When two British Chefs come to Australia full of ideas
and passion, what do they do?
Alexander Stone investigates for Ed+bK
Do they open a restaurant, do the normal crawl through
venues along the coast or try something new and a little left of centre?
Phil
Marchant and Josh Raine went for option three and started the Underground
Food Project. No restaurant, just pop up events and adventures are in these boy's
sights.
Aiming to capture a boutique target market, they want to create a sense of
anticipation with a mix of creative marketing via social media and their
website.
These boys will be staging events at places you wouldn't expect. How
about a whiskey-inspired breakfast at a boutique bar? Sounds good to me. Next maybe
a American barbecue in a barbershop or a vegan tasting in a garden centre?
I was lucky enough to try out a selection of small bites
from The Underground Food Project on Monday night and the focus and passion these chefs clearly showed through the food on offer. Phil
and Josh started us off with Jerusalem Artichokes with lemon myrtle that seemed to
melt in a puff of flavour then return with a blast of zest.
Next came the mushrooms on toast coated with a white coal oil that made the mushrooms taste as if they had been dipped and somehow coated in smoke.
Appearing out of no where
(or maybe I had had a couple of beers by this time) were the chicken, tarragon
and fennel hot dogs. This was a nice twist on a childhood favourite of mine with the
tarragon and fennel balancing each other nicely.
Last, the star of the show for
me, the whiskey ganache with rhubarb ash produced in a cold smoker made from a webber and an old windscreen wiper motor.
Underground Food Project will showcase their food at Wandering Cooks in Fish Lane, South Brisbane this Sunday, March 29 for the first Small Batch
tasting session for the year.
An incubator for a variety of new food entrepreneurs, Small Batch will be open from 6pm till 10pm showcasing the smell, tastes and colours of autumn with seasonally
relevant dishes and ingredients.
Other local food players at this event include Beerkary with Ben Devlin, Alejandro Cancino's Plant Base Foods and Alphabet Cafe from Meghan and Zoe Tulleners.
Find out more information about Underground Food Project