Kounta

Our podcast series, '‘So, what is Australian cuisine anyway?’' in collaboration with Tristan Rosier is finally here, and to kick it off in style we were joined by industry icon, Palisa Anderson.

Ask Palisa Anderson about her childhood, and she will tell you about her mother,
Amy Chanta. Amy is the woman behind the famous Chat Thai eateries, which
opened its first restaurant in Darlinghurst in 1989. Palisa is as proud of her mother as
she is of the family business which now includes nine eateries, including the popular
Boon Café and the Asian grocer, Jarern Chai, both located in Sydney’s bustling
Haymarket. Together, the mother-daughter duo makes a formidable team who are
as passionate as ever thirty years on.

Palisa's thoughts?

‘I believe Australian cuisine is restaurant specific. These days you can go into a
restaurant, whether it’s Thai, Italian or Chinese, that uses cheap ingredients from
overseas and non-traditional cooking methods to produce a cheap and quick replica
of an authentic dish. Or you can go into a restaurant that uses locally grown
ingredients and traditional-style cooking methods to create a dish that is real and
authentic. For example, we boil our stock over ten hours as opposed to using a
stock powder which only takes a few minutes.’ 

Not only do Palisa and her family use locally-grown ingredients to create Chat Thai’s
authentically Thai dishes, they also grow much of their produce on their Byron Bay
farm, Boon Luck Farm. 

Head Baker and co-founder Jarrod Hack joined our podcast to chat about the changing profile of bread in Australia, and how the Wood Frog brand is continuing to grow despite the 'low carb, no gluten' trends.

The Wood Frog Bakery began life in a big vacant furniture shop in St Kilda, Melbourne with a plan to create some of the finest breads imaginable, without compromise. In their arsenal was baking experience at some of Australia’s finest bread shops, an attitude to solve any problem in their path ... and the ability to function on very little sleep.

Here’s a little taster of what we chatted about:

• Why great bakeries are still doing well despite the low carb diet 
• Where the bread trend is going in the next few years
• How to keep coming up with new recipe ideas
• Industry inspiration
• Why gluten free products commonly seen as being more healthy
• How Wood Frog has been able to grow so successfully 

Tune in, and enjoy. 

Head Chef Afik Gal, joined our podcast to chat about the planning, passion and skillful execution behind the award-winning global Brand, Miznon.

“We don’t write recipes, we teach the story of the recipe to the cook,” Eyal Shani

Eyal Shani is the inspiration and leading chef behind twelve highly successful restaurants and is considered to be one of the most influential figures in the Israeli culinary scene. In 2011 Shani opened the first Miznon in Tel Aviv, subsequently expanding to Paris, Vienna, Melbourne and NYC.

Using fresh and seasonally inspired ingredients to create a new kind of Mediterranean street food, Miznon’s vision is to take the flavour of each city and translate it into pita. To take the energies, the groove, the longings, the limitations, the beauty and the flavour and express it all … in one simple, yet extraordinary pita.

We caught up with head chef Afik Gal, Shani’s trusted friend and incredibly talented chef who has been at the heart of every Miznon since the very beginning. Afik packed up his home and moved to Australia to bring ‘fine dining in a fast food mask’ to our culinary capital, and on behalf of everybody who has had the pleasure of eating at Miznon Melbourne, we want to say a huge thank you!

Here’s a little taster of what we chatted about:

* What is ‘fine dining in a fast food mask’?
* Was it new for you to think of the people first before the food when you started Miznon?
* Why do you prefer to hire fresh low-skilled chefs into the brand rather than seasoned experts?
* What elements of Melbourne did you want to bring into the brand?
* Will it be hard to scale the ‘street food’ concept?
* What do you think the next step is for the Miznon brand?

Tune in, and enjoy. 

We caught up with Daragh, founder of 100 Burgers Group, and Jackie Doran, their marketing guru to talk about how a single food truck rapidly evolved into a diverse 17 site empire, from roaming food trucks to destination bricks and motor venues.

100 Burgers Group is formed by a diverse range of concepts including Mr. Burger, Belle's Hot Chicken & the iconic Welcome to Thornberry. With a loyal customer base flowing between their brands, consistent growth and endless innovation we were thrilled to dive in and understand how they do it all so well.

Kaitlin from Reground explored the possibilities of recycling waste that we didn't previously know could be repurposed. Demelza from SameCup chatted about the sustainability of people within our industry and what we can do to ensure a more diverse, fair and successful future for hospitality. Bringing it all together, Claire from Industry Beans explained how a business can successfully implement these types of initiatives without becoming distracted from their core vision and purpose.

We've partnered with Open Pantry Co' to bring the industry's top authority's together to chat, shred, and jam on hot topics set to move the industry forward.

In this episode, we set our sites on the future of tipping. Are the conditions ripe for tipping in Australian to become the new norm? Or will we stay the current course.

To answer these questions, we assembled a panel of experts with work experience both in North America and Australia to shed light on what tipping trends we might soon see in Australia's future.

Guests include:
Adam Miles - Head Waiter at Porteño
Tristan Rosier - Chef, Waiter, and Owner of Arthur restaurant
Edward Randow-Stone - Chef D’Experience at Kounta

In this episode, we talk about how the landscape of emerging technologies is shaping the customer experience. Will we know our customers even more? Will it make the customer experience even better?

To answer these questions, we assembled a panel of experts with work experience both in Europe and Australia to shed light on what tech trends we might soon see in Australia.

Guests include:
Chris Tate - Ops Manager at Pablo & Rusty's
Josef Neumier - Former Head of Retail at Sonoma
Josh Harrison - COO and Founding Member at Kounta