Celebrity Chef Curtis Stone shines the spotlight on Aussie produce
CELEBRITY chef Curtis Stone is heading back to Australia to meet our best food producers in the hope of finding fresh inspiration for his top LA restaurants.
HIS Beverly Hills restaurant has been named in the top 50 places to eat in the world. And now celebrity chef Curtis Stone will use his swanky LA eatery, Maude, to showcase Australian produce, which he believes to be the best in the world.
Maude is already unique in that its seasonal 10-course menu changes month by month.
This week Stone set off on a road trip around parts of Australia to talk with Australian Beef producers, visit farms and get off the beaten track to taste some bush tucker.
His hope is that some of the produce he sees will inspire a new menu at Maude.
“Australian produce is amazing, it’s totally world class,” Stone tells BW Magazine.
“We’re going to go out with Aboriginal guides and foragers and visit some beef farms that have sparked my interest over in Western Australia.
“In the past at Maude we have taken one ingredient to be the central focus of the menu and developed a 10-course menu around it. This year we changed the concept to be a region, like a wine region. I want to go back to LA and show them the quality of what we have in Australia, I’m really excited to introduce that Australian element.”
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It’s clear Stone gets more than a little excited when he chats about Australian Beef and produce, after all it’s his passion to meet our producers that is behind his almost decade-long association with Coles supermarkets.
But when questioned about the culinary reputation of Aussie food overseas, he stumbles.
“It’s difficult (to choose our national dish) because the food here is so varied,” he says.
“There are obvious things like pies, sausage rolls, lamingtons and pavlova at Christmas. And we’re such a multicultural country, it makes it hard to pinpoint.
“Even when you think about cities like Melbourne and Sydney, there are differences in food culture, and then that varies again from urban areas to regional areas. It can also be the little things, our anti-authoritarian approach to breaking all the rules, for example.
“Last week I was telling a guy about a hamburger with the lot and he said ‘What’s that?’ So I explained you get it from the fish n chip shop and it has egg, lettuce, tomato, whatever you want — the lot, and he was just amazed we got our hamburgers from the fish n chip shop. We are unique.
“I don’t think we’re known for our food overseas, but people who come here end up being overwhelmed with the variety and quality.”
Curtis has been based in LA for more than a decade with his wife of five years, American actress Lindsay Price, and their sons, Hudson and Emerson.
And despite a professional career that seems to be booming with popular Maude, and more recently the butchery and restaurant, Gwen (both eateries are named after his grandmothers), he says he still has strong ties to Australia.
Which is why we see him so often on our screens, usually spruiking Coles or as a guest judge on MasterChef.
“I come back about seven times a year,” he says.
“And when I do I feel like I never left, in that sense I’m lucky because I get to live a double life. There’s a lot to miss about Australia when I’m not here.
“And I try to bring the kids back every year too. They love the beaches and going to nanna and poppy’s. I think it’s really important they understand that part of their heritage. It’s funny because only recently my son told his teacher he’s really an Aussie, which was cute.”
But if you think mealtimes are easy for the celebrated chef, think again. He says his harshest critics can be his own children.
“You have to develop a kid’s palette, and it’s not easy,” he says.
“I tell my kids ‘You don’t need to like everything, but you do need to try it’ and that generally works. It can be a real mission.”
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