3: a big place. I invested in it. My dad's little
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  Speaker 3: brother did. I ended up buying them out. Over the years,
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  Speaker 3: spending a bit more time in COVID thought to myself,
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  Speaker 3: if I'm going to spend more time at the farm,
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  Speaker 3: will I get bored? Just me kind of help myself.
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  Speaker 3: Wanted to buy the Rockley Pub. Wasn't really for sale,
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  Speaker 3: but I knew that it wasn't doing great, and it's
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  Speaker 3: the heart of the town, and the pub goes in
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  Speaker 3: small towns, the town goes. And it was just a
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  Speaker 3: little purchased in the beginning, I thought, and then ended
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  Speaker 3: up expanding to a couple of blocks around it, and
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  Speaker 3: big plans to transform it and make it a destination,
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  Speaker 3: to keep that pub feel, which I think is really
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  Speaker 3: important for the locals. Love the locals. A lot of
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  Speaker 3: them work there. We employ about sixteen people locally. They
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  Speaker 3: didn't like me when I first got there. Perception is
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  Speaker 3: very different to the real person. And I have a
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  Speaker 3: great relationship with the town and the people, and the
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  Speaker 3: farm's only seven minutes away, which is one of the
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  Speaker 3: things I love in life.
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  Speaker 4: It's my happy place. I think.
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  Speaker 1: Matt Moran isn't just a celebrity. He's one of our
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  Speaker 1: most powerful and influential figures in food. He owns Aria,
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  Speaker 1: Chiswick and chop House in Sydney, River Bar and Kitchen
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  Speaker 1: in Brisbane, Compa in Canberra, and plenty of other fine
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  Speaker 1: dining restaurants. He's also hugely influential throughout the food sector.
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  Speaker 1: He's a farmer himself and a passionate advocate for reducing
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  Speaker 1: waste and growing Australian's knowledge and confidence about food AND's
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  Speaker 1: it coming from. Although you came from there originally in
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  Speaker 1: the most immediate past, you've come from in their perception,
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure the Sydney fine dining scene What did they
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  Speaker 1: think about you? Why didn't they like you?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they just thought that I was this celebrity,
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  Speaker 3: rich guy from Sydney is going to come in and
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  Speaker 3: change their town, and it was very far from it.
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  Speaker 3: I got heckled the first night. A lady turned it
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  Speaker 3: back on me the second night, and he that works
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  Speaker 3: for me. The guy that heckled me, he said to
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  Speaker 3: me six months down and pulled me aside, and I
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  Speaker 3: really love what you've done with the pub. Look, it's
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  Speaker 3: just about being part of that community and obviously having
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  Speaker 3: a lot of ties back there. I've had the farm
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  Speaker 3: there for twenty two years. Not that I'm a local.
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  Speaker 3: I've never said that. Someone in the media wrote that
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  Speaker 3: I was a local and the town didn't like that
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  Speaker 3: because you don't live here, but hey, I didn't write it.
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  Speaker 4: So it's about perception and connecting with them.
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  Speaker 3: And it's a business and it has to perform, but
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  Speaker 3: at the same time, there's a bit of love. As
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  Speaker 3: a business, it's not just about making money in it
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  Speaker 3: and taking advantage of the locals. I want it to
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  Speaker 3: be for the locals, and eventually I will do something
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  Speaker 3: a little bit more with accommodation and make it a
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  Speaker 3: destination and put a proper restaurant in there.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things you've already got on the menu
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  Speaker 1: is the Moran family farm sausage with garlic mash and peas.
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  Speaker 1: And the clientele for this pub food, some of them,
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  Speaker 1: the locals, They actually know how the sausage gets made,
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  Speaker 1: don't they.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, they do.
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  Speaker 1: Does that make a difference to the way they perceive
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  Speaker 1: the food that's being put on the plate in front
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  Speaker 1: of them.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Look, you often get asked that question, why does it
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  Speaker 3: cost that much? And you try to explain the economics
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  Speaker 3: of running a business, But you are right. My farm
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  Speaker 3: manager he makes sausages all the time. There's the odd
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  Speaker 3: rue that they get or they might find a wild
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  Speaker 3: bore and grow up the little one, and that's where
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  Speaker 3: the fat comes from. Only recently he made me a
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  Speaker 3: heap of sausage. I love my farm farm manager. He's
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  Speaker 3: the best man in the world and what he does
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  Speaker 3: for me the farm is incredible.
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  Speaker 4: But he could have a couple of lessons in sausage making.
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  Speaker 4: It's a bit dry, Brandon, Hopefully you.
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  Speaker 3: Won't be listening to this, but here's a go which
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  Speaker 3: is fantastic, which is.
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  Speaker 1: That idea of paddock to plate. It's a very short
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  Speaker 1: journey from the paddock to the plate at a place
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  Speaker 1: like Rockley has that experience of cooking for an audience
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  Speaker 1: who are either living in the bush or they've come
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  Speaker 1: from the city to the bush to eat this food.
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  Speaker 1: Has that changed your perception of what the customers expect
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  Speaker 1: of you and expective their food.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, look, I don't necessarily think I think that I
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  Speaker 3: could say that about all my places because people come
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  Speaker 3: with whether they're farmers or producers or whatever. The producers
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  Speaker 3: to me are the most important people in my world.
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  Speaker 4: Basically. You know, I've always said that I would.
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  Speaker 3: Never be the chef for the restaurant if it wasn't
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  Speaker 3: for that incredible reducer that gives me the product to use.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that goes for every chef in Australia.
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  Speaker 3: We can only thank that the people that we get
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  Speaker 3: the produce off. As for the food at the Rocky
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  Speaker 3: Pub and the perception, you just want to make it
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  Speaker 3: really good, hearty food that is desirable and it's always.
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  Speaker 4: Got to be generous.
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  Speaker 3: You've got to be generous in a country pub, So
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  Speaker 3: the portions might be a little bit bigger, and you've
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  Speaker 3: got to set it up and explain why you do
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  Speaker 3: the things that you do, even when it comes to
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  Speaker 3: beer prices or one prices.
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  Speaker 4: It's very touchy.
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  Speaker 1: Spending the past couple of decades as a farmer yourself
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  Speaker 1: as a primary producer and a supplier, has that changed
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  Speaker 1: the way you've thought about your relationships with those producers
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  Speaker 1: and supplies.
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  Speaker 4: One hundred percent clear.
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  Speaker 3: That is something that it's been in my head since
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  Speaker 3: we moved off the farm when I was very little,
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  Speaker 3: and my family did it tough, they lost farms, and
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  Speaker 3: I remember when we got back into Rockley twenty two
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  Speaker 3: years ago and the buyers would come in and to say,
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  Speaker 3: all right, we'll give you fifty bucks of the lambs
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  Speaker 3: and never covered the cost. And I always said, when
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  Speaker 3: I get control of it, I'm dictating my terms rather
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  Speaker 3: than the other way around.
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  Speaker 4: And I know how hard farmers do it.
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  Speaker 3: And it's very easy to see the market fluctuates so much,
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  Speaker 3: and then you try to budget on you're going to
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  Speaker 3: get fifteen hundred dollars for your weener steers and then
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  Speaker 3: the next year getting seven hundred and fifty in and
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  Speaker 3: the drought comes and you have to sell half your
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  Speaker 3: mob and then all of a sudden it starts raining
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  Speaker 3: and you can't get back into the market. You've got
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  Speaker 3: to breed them back up again, so half your revenue
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  Speaker 3: is gone. The thing is that I'm a good farmer.
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  Speaker 3: Oh I think I'm a good farmer. I'm a good cook,
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  Speaker 3: but I'm very good with numbers and the economics of
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  Speaker 3: that obviously has helped me along the way with restaurants.
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  Speaker 3: But also I understand farmers and I see how tough
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  Speaker 3: that they do it, and I've always been a champion
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  Speaker 3: of them.
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  Speaker 4: Hence thankful farmers.
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  Speaker 3: But also back in the day when I made Paddic
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  Speaker 3: to plate and went around Australia showcasing all these don't
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  Speaker 3: get me wrong, out of bloody great time meeting.
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  Speaker 4: All these producers and then cooking their wares.
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  Speaker 3: But it really was to showcase the Australian farmer and
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  Speaker 3: producer and how hard they do it and how tough
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  Speaker 3: that they do it.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Coming up what Matt Moran makes of fake meat, dairy
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: swaps and food waste. You can see Matt and all
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the food industries movers and shakers online at the Australian
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: dot com dot au all day Friday as we live
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  Speaker 1: stream the Global Food Forum. We'll be back with Matt
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: after the break. Matt, A couple of years ago, everybody
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  Speaker 1: was talking about meat alternatives, fake meat, plant beest meat,
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  Speaker 1: or fake meat as some might call it. He is
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: wildly popular, especially on Wall Street. Sausages, burgers, chicken nuggets
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  Speaker 1: and schnitzels. You may think you know what they're made of,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: but with the rise of fake meat, do you really
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: know what you're eating? We put them to the test.
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  Speaker 6: Australian so tip to spend three billion dollars on plant
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: based meat within a decade. The industry is booming, with
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: a third of the population now making a conscious effort
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  Speaker 6: to reduce their consumption of animal products.
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  Speaker 1: What was your take on it then, and what's happened
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  Speaker 1: to fake meat?
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  Speaker 4: I did a little bit of research.
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  Speaker 3: Strangely enough, one of them actually came to me and
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  Speaker 3: asked me to be an ambassador.
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, do you really know my story?
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  Speaker 3: And when I investigated some of it, and I'm not
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  Speaker 3: saying all of it is this, but when you look
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  Speaker 3: at it and you look at the preservatives and the
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: ingredients that are in it, wow, it's a list as
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  Speaker 3: long as my arm Look, I can understand why people
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  Speaker 3: want it, and people understand and I get it, and
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  Speaker 3: there's probably a spot in the market. As my father
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  Speaker 3: always said, we've got teeth with carnivores, we're chewers. And
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  Speaker 3: it's always stuck in my mind not to say that
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  Speaker 3: anything against anyone that doesn't eat meat is a vegetarian
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: or a vegan. I think back in the day when
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I was a young chef for vegetarian you go and
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: we played broccoli.
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  Speaker 4: That has changed and that's.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Sort of the better, and that's made chefs be a
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: lot more creative and a lot more adventurous when it
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: comes to plant based and in all my restaurants there's
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  Speaker 3: plant based dishes, so it was a challenge to cross
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  Speaker 3: over and start being more creative.
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  Speaker 4: So that definitely is a market there.
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  Speaker 1: One of the other big changes in the way Australians
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: eat over the past really few years is the huge
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: rise in alternatives to dairy so massive armond crops now.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: At last year's Global Food Forum, we heard from a
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: very experienced beekeeper talking about the pressure on beekeepers to
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: actually pollinate those massive now nut crops that we're all
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: eager to consume. How do you see that changing diet
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  Speaker 1: It's changing so fast, influencing the way we were able
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: to actually keep up with demand and create the food
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  Speaker 1: that we're eating.
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  Speaker 3: Obviously that's been driven by dietaries, and dietares never used
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  Speaker 3: to be a thing for thirty years ago on restaurants.
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  Speaker 3: Now it's the biggest thing, and it is rapidly changing.
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  Speaker 3: And it obviously showcases how important the bloody bees are.
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  Speaker 3: We need bees otherwise when we're going to starve to death.
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  Speaker 3: And I got to be kind to the bee. I'm
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: at aphlactic, actually, but I still want to get bees
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  Speaker 3: at the farm, and thick saying you're freaking mad, I'm no,
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  Speaker 3: I'll put them up in the trees.
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  Speaker 4: But I just want bees.
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  Speaker 3: And dietaries are changing, and but that's just the way
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: of the world, and you can understand it. And you know,
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  Speaker 3: if someone's got a dietary issue with dairy, you've got
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: a heat to it. Otherwise someone else will do it
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  Speaker 3: and you won't have the customer, you won't have the audience.
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  Speaker 1: As a producer, a primary producer, do you see it
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  Speaker 1: as a long game that those trends will come and go,
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  Speaker 1: but ultimately we'll still in fifty years be drinking milk
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  Speaker 1: and we'll still have dairy herds and we'll still have
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  Speaker 1: beef cattle herds.
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  Speaker 4: Well.
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  Speaker 3: The rate that we're going with the dairy farms from
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  Speaker 3: twenty five thousand and forty years ago to I think
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  Speaker 3: it's a bit over five thousand dairy farms now. Obviously
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  Speaker 3: a lot on the coast, and real estate's very expensive.
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  Speaker 3: Hopefully we'll still be producing a lot of dairy in
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  Speaker 3: the future and not buying it from someone else. There's
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: always going to be a market food beef cut or sheep, pigs,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: chickens or whatever else. There always will be, and I
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: think that probably the prices fluctuating don't help. It's something
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  Speaker 3: that is in my blood and always will be and
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: I love that part of it, and I think there's
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: always going to be a market. I think what we'll
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: probably see not that I've got a crystal ball, but
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  Speaker 3: I think we'll probably be eating less meat, but we'll
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: be eating better quality meat.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: One of the things I think most Australians know that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: you're very invested in helping Australians understand where their food
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: comes from. That whole paddict played idea something that new
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that you're involved in is saveful about the amount of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: food that we waste? What's going on there? How much
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: are we wasting and what should we be doing about it?
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: The things that are extraordinary.
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: Research says we think we waste about two kilos of
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: food a week, but it's actually double that. That's two
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: hundred and sixty five kilos a year for the average
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: household nationwide. It's like throwing away seven point seven million
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: meals every day eat.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: But it's just extraordinary how much food people just throw
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: back in the fridge and they let it go off
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: safe for as an app which you can put those
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: ingredients into it and we can give you a recipe
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: and tell you what to do with it. It's one
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: of those things that I think we should be investing
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: more money and stopping because it's just you talk about
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the cost of living at the moment. It would help
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: so many families by actually looking at the app and
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: investing in what they've got in their fridge rather than
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: going out and buying more again.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And is it about that knowledge about not knowing how
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: to make a vegetable soup or whatever it is.
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  Speaker 3: I've fortunately have a lot more ideas of what to
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: do with food and bits and pieces are left over
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: than anyone else. And we're just using our expertise in
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: the app to actually show people what they can do
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: with it. And people don't think, They don't realize that
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: there is a lot more in your fridge that will
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: go to waste that you can actually do something with
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  Speaker 3: it and turn it into something amazing.
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  Speaker 1: What's one that really satisfies you when you find a
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: wilting bunch of something and turn it into something else.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Look, we're coming into auto now, We're going to see
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: lots brassic as. People are gonna have colon nero and
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: spinach and whatever else. It's simple vegetable soup or a
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: bean soup. Beans that you got in the cupboard, which
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: generally you always have a couple of onion saute with
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: some aromatics. Throw on your beans and a good stock.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Make sure you've got a good stock and stew it
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: all up. Put some spuds in it if you want,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: and let them break down, thicking it up a little bit,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: and throw those wilted greens in at the top at
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: the end, and you've got yourself a beautiful vegetable soup.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: You know, a bit of stale bread with a bit
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: of cheese on top. Taste it, and you've got to
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: tasty on top of it.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm starving already. Matt Moran will be
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: in conversation with me at the Global Food Forum and
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: you can check it out at the Australian dot com
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: dot au. Matt, thank you very much.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: Claire Pleasure