It will only take about five minutes of talking to Rob Caslick to make you realise that you’ve wasted your life. But, don’t worry, you won’t feel depressed after speaking to him; you’ll feel inspired to do more. The founder and owner of Table is on a one-man mission to help and support Sydney’s marginalised groups. His enthusiasm is palpable. Seven years after he opened an organic soup kitchen, has developed a further four projects across the city all centred around the idea that people can be helped through food. And he’s in no rush to stop there.
Under the umbrella of , which became an official charity in 2016, Caslick continues to run the soup kitchen every Wednesday night at St Canice’s Kitchen using meat from Marrickville’s ethical butcher Feather and Bone, and organic veggies direct from Cana farm. “We think we can show more respect by serving respectful food that’s been grown with respect for the land.” He also runs a rooftop garden project, , working with people suffering from mental health issues. There’s a cooking school for women and young mums at a crisis refuge and homeless women’s refuge, the ethos of which is that, “you can show love for your child through making a really nice meal,” says Caslick. “One of the things that domestic violence does is that it strips someone of their self-worth, so the idea is for the women to make food for other women. That act of providing for others is really empowering.”
There are , beautifully curated evenings that help to raise funds. And of course, there is Caslick’s most famous project to date, – delicious lunches made by women in shelters with recipes from celebrity chefs, and delivered out to Sydney worker bees. For every lunch purchased, another goes to a woman in a shelter, or someone sleeping rough. See what we mean about inspiring?
Rob Caslick has an infectious drive to help people in need, through food Source: Two Good Co
“All our projects centre around bringing people together at the table,” explains Caslick, “whether we’re growing food for the table or whether we’re doing cooking classes at the table; the table is the centrepiece of who we are.”
And now there’s a new project: a cooking school with a difference, in partnership with . For $200, members of the public can attend a in May taught by some of Australia’s hottest chefs, eat a delicious meal (with wine!) at the end of the night, and in the process, sponsor one person in need to attend one of Table’s Kitchen Table Cooking School courses, which will be offered at 10 different safe houses and drop-in centres across Sydney. Chefs involved include former-French Laundry and Chez Panisse chef Danielle Alvarez, who now runs Fred’s in Sydney’s Paddington; Mike McEnearney of Kitchen by Mike and No.1 Bent Street fame; Jock Zonfrillo of Adelaide’s Orana restaurant which specialises in celebrating Indigenous produce, and Jemma Whiteman and Mike Eggert – the chef’s chefs – from Sydney’s Good Luck Pinbone. It’s quite the line-up.
Caslick says The Kitchen Table Cooking School is “another way we can demonstrate love and worth to women in the safe houses, by providing them with an opportunity to learn something new, while growing their confidence.”
Danielle Alvarez is one of the chefs running classes in support of women in need. Source: Two Good Co
The Kitchen Table Cooking School is an extension of the successful cooking program Table has been running at the young parents’ crisis centre in Randwick since 2013.
Next up for Table though, is something even bigger: a farm-cum-restaurant in the country. “All the projects that we do are related to a farm, so the farm will grow food, but it will also be a beautiful building,” says Caslick, who is in the process of securing an internationally renowned ‘starchitect’ to design it.
Table's soup kitchen provides hearty meals every week. Source: Two Good Co
And the eatery expected to be on-board to run the restaurant? One of Sydney’s best three-hatted restaurants is keen, Caslick says, although he’s not naming names until the deal is final.
“All the programs we work on at the farm will relate to helping people post-drug addiction, so working with young adults [ages 16–24] who have come off drugs and just need to reconnect back to the community… It will be an amazing building with an amazing restaurant.”
Caslick believes that ultimately, food can change how people see the world. “Providing some really nice meals, or cooking programs, it’s only a small act,” he says, “but it actually means a great deal for someone who has been told they are worthless for so long.”
