Meira Harel and Banjo Harris Plane don’t want you to be afraid of wine
Without a chance cancellation at Melbourne’s top restaurant, they may never have met. Now the couple has a new role and message: don’t be afraid (of the wine).
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Meira Harel had recently arrived in Melbourne from Israel and was keen to check out Attica, the acclaimed restaurant, lauded by critics and customers alike, which regularly featured in world top-50 lists.
But she made the rookie mistake of ringing up and trying to get a same-day booking.
The bloke on the other end of the phone was unfailingly polite but struggled to contain his laughter.
He said it was, as it was most days of the week, fully booked and had been for some time. However, he assured her he would ring her back should a cancellation arise.
Which it did. And he was true to his word.
So Harel made her way, a stranger in a strange city, to dine alone at one of Melbourne’s most popular eateries.
When she walked in, she met the bloke at the end of the line.
His name was Banjo Harris Plane and he managed the joint.
Fast forward a few years and today, they are one of Adelaide’s hottest hospitality power couples, two of the top sommeliers in the country, and the new beverage curators at this year’s Tasting Australia festival.
“I was very, very grateful that he gave me that table,” Harel says with a beaming smile.
FAMILIES AND FOOD
Harel came from a big family in Tel Aviv that loved food, loved to cook and loved to entertain.
“I’m the youngest out of six and my father was and still is the head of the congregation around our neighbourhood, so we had very much an open-door policy,” she says.
“My mum grew up on a farm, so she was always in the kitchen, while she was working full time raising six children.
“So food and home-cooked food and appreciation for food and flavour is something that I grew up with.
“And the hospitality element; there’s always room around the table for one more person if they need it or if they just need a chat. So we really grew up with that.”
Harris Plane’s parents also loved to entertain, owned restaurants and bought a bed and breakfast in Robe when he was young.
They lived there for a few years then moved back to Adelaide, buying a restaurant on Hutt St, next to the Havelock Hotel, called Nediz.
“My weekends were playing sport in the morning and then coming into the restaurant and doing stocktake in the cellar or helping set up the restaurant or something like that,” he says.
“So I was always around food and wine. My parents loved good food and there was always wine on the table at home, and I guess through the process of osmosis it just seeped into me.”
Harel’s route into the industry was not particularly linear; an elite junior high jumper, a back injury cruelled her Olympic dream.
Instead she found her way on to the restaurant floor and, in turn she says, her calling.
“It just felt so natural,” she recalls.
“And that moment, you know, after so many years of training on your own, having a very individual sport, all of a sudden being surrounded by people and having those connections and talking to people that are so passionate about what they’re doing. It was a wonderful feeling.
“And from that moment on, despite everything blowing up, I never looked back.”
She looked for inspiration abroad and, after some thinking, decided on the cultural melting pot that is Melbourne.
She’d planned to stay only a few months. Instead she met her soulmate, built a reputation as a sommelier and manager of restaurants including The Town Mouse and Daylesford’s Lake House.
Harel was named Victorian sommelier of the year by The Age Good Food Guide in 2016 and co-founded GROW Assembly, a not-for-profit group aiming to develop the next generation of hospitality professionals.
Harris Plane, on the other, had never really thought about doing much else.
He finished school, then worked in London at a restaurant operated by one of his aunts, returned to Adelaide for a few years, moved to Sydney and then found a base in Melbourne, where he landed at Attica, became manager and was twice named Australia’s best sommelier.
He opened up a wine bar with a group of mates called Bar Liberty, the Italian restaurant Capitano and co-founded an online wine business called Good Pair Days.
Once the two met, married and started to grow a family, juggling the demands of their professional and personal lives required careful attention and, in 2019, they decided to return to Adelaide to be closer to Harris Plane’s family.
He is now working to build Good Pair Days, which has expanded to the UK, while Harel is general manager of three of the city’s most loved establishments, Press Food and Wine, Peel Street Restaurant and Leigh Street Wine Room.
In many ways, they’ve come full circle and are now infusing in their two young children the same love of food, wine, conversation and company that came to define their upbringings.
“I mean, both our kids are very adventurous eaters,” Harris Plane says.
“And we encourage them to be exploratory and they’re always in the kitchen. It’s a big part of our family.”
Harel adds simply the family just loves restaurants and loves food.
“It’s our work and our environment,” she says. “It’s definitely something that they’re familiar with from before they even knew how to talk.
“They’re definitely aware of things like table manners and how to pour water for each other or, you know, which cutlery you need for which food. And we find that for us, it’s (about) thinking creatively, it’s how we teach them things.
“Not necessarily about food and wine, but you know, we’re speaking to our son’s teachers and we can teach maths by working on a recipe, and make it fun and familiar.”
They talk warmly about the sense of belonging and community enjoyed throughout their childhoods. Plus it was fun, and inclusive.
And those are the things they plan to bring to this year’s festival.
ACCESSIBLE FOR EVERYONE
Meira Harel and Banjo Harris Plane refuse to use the word directly so we’ll do it for them. This year’s festival aims to take the “snobbery” out of wine and beverage tasting.
Sure there will be events for the aficionados who know their eiswein from their esters.
But a big part of this year’s tasting Australia is about making it accessible for pretty much everyone and anyone.
“There’s definitely some food and wine events that presuppose a level of knowledge that I think is not always accurate,” Harris Plane says.
“I think you’ll find that most people very much enjoy food and wine, and are passionate about it to some degree, but they don’t necessarily want to talk technically about it. They don’t want to dive down into the jargon and nitty gritty.
“They want to be told stories about the people that make the drinks, or grow the food, or the chefs themselves.
“They’re interested in having as a part of their lifestyle as opposed to it being a professional pursuit or something that they’re focusing on full time.”
So there will be a mix of events, highlighting a range of different drinks (including the rapidly expanding alcohol free variety), with a spread of talent.
“We’re just trying to make sure it really captures the Zeitgeist of the beverage industry and are showcasing things that are current as opposed to things from 10 or 15 years ago,” he says.
Harel says three words best sum up the approach: Diversity, Modern, Inclusive.
“We need to be modern, to be current, but without forgetting how important tradition is and history is because that brings us to where we are today,” she says.
“And where we’re at today will define where we’ll be in the future.”
And there’s a range of voices, backgrounds and genders to tick the other two boxes, from regional winemakers, to distillers, to writers, to artists, to importers. The list goes on.
“We’re really trying to put the puzzle together to reflect on where the wine, beverage, spirit industry is at today and to provide a great presentation of Australia’s drinking scene,” she says.
LAND OF OPPORTUNITY
The couple arrived back in Adelaide in 2019. That summer bushfires ravaged one of our most important wine regions in the Adelaide Hills.
Then Covid struck, virtually shutting down slabs of our hospitality industry overnight, and then crippling it through restrictions as it attempted to get back on its feet. Then China imposed punitive tariffs on wine, which hit SA’s wine producers and growers harder than most. For most people involved in the industry, it was a perfect storm.
“It was a challenging time,” Harris Plane says with the hint of a grin.
Given all this, did they have any regrets about returning to Adelaide?
“No,” they say in unison.
At this point in time they see Adelaide is a land of opportunity.
They see more and more people coming here to set up businesses and lives, buoyed by the development of the small-bar scene and Riverbank, and keen to leave the overcrowded and over-expensive eastern seaboard.
Together, they paint a picture of a vibrant and growing hospitality scene ready to thrive, minus the shackles of the pandemic.
And a culture keen to shed preconceptions of small-town thinking and conservatism.
“I was out of South Australia nearly 15 years,” Harris Plane says. “There’s always this kind of stigma around Adelaide for different industries, not just hospitality but, you know, a bit of a brain drain when people turn a certain age and move to the east coast or somewhere else, and then come back.
“So that’s always hard. But there’s definitely positive steps in terms of the kind of places and ethos that are infused with those places that’s been happening.
“Honestly, the growth has been enormous.”
Harel says Adelaide is now starting to fill a gap being created by the eastern states.
“Many people see Adelaide as an opportunity compared to the east coast, where obviously the market is full and more expensive,” she says.
“Adelaide’s younger population is growing and more and more businesses and operators are finding Adelaide to be exciting, which is good for us because the more great venues and restaurants and bars around the better it is for the community and dining scene.
“What people are also really excited about is acknowledging and championing the produce around and how wonderful Adelaide is in a way where, wherever whichever direction you go, 45 minutes outside of the CBD, you’re in a region.
“And you’re in a region that is producing either food or wine and that obviously impacts our spaces in the CBD. And that link really makes Adelaide special.”
The by-product of that is more people coming into the industry and more creative venues and ventures being developed.
“That will lead to more people wanting to come and work here, and more people wanting to come and live here and exploring a career in hospitality within the state,” Harel says.
POWER AND PASSION
If there’s one thing Meira Harel is passionate about it’s women having more of a voice in what has traditionally been a male dominated industry.
“It’s definitely changing and we are moving forward,” she says.
“I think it’s more about thinking out of the box to make sure women can have a space where they can work and have a family, if they want to.”
Harel says hospitality is no different to many industries; women are naturally left at a career disadvantage when they leave to have children or care for a family.
“When it comes to having a family, that’s the point of time where you lose some great, talented women,” she says. “And we need to show how we can think outside the square to allow women to have somewhere to come back to. It’s just a matter of time, and having women at the front and giving them the stage.
“And it’s more about companies pushing towards making sure that they do have women in their pool of people; to really make that a priority.”
To drive home the point, she’s enlisted the help of international sommelier Victoria James for a Women in Wine session, which will focus on the “acute” need for respect and equality in the wine industry.
Harel describes James, who will take part in a series of other master classes, as “one of the most important sommeliers in the world today”.
She is director of beverage and a partner at Michelin-starred Cote in New York City and Miami, and a co-founder of the not-for-profit Wine Empowered, which is something of a community for women in the wine industry in New York.
“We’re very, very excited to have her here. Plus, she’s never been to Australia,” Harel says.
MAKING A MARK
As this is the couple’s first year at the helm ofTasting Australia, they are understandably keen to put their stamp on proceedings.
Their biggest message: Don’t be afraid.
“It’s an open invitation, just come and enjoy it,” Harel says. “We’ve made it very accessible. Come and have fun, or dive as deep as you like, it really doesn’t matter. We’re pretty confident we’ve got something there for everyone.”
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