It’s truffle season! Here’s where to taste WA’s black gold – with Gary Mehigan as your guide

On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to get my first taste of Manjimup black truffle for 2024.

At Wills Domain in Margaret River, chefs Jed Gerrard and Sergio Labbe – Gerrard is the restaurant’s culinary director, while smiley Brazilian chef Labbe runs the restaurant’s day-to-day – created an artful silo out of ringlets of slow-cooked celeriac, teamed with an unusually elegant sauce made by soaking cheddar cheese in water, then crowned with finely grated cheddar and black truffle.

It’s truffle season in WA.Credit: Rachel Claire

Granted, the last weekend of May seems early for truffles, but if the rest of the year’s truffle dishes follow suit, it’s looking like a promising winter.

As always, black truffles (as well as produce and drinks from the greater Southern Forests area) will be pivotal to Truffle Kerfuffle, the region’s annual winter June festival that takes over beautiful Fonty’s Pool for a weekend between June 28 and June 30.

In addition to being the southern hemisphere’s largest black truffle-producing region and the source of 85 per cent of Australia’s premium black truffles, the Southern Forests region produces 70 per cent of Australia’s avocados, most of WA’s marron and half its apple production.

So produce and producers are key elements of both the region and the festival. But big-name chefs remain one of the festival’s draws. Most of Truffle Kerfuffle’s main guests will headline its major events, including the festival restaurant that gets erected inside Fonty’s Pool over the weekend.

As far as star power go, former Masterchef judge Gary Mehigan is hard to go past with the chef, restaurateur and TV personality overseeing the menu for the Friday night Truffle Journey dinner.

The following evening sees Christine Manfield, the firebrand chef behind legendary Sydney restaurants such as Universal and Paramount, bring her love of Asian and native ingredients to the restaurant for the East Meets West dinner, also being held in the restaurant.

Local chefs will also be making cameos in the restaurant and will prepare two brunches. On Saturday, Amy Hamilton of Albany’s formidable regional-bar-that-could Liberte will prepare the Speaking Local brunch that will go big on her love of French-Indochine flavours. Sunday’s A Place, A Taste & A Story Brunch, meanwhile, will feature Paul Iskov of native food pop-up Fervor.

Iskov – as well as Manfield and Mehigan – will also be appearing at Chef’s Cabin, the festival’s cooking school-slash-pop-up restaurant that sees chefs share recipes and stories with 40 guests at a time as they enjoy a three-course meal and matched drinks.

Other guests appearing at Chef’s Cabin include Warndu’s Rebecca Sullivan, a cook and author based on Ngadjuri country in South Australia who will be showing guests how to use native ingredients at home; Evan Hayter of Margaret River’s soignee Bussell Highway dining room de’sendent; and emerging young chef Brian Cole of Hearth at the Ritz-Carlton.

Not that Truffle Kerfuffle is just about big-ticket events. A weekend or Sunday pass to The Festival Village at Fontys Pool lets guests meet local producers, enjoy tastings and purchase truffle-enhanced dishes, plus watch free coking demonstrations by guest chefs.

A calendar of satellite program offers chances to further explore the region while truffle hunts allow guests to get a dog’s eye view of the truffle hunting and gathering process.

Truffle Kerfuffle is at Fontys Pool (699 Seven Day Rd, Manjimup) from June 28 to 30.

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