Adelaide chef Jock Zonfrillo has closed his restaurant Blackwood - and is opening Australia’s first ‘flavour lab’ for indigenous ingredients
New MasterChef judge Jock Zonfrillo has closed his Bistro Blackwood in Adelaide to make way for his newest concept. And it’s an Australian first.
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Rundle St eatery Bistro Blackwood is no more but, from February, will make way for chef Jock Zonfrillo’s newest brainchild.
Early next year, the street-level premises will become the Australian Flavour Lab – a space where a team of chefs and scientists will work with clients to help them commercialise products that have indigenous ingredients in them.
The lab will also work with the clients to help them find the best way to acknowledge and give back to the communities that they are using products from.
After receiving a brief from a client, the Australian Flavour Lab will have toxicology reports, nutritional information and taste profiles done specifically for them, the report will also tap the knowledge Jock and his team have built up to date.
“The Australian Flavour Lab won’t be a restaurant, but at the same time it’s not strictly a science lab,” Mr Zonfrillo said.
“The mentality at the Flavour Lab will have to be from a chef’s flavour perspective – because that’s the path to bringing some of these products to a shelf.
“It’s quite simple: Is it delicious or is it not delicious?”
The Lab has been backed by venture capitalist and philanthropist Mark Carnegie, who Mr Zonfrillo met via a mutual friend.
“We had a 20-minute meeting that turned into three hours,” Mr Zonfrillo said. It was Mr Carnegie who suggested that rather than seeking out a new building for the Lab, Bistro Blackwood should make way for it,” Mr Zonfrillo said.
Bistro Blackwood recently closed without notice.
“Mark started questioning me on my purpose and he surmised that Blackwood didn’t fit that purpose,” he said.
“No matter how hard you work in a restaurant like that it is never going to trigger any indigenous economic interest on country. Whereas Orana does.
“So rather than rent another premises it made sense to call it a day with Blackwood.”
Mr Zonfrillo starts filming interstate for MasterChef as one of its team of new judges in January but will fly back to Adelaide when not required.
“I’ll be spending as much time in the Lab as possible,” he said.
“Being in the same building as Orana is critical – and as long as Orana is there the Flavour Lab will be there.”