Season 13 of “Taste of History” is airing now, and Chef Walter Staib has taken the crew to see and taste Australia! In addition to visiting farms and seeing Aussie agriculture up close, he’s also visiting some hot restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne and visiting with chefs. If you’ve ever wanted to see what chefs are cooking up Down Under, now’s your chance! Here are just a couple of highlights:
Walter visits Serai Kitchen in Melbourne - tabbed a best new restaurant in Australia by Esquire this year – to chat with Chef Ross Magnaye and taste his food. Serai is an open-kitchen, chef-driven concept serving up Filipino cuisine with an emphasis on wood-fired grilling. Chef is known for his adobo lamb ribs, combining the classic Filipino adobo marinade and glaze on premium Australian lamb cooked over the fire…they left Chef Staib speechless!
Over in Sydney, Chef Walter connected with Chef Elena Duggan, a former MasterChef Australia winner. Elena focused on the beef and indigenous Aussie ingredients like bush tomatoes and Murray River salt. They hit the grill with some beautiful grassfed beef and all the trimmings. Fair warning, the bone marrow compound butter they whip up is something you’re going to dream about!
In the countryside in Cavendish, a town between Melbourne and Adelaide, Chef Walter cooks lamb with Chef/Owner James Campbell at his “humble boozer” the Bunyip Hotel. Here it was all about the braise, with a mix of neck, shank, and rib meat from 100% grassfed lamb from the surrounding farms. The “ultimate lamb dish” according to Chef Staib!
There’s so much more! Get into Chef Walter’s on-farm explorations of Aussie beef and lamb here. Click the links below to watch episodes 8 and 9 now on PBS.org!
Episode 8 - Grilling Down Under with Aussie Beef - New South Wales Australia
Episode 9 - A Multicultural Menu featuring Aussie Lamb - Victoria Australia