Restaurant review: Big Esso by Mabu Mabu celebrates the best of Indigenous cooking

Ordering emu or crocodile for lunch may be a hard ask, but this Indigenous eatery shows us how delicious bush tucker can be.

Kara Monssen

3 min read

February 22, 2022 - 11:00AM

Food

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Eating emu for the first and last time were two very different experiences for me.

I was 15, being slowly spun on that rotisserie-style tourist trap high above Sydney when I shovelled my first mouthful of that leathery, brownish meat.

Not quite the chicken and beef flavour combo I was promised, but a gamy hybrid that was beyond overcooked.

Fear not, nothing like this will pass the keeper atNornie Bero’s Big Esso by Mabu Mabu.

Thin slips of iron-rich bird, charred on the outside but beating red in the centre, are countered with a sweet molasses lick and chimichurri kick to keep you coming back for another bite.

And forget asking for this well done – Bero won’t serve you the dish if it’s not cooked to her liking.

Namas is Island style coconut cured kingfish, chilli, coriander with taro chips. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Don’t take offence, she just wants you to enjoy native produce as it should be prepared.

Bero grew up around these ingredients on Mer Island in the Torres Strait, so she knows how much, or little, to add to make the flavours hit just right.

Big Esso – which means big thank you in her home language, Meriam Mir – has also been a long time coming.

What started as a pop-up spice stall, Mabu Mabu, at the South Melbourne Market in 2018 evolved into a thriving cafe of the same name in Yarraville Village the following year.

Big Esso steps things up in 2022 by plucking unheard-of bush tucker from obscurity and serving it for lunch through to dinner, almost every day in Federation Square.

Bero tackles the task of turning the unfamiliar into delicious and approachable plates of food with respect and ease – and the right dose of gimmickry to get unsure mouths over the line. Saltbush and pepper berry crocodile? Eats like salt and pepper squid. Raw kangaroo? Think beef tartare. Taro chips? I can’t believe it’s not potato.

Everything is designed to share and there is plenty of veg and seafood at play, with most meat uncommon picks such as wild boar, quail and periwinkle (sea snail).

Salt bush and pepper berry fried crocodile with smoked oyster aioli tastes just like salt and pepper squid. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Sadly I caught the last of Big Esso’s summer offering, so you won’t get to enjoy the wonderful drenching of pickled watermelon triangles elevated by punchy dessert lime or that roo tartare with salty caper nibs and heady smoked oyster aioli, or the purple yam and breadfruit coated in a sweet and salty bush tomato sauce.

Even the emu is taking flight for three weeks until more stock lands from Queensland, but will return with a new look, rocking dessert raisins and cassava chips.

Bero’s favourite childhood snack, namas, remains, with sustainably sourced South Australian kingfish cured in coconut milk and lime, tumbled with coriander and chilli, scooped into the mouth using salty taro crisps as cutlery. Incredible.

Both desserts, including Bero’s famous cloudlike wattleseed chocolate meringue with strawberry gum gel, have been replaced with banoffee pie and hibiscus crème brulée.

Liquid desserts, in the form of general manager Sam Milako’s cocktail list, are still at play and lean sweet (pink panty woman), boozy (green ant-tini) or savoury (pepperberry bloody mary) depending on your mood. Many can be made without alcohol.

The banoffee pie is one of the new desserts, made with lady finger banana, wattleseed caramel, banana custard, coconut cream, strawberry gum crumb. Picture: Jake Nowakowski.

Big Esso is all about supporting the small players – be it female-led businesses, farmers or indigenous producers or artists.

The restaurant’s mural was painted by Aretha Brown and table prints designed by Gunditjmara and Torres Strait Islander artist Lisa Waup.

What’s brilliant about Big Esso isn’t just its celebration of produce grown in our own backyard but how it’s leading the way for other Indigenous restaurants.

A lot has changed in almost two decades since my first (and not final) emu experience – and I’m excited to see what the future holds for the next-gen of diners.