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“Cow a ram up! That’s impossible!”

My mate was a Victorian sheep farmer. The joke never got old (for him anyway).

We were sitting in a bitumen car park on the main street of Cowaramup. Overhead, galahs were wheeling around the massive gums. The tree’s limbs were gleaming with the golden orange of a Turner sunset. Apart from the mouthy galahs, all was quiet. Rustic. Sylvan. Peaceful.

Big exhale.

We were at Rosie’s Deli, not so much a restaurant as dinner at a mate’s place.

Rosie Griffiths is a talented cook, a young country woman who has been plating up around the Margaret River region for most of her young working life and the chef behind one of the finest chicken karaage we’ve eaten, created when she cooked at Morries Bar in Margs.

Chefs take different paths. Some go big hotel or even cruise ship. Others prefer to advance their careers in a quality restaurant where they are supported by bosses who get them. Many can’t scratch the itch that says “do your own thing”. So they go for it.

Many fail. Running restaurants isn’t as easy as it looks. And then there’s Rosie, who decided to do her own thing in a shop in a tiny village with domestic appliances, home cooking and a menu with one main course.

...if you want dishes foodie bien-pensants from inside Perth’s Goat Cheese Curtain or cold-eyed influencers wouldn’t look twice at ... Rosie’s Deli is for you.

In a post-pandemic world where hospitality’s most bankable currency is authenticity, Rosie’s Café is ground zero for an authentic, big hug, my-way-or-the-highway vision. As you might expect, getting a table is difficult as locals – charmed by Rosie and her simple idea – turn up regularly.

We were seated outside in the shop’s car park. Dining al fresco never felt so gangsta. The menu consists of a three-“tapas” entree, followed by one main and one dessert. It is ridiculously cheap at $60 per person and well cooked.

Chef’s karaage chicken was reprised for this dinner. Crunchy, juicy and made slippery with a small bowl of Kewpie on the side, it was everything we loved about her Japanese deep-fried chicken.

Sweet corn and spring onion croquettes were soft and sweet and spiced properly: not to sloppy and not hard or dense. Just right. They were coated with a panko crust which added texture to the bechamel-based croquette. Very nice.

The third bite was an impeccable dhufish – caught just down the road at Gracetown – teamed with pickled cucumber, seaweed and avocado. Nothing here kneels at the altar of fashionable or high-falutin cuisine, but it is prepared and cooked with a great eye for technique, balanced flavours and excellent produce. Winner, winner chicken dinner.

When you order brisket at most restaurants or bars you would be right to expect some sort of American technique, smoked for 18 hours and anointed with rubs and salt/pepper blends. Done well, it’s great eating.

Rosie’s bucks the trend. The brisket was simply roasted after a good sear and it was delightfully tender with none of the fiddle faddle of spice rubs and low, slow offset smoker technique.

It was like eating brisket for the first time. Good cooking. Two vegetable sides came with the generous service of meat, a simple tomato salad with local goat feta and fresh herbs and an African spiced roast cauliflower. Most of us could cook this at home, except we couldn’t do it this well.

For dessert, roasted Nannup peaches were teamed with white chocolate cream and toasted almonds. Just like Nanna used to make. Lovely.

And that’s it. One of the most satisfying meals we’ve enjoyed in a while, by dint of its country table sensibility. It’s low-key friendliness and bullseye-accurate cooking from a hard-working country woman with a preternatural skill for flavour and technique and a hint of CWA Cookbook.

It is cookery that has skewered the zeitgeist, an expression of our desire for real food and real dining experiences.

Posh or cuisine forward restaurants have a place of course, but if you want to eat dishes that foodie bien-pensants from inside Perth’s Goat Cheese Curtain or cold-eyed influencers wouldn’t look twice at, but which stands for honesty and local produce, Rosie’s Deli is for you.