Five Sydney families share a taste of the modern Christmas table
This year, Christmas will be celebrated with sashimi in Japanese restaurants, post-beach swim pavs, and Filipino takeaways, eaten between rounds of carol karaoke.
The joy of eating is heightened at Christmastime, when the holiday spirit encourages home cooks to splurge on a classic Sydney-style spread of leg ham, char-grilled prawns, and fancy bubbles to share among family and friends. But there’s so much more than roast meat and trawler-fresh seafood served on holiday tables across the harbour city on December 25.
Celebratory feasting is a tradition dating back an estimated 20,000 years to the prehistoric period, when archaeologists uncovered a grand banquet of 71 tortoises and at least three wild cattle at the site of a wake near the Sea of Galilee. In Australia, Christmas arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 with a meagre meal (“the least said, the more generosity,” Captain David Collins wrote of it).
While British fare like stuffed turkeys and dense fruit puddings long dominated the Australian Christmas, it has since adapted to the warmer weather, the native produce, and the growing diversity of its population (29 per cent of whom were born overseas, the second-highest proportion in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
In 2023, Christmas in Sydney will be celebrated with kingfish sashimi in Japanese restaurants, post-beach swim pavlovas, and Filipino takeaway food, eaten between rounds of Christmas carol karaoke. Read on for a taste of the modern Christmas table, as shared by five Sydneysiders.
Anna Manlulo, Baulkham Hills
“Christmas was chaotic back in the Philippines,” says Anna Manlulo, founder of Filipino Food Movement Australia. Growing up, Manlulo attended midnight mass with her extended family (around 40 people), before gathering for “Noche Buena”: a lavish late-night feast of Filipino favourites such as pochero (pork belly soup with green beans and potatoes), followed by gift giving. “It usually lasts until 4 or 5am, and then on Christmas day everyone is asleep!” In Australia, Manlulo celebrates the season with colleagues, planning a backyard party with karaoke, a suckling pig portion and “Filipino party food” like lumpia spring rolls and grilled eggplant salad, ordered from Kamayan, Rooty Hill. On December 25, Manlulo and her immediate family will gather for a quieter midnight feast, with summer-friendly dishes like barbecued fish.
Adam and Kylie Micola, Cronulla
Parenthood put Christmas into overdrive at the Micola household in Cronulla, where restaurateurs Adam and Kylie Micola have taken over hosting the annual family feast. “If the kids [Mika, 2.5-years-old and Meadow, 1-year-old] have their creature comforts around them, they can settle in while we gorge on food,” Adam Micola explains. The pair, who recently opened beachside restaurant Bobby’s, are going all-out this year with co-ordinated family outfits, a seafood spread, a ham from Victor Churchill and a traditional pavlova to finish. But not before their annual post-present dip in the Cronulla surf. “I grew up with more subdued Christmases, but I really appreciate the flair my wife brings to the holiday, it’s fabulous,” Micola says. “We try to make the day super special for our children, it’s all about them.”
Andy Yoo, Clovelly
Chef Andy Yoo will celebrate Christmas for the first time (yes, ever!) this year, when his parents Jeehyun Yoo and Myungsook Byun visit from Seoul, South Korea. “Christmas was never a big day for celebration – until now,” Yoo says. It has been three years since they last came to Australia, and since then, Yoo has opened his first restaurant: Wa Gyuto, a 40-seat Japanese restaurant in Clovelly. Their arrival has encouraged Yoo – who previously always worked through the holidays – to take time off, plan a family camping trip to Wisemans Ferry, and host a celebratory reunion at the restaurant. Where Yoo’s parents once served him a traditional homemade kimchi stew each December, this year Yoo will be ordering them plates of kingfish sashimi with smoked ponzu, finger lime and pickled shiso, and twice-cooked sticky duck with yuzu soy glaze and black salt.
Luke Bourke and Allyssa Judd, Alexandria
Christmas this year is a smaller affair for National Indigenous Culinary Institute graduate and Rockpool Bar & Grill sous chef Luke Bourke, who will celebrate with partner Allyssa Judd in Koh Samui, Thailand. Growing up, the Bourke family would gather at grandmother Janet Ryan’s home near Penrith for a potluck dinner, featuring roast meat and vegetables. But as the family expanded to well over 50 people, they splintered off into separate celebrations. “Now mum [Lorraine Bourke] organises Christmas, and there’s always a theme,” Bourke says. “Last year it was silver, and she got all the matching plates and crockery.” Bourke integrates more of their Indigenous heritage into the Christmas feast each year, and upon his return plans to make tuna ceviche with Davidson plum, and lobster slathered with lemon myrtle butter to share with his mum.
Zoe Fitzpatrick, Mosman
Three generations of passionate home cooks collaborate to create the Fitzpatrick family Christmas feast each year. It begins weeks before, baking gingerbread men to string into wreaths for Christmas gifts. And on December 25, at parents Amanda Kenny and Damian Fitzpatrick’s Mosman home, they’ll create an Ottolenghi-inspired feast with bright salads, roasted vegetables and barbecued salmon marinated in ginger and citrus. “It’s a time of magic that’s been handed down from my mum and my grandmother,” says Fitzpatrick, leader of strategy at pet telehealth company Vet Chat. “The older I get, the more I appreciate how much effort they put in to make the day special.” That magic is needed a little more this year, as the family faces their first Christmas in 11 years without beloved family dog, Archie. “There’ll be some sadness, but these Christmas traditions help to bring us together.”
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