Beyond being delicious, snacks also provide chefs with a creative outlet to experiment with ingredients and test new ideas.

That creative energy will be on full display this June as some of Sydney’s top restaurants unveil limited-edition snack specials for Good Food Events’ upcoming Snack Series, presented by Aurum Poultry Co.

The series will see hatted restaurants such as Viand in Woolloomooloo, Firepop in Enmore and 20 Chapel in Marrickville, craft a unique snack priced under $25. But here’s the twist: every dish must feature the same signature ingredient – cockerel.

Annita Potter, of one-hatted restaurant Viand, has created sweet, salted cockerels with longan and Thai basil in green curry wafers. Having spent 12 years in Bangkok, working alongside celebrated Australian Thai-food specialist David Thompson, opening his international restaurants in Singapore, Cambodia, Hong Kong and Australia, Potter is no stranger to seeing cockerel on the menu.

“The Thais use a lot of birds in their cuisine including cockerels for things like gai yang – grilled chicken, but it’s mostly used in curries, soups or braises as the lengthy cooking process of these dishes allows the meat to become more tender over the slower cooking time.”

While cockerel meat may have fallen foul of the Australian market, the meat of young male chickens remains popular in many parts of the world, where it is prized for its leanness and depth of flavour. “Cockerel meat is delicious and usually has a more defined taste, richer, more depth, more intense than regular chickens,” says Potter. “The meat is typically firmer; however, it has a silkiness to it.”

It requires no special treatment when preparing it at home. “Cockerels can be cooked mostly the same as regular chickens. I tend to cook the cockerels slower and on a lower heat as it allows the flavour to develop and doesn’t toughen the texture of the bird,” she says.

If you’ve noticed more cockerel on restaurant menus, you can thank Aurum Poultry Co. The specialist poultry producer supplies 100+ day slow-grown cockerel, along with pheasant, guinea fowl and quail, to top restaurants and butchers across Australia (it also offers home delivery to select locations). The business was founded by Melbourne-based brothers Danny and Sam Wong, who missed the richly flavoured, firm-textured chicken they grew up eating in Vietnam.

Good Food Events’ Snack Series will run in Sydney from 1-30 June, 2025. Catch up on any snacks you miss on the Good Food Events’ Instagram account, where chef Mitch Orr will be going behind the scenes of each restaurant, chatting to chefs about how each dish was made.