Artist James Turrell’s Amarna, 2015 installation lights the Museum of Old and New Art, built on the site of Tasmania’s Moorilla Estate winery.
'How's the wallaby tartare?" the cook at the market inquires.
I nod and mutter my approval as best I can with a mouthful of marsupial. "Care to try the pulled possum?" he asks, holding out a cracker. Possum, it turns out, is quite lean – a bit like rabbit, really. Wallaby, I learn, is considered "the veal of kangaroo." I haven't come all the way to Tasmania just to eat its endemic mammals, though. I'm here to get a taste of what is considered the most progressive and influential food-and-wine scene down under. My first stop, however, is a museum.
As I approach the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) aboard a camo-painted catamaran ferry, the sprawling structure looms above like a super-villain's lair. Built by Tasmanian eccentric David Walsh, a billionaire who made his fortune on the international gambling circuit, its reputation is that it's "a subversive adult Disneyland." Dedicated to sex and death, the museum breaks every rule of decency and decorum (Belgian artist Wim Delvoye's work, Cloaca, for example, employs a series of vitrines to turn food into poop). What does it have to do with Tasmania's culinary reputation? A lot, it turns out.
MONA is built on the site of the Moorilla Estate, Tasmania's second-oldest winery. First planted in 1958, it had fallen on hard times before it became part of the museum compound. Today, it's overseen by Canadian-born winemaker Conor van der Reest who drastically reduced the winery's output while increasing its quality.
Over pigeon paninis at MONA's wine bar, van der Reest pours out glasses of his Muse rosé, a delicate sparkling wine that tastes of apples and orange zest, toasted muffin and hazelnuts. "The lifestyle here is really comfortable," he says. "I've also been lucky that I've had so much freedom with the winery. The focus at Moorilla and at MONA in general is on quality over everything." The museum's influence extends well beyond its grounds, however. The entire country has benefited from the international attention it's brought since opening in 2011.
"I couldn't do what I'm doing now five years ago," says Glenn Byrnes, who, along with his co-chef, Christian Ryan, operates Aloft, one of the most innovative restaurants in the capital city, Hobart. "We have the most amazing products on earth." My concrete table overlooking the harbour is filled with fried pig's ears (salty as chips and twice as crunchy), steamed Bruny Island oysters beneath a foam of kimchee, and tempura fried salt bush, a semi-succulent that tastes of desert and sea. Alongside, there's a blend of riesling, grüner veltliner and pinot gris from Sinapius winery that smells like limes and celery. Next up, I'm served duck leg doused in an earthy pumpkin-seed sauce, funky slices of grilled beef rubbed with koji and thin rounds of barbecue pork with tingly Szechuan pickles. What ties all these disparate flavours together is an idiosyncratic field blend of pinot noir, cabernet-franc, gamay, chardonnay and riesling from Domaine Simha.
Over dessert (blueberry and yuzu sorbet with yogurt cream), I ask the chefs if there's a distinct Tasmanian culinary style. "Paddock to plate is important here right now," Ryan says. "There are a lot of hedgerows and fruit trees and wild fruits that people are utilizing," Burns adds. "In general there's a bit of a Nordic sensibility, but with different influences and our own ingredients."
That aesthetic is on full display at Franklin.
Its chef David Moyle, a surfer with a man bun and cryptic tattoos, has become something of a poster child for Tasmanian food. The restaurant, housed in a former car dealership, features more cement than a skate park, but wallaby fur throws soften the look. The cooking is also a blend of austere and lush. Humble turnips become rich when cooked in pork fat. Succulent, wood-roasted lamb is cut with sharp, smoky tomatillos. The surprisingly classic roasted octopus with smoked paprika and wild fennel wouldn't be out of place at a pintxos bar in San Sebastian.
Bird calls are the only sounds that accompany lunch at Osteria, the restaurant at the renowned Stefano Lubiana winery in the Derwent Valley, northwest of Hobart. Although the winery will soon be vegan, its excellent restaurant overseen by chef Claudio Guidetti certainly is not. An amphora-aged riesling, all chalk and peach blossom, brings out the freshness of smoked wild Tasmanian eel. A biodynamic pinot noir, ripe with black cherry and toasted almonds, is served alongside thin slices of glazed Tasmanian water-buffalo heart.
Winemaker Stefano Lubiana is out in the vineyard, but his wife Monique joins me for a glass of sparkling wine after lunch. I tell her that Guidetti's cooking is elevated by the organic ingredients from the vineyard's farm combined with wine from the same soil. "There's something spiritual about Tasmania," she says. "I think that the whole society here allows for creativity. There's so much water around and the wilderness is available to everyone. You can grow your own food really easily here. You don't have to battle anything. It just comes very naturally."
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