Country Manners
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday March 21, 2000
Pioneering chef Michael Manners has gone west.
When Michael Manners announced he would be moving to Orange to cook at an unheard of restaurant, a friend asked what he was running from. It wasn't such a silly question.
Years before, Manners had left Sydney to open the legendary Glenella at Blackheath in the Blue Mountains. Before that, with a few sojourns to Britain and France, he had worked with Dany Chouet of Cleopatra fame, and Chouet's sister, his former wife Monique, at Upstairs, an early 1970s cheapie and - by all accounts - a goodie in Darlinghurst at the site now occupied by Bonne Femme.
So the veteran chef who began his career in the eastern suburbs has been drifting inexorably westwards ever since. He's been a veritable Napoleon of Nosh, conquering wherever he's gone; Glenella was, surely, one of the first establishments in rural NSW to combine genuine fine dining and accommodation.
How far west can Manners go? A bistro in Bourke? A wine bar in White Cliffs? A Parisian-style underground street cafe exploiting regional produce in Coober Pedy? Well, no. At 56, Manners says he's ventured as far west as he intends.
The SMH 2000 Good Food Guide awarded Selkirks, which Manners joined in 1997, two hats and named it best country restaurant. It was a suitable tribute to his achievements over the years and, more recently, for helping to put Orange firmly on the NSW food map.
In the '70s, when today's celebrity chefs were still being told by their mothers to eat up their greens, Manners was one of the founding fathers of Sydney's contemporary restaurant scene. With Glenella and Selkirks, he has been a frontiersman of regional-based cooking.
"Manners's menu is a wonderland of local produce with each dish being accompanied by a glass of wine," rhapsodises the 2000 GFG over Selkirks' French-inspired and Australian-engineered cuisine. "Thus the yabbie and native silver perch ravioli on a yabbie bisque is complemented by a glass of Canobolas-Smith Chardonnay, and an autumn casserole of lamb with lima beans and seasonal vegetables invites a glass of Bloodwood Merlot Noir. Great cooking and fresh local produce - it's what we all, both country and city, yearn for."
For such a trailblazer of local produce, Manners is decidedly laissez faire when discussing it. He may marvel over the local figs from the Norland Orchard. Then there are chickens and venison from Waverleigh Park at Blainey and Mandagery Creek near Eugowra. But there's no need to get too excited, is there? It's the country. They grow things there.
It's a rather French attitude and an eminently sensible one. Manners believes, as so often has been the case elsewhere in rural Australia, that wine has been the catalyst in encouraging the produce and restaurant phenomenon in the Orange district. Labels such as Bloodwood, Canobolas-Smith and Brangayne are increasingly admired wines that have contributed to the interest in an area four hours or so west of Sydney blessed with a temperate, cool climate.
Indeed, nowadays, for any town serious about gastronomic tourism, at least one highly regarded cafe or restaurant is mandatory, to attract visitors who then stay in local accommodation and buy local wine, stimulating strapped economies.
But Manners realises progress can be slow, that suspicion of new ideas is a continuing country trait. "At Glenella, the local golf club at Blackheath ran a book on how long we'd last when we first started," Manners recalls. "Then people started to stop there and ask, 'Where's Glenella?', and they'd reply, 'It's that froggy place behind the hedge.' "
Before you gasp at the burgeoning diversity of regional Australia, and despite the fact that it has been sanctioned sufficiently fashionable to appear in a recent marie claire Lifestyle spread, pause a moment.
A region like Orange still has a long way to go, even with the Food of Orange District (F.O.O.D) Festival up and running and another one due to begin at the end of the month. Now that Selkirks has closed for lunch, and a place called the Loaded Fork has closed permanently, there's barely anywhere decent to eat around the middle of the day, let alone breakfast. The market is still too small and unreliable.
Unlike his city counterparts Manners enjoys the benefit of virtually no top-end competition in a market that might still not be able to sustain another restaurant of its ilk. The number of tourist bureau visitors may have doubled in the past year, but Orange, along with much of the rest of rural NSW, still seems half-awake to its culinary potential.
AT the civilised hour of 10.30 am, Michael Manners is in polo shirt, jeans and boots for a day on the road visiting his local producers. But, first things first. He's ensconced over an espresso at a local gift-shop-cum-general-store-cum-cafe Fems which has the best coffee in Orange. Outside of Selkirks, that is.
When people refer to "Orange" in terms of produce they are speaking of a sizable area that encompasses towns such as Blainey and Canowindra. And the gamut of local produce is wide and varied, from eggs, figs and cherries to nuts, geese and ostriches. On the road, en route to Eugowra on what seems an interminable drive, Manners points out the new wineries, many founded by wealthy Sydney professionals, providing welcome new customers to complement grazier guests who are still too shy to order something other than roast lamb. To the left is the mighty Mount Canobolas, the highest peak between here and Madagascar.
Eventually, we arrive at Mandagery Creek. It took a city-slicker architect, John Andrews, who designed the original Sydney American Express Tower on the corner of George and King streets, to introduce the concept of venison to the region. His Mandagery Creek Australian Farmed Venison, near Eugowra, home of the Fat Lamb Hotel, is a bold venture in a country that's not shown itself to be particularly game to order venison or to provide the forgiving climatic conditions that make the creatures like New Zealand so much. Andrews loves Manners's cooking so much he's bought a flat in town so that he doesn't have drive home after dining at Selkirks.
His farm manager, David Hyde, oversees more than 1,000 head of deer, bound for Selkirks. Manners likes to serve the leg cuts, which are surprisingly lean and tender. Hyde, who says the Australian venison industry is between 10 and 15 years behind that of New Zealand, is trying to breed a beefier, taller deer to create a more definitive Australian taste. "You've got to be patient," Hyde says. "But I can see the day when venison is used in stir-fries in Australia. It's a lean, low-cholesterol meat. And it's quite easy to barbecue, too."
The fact that, geographically, Manners is so close to his producers and the land has made him more conscious of the realities of sourcing produce. He remembers how one Sydney couple arrived with a car boot full of coolers wanting to load up with local berries they had savoured on a previous visit. Manners had to explain it wasn't berry season.
The cycle of rural life means it's not one giant open-air hypermarket. "Good food is seasonal," Manners says. "If it's not available, you just take it off the menu. People are so used to having food available. It's the city culture. Here, if it's a wet weekend, you say, 'You beauty'. But in the city the opposite is the case."
Back on the road, after almost colliding with a semi screaming down the dirt road outside Mandagery Creek, Manners says we're heading for lunch at the Gallery Koolabah Cafe at Canowindra. It's run by a pair of rather glamorous young sisters, Melissa Barber and Sophie Conway. Melissa is a self-taught professional painter who exhibits and paints her eclectic work in the middle of the cafe as diners tuck into rolls, cafes and espresso.
She established the cafe in an old building next to a splendid antique shop with an astounding array of dressers, by the street leading into town. Sophie followed her later, resigning from her job as personal assistant at a local winery. On the menu are Sydney [sic] Nolan and Norman Lindsay damper rolls. It's not bills and there's few frills, but it's a beaut discovery.
The sisters are famous not just for being glamorous but for their selection of delicious cakes. There's a lovely alfresco area on the street front, beneath a generous veranda strangled by lush vines.
After lunch, Manners takes us to Blainey, closer to Orange than Canowindra. One local grazier who has accepted the challenge to diversify and capture the unprecedented commercial possibilities the evolving Australian palate offers is David Hoadley of Waverleigh Park's Pastured Poultry. His pasture-raised, chemical-free chickens already appear on the Selkirks menu.
Hoadley, who began his chook experiment only last October, wants to increase his output from 1,600 in the first season to 10,000 next year. His fingers are crossed that Blainey Council will find the funds to reopen the local meat abattoir in order to convert it to a poultry processing plant. "My sister got bowel cancer a few years ago," he says. "The doctor told her not to eat white meat that had been produced with chemicals. It got us thinking about a more holistic style of farming."
The chickens are in large mesh cages on grass. They peck at the pasture for a day. It takes about a minute to move them, letting the grass regenerate. They seem as happy as a battery hen on day release. Manners hopes the chooks may one day challenge other trendy poultry such as those from the Barossa Valley, Kangaroo and King islands.
On the Selkirks plate, the Pastured Chickens appear to have less a succulent flavour and more a robust one. And they provide big, country-size portions. "The chooks are the most exciting thing that's happening up here since I arrived," Manners says. "It's going to be great to offer something that's full of flavour and is local."
The day's almost over. Dinner at Selkirks, with Manners, is set for 7.30 pm. The wineries have done their bit. Manners has made his contribution. Now it's up to everyone else in Orange to ensure it works.
Feast at the festival
The annual Food of Orange District F.O.O.D Week, from March 31 to April 9. By that time, of course, all the leaves will be brown, as the song goes, and there'll be that certain chill in the air that makes the region's fine wines so irresistable. The 2000 F.O.O.D Week program includes events such as the Canobolas-Smith Alchemy dinner, on April 1, with winemaker Murray Smith at his winery, featuring local produce and vertical tasting of Alchemy, the winery's flagship red.
On April 6, there's the Cargo Road Vineyard Variety Walk and identification which allows participants to sample grapes and test them for Baume ph and flavour.
Friday, April 7, is the annual F.O.O.D. Week Dinner with special guest chef, Guillaume Brahimi, from Quay in Sydney, at Highland Heritage Estate and the Selkirks Cabaret Supper Club. Please note that some of these events may already be booked out. Further information please contact the Orange Visitor Information Centre. Freecall 1800 069 466. Phone 02 6361 5226. email ovc@ix.net.au.
© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
