Update: Due to severe weather conditions and flooding in Melbourne, oganisers of the Taste Of Melbourne festival have made the decision to of the festival.
Celebrity chefs including ’s Dan Hunter and ’s Geoff Lindsay have teamed up with food festival and suicide prevention charity in the hope of encouraging meaningful discussions about mental health.
The line-up of four chefs, which also includes Raymond Capaldi and , are each creating create a unique dish to be served at Taste of Melbourne’s charity pop-up restaurant . The pop-up, which doesn’t take advance bookings, is running from 30 November to 3 December as part of the festival at Melbourne’s Yarra Park.
A percentage of the profits from the pop-up will be donated to R U OK campaigns.
Taste of Melbourne 2017 brings food, drinks and demonstrations to Yarra Park. Source: IMG Events
“Eight people per day take their own lives in Australia,” R U OK? CEO Brendan Maher says. “So, how do we reduce that number? We need people to check in with each other – not just on R U OK? Day, but 365 days a year.”
The hospitality industry was rocked by the death of Jeremy Strode, the much loved and award-winning executive chef of Sydney’s lauded Bistrode CBD, earlier this year.
A mentor to many, he was also an ambassador for R U OK? His tragic loss inspired several industry figures to ask how best they could help others.
“Jeremy was a dear friend and mentor,” Dan Hunter tells SBS. “I guess it’s obviously something that’s quite new to me and present in my mind at the moment, so this just seemed like a good way to contribute.”
The Brae chef will contribute his spin on a soft shell taco with barbecue calamari, broad beans, hazelnut and a cream made with lemon aspen.
“It’s very different from sort of thing we’d normally serve in the restaurant,” Hunter acknowledges. “In the context of a festival, it’s easy to eat in your hand in a couple of bites. There’s a little nod to indigenous Australian food, and broad beans and calamari are things that I know Jeremy liked to cook a lot. Hopefully it’s delicious and might spark some conversations.”
Dan Hunter: hoping to help spark some conversations. Source: Taste of Melbourne
Mental ill health issues are not uncommon in hospitality, Hunter says. “Our industry is notorious for unfortunate working hours and lifestyles that don’t really help in terms of keeping friends and family and just being present at social functions.”
Hunter adds. “Certainly the act of cooking and sharing a meal is dear to all of us who work in the industry and this seems like a really good alignment between a charity that supports many people affected in our industry and a way that we can contribute back to that charity.”
Sam Pinzone, a Neil Perry and Jacques Raymond protégé who now runs his own chef consultancy business and is currently working with Lindsay at Dandelion, agrees.
“Food helps bring people together,” he says. “It sort of mellows the issue and that allows everybody to relax and be able to talk about it in a freer manner. It let’s you express yourself a little bit more.”
Acting as Conversation Bites’ head chef, Pinzone will contribute a spicy Sichuan-style wagyu beef tartare with fried garlic, coriander and cucumber served on a Komodo prawn cracker.
Lindsay will offer a banana fritter with meringue, candied watermelon, lemon balm, honey, mango, pineapple, passionfruit and mint salsa served in Vietnamese sweet rice paper. Capaldi will present a pie based on a Golden Gaytime, with vanilla custard, toffee syrup and Gaytime crumbs.
“Bringing together some of Melbourne’s best chefs, we’re hoping the dishes will get people talking, which is a really good way of contributing to the R U OK? cause,” Pinzone says.
R U Ok? campaign director Katherine Newton says there was an outpouring of offers of support from the hospitality industry following Strode’s death.
“Jeremy was a huge R U OK? advocate and we were all very shocked and saddened,” she says. “We listened to the industry to find out what would resonate best with them and I thought Conversation Bites was a great idea, because it’s a great way to reach a new audience and also give back to some of the people in the industry who wanted to help.”
Newton says we all need to be vigilant with our friends and family. “We know that it’s really important to have conversations and that is driven by looking out for one another, so really when you notice something, trust your gut instinct and have the confidence to reach out and ask R U OK? Sometimes the best time to have a conversation is over a meal.”
Need help? Find contacts for free counselling and phone support services on R U OK’s website. has a 24-hour support line (1300 224 636), as does Lifeline (131114) and the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467). People who do not speak English as their first language can get free translation aid from the .
