Whatever happened to David Coomer?
You may remember Coomer was Perth’s most celebrated chef in the 1990s and early 2000s, with his Star Anise restaurant at Shenton Park one of WA’s most revered dining rooms in the city.
David Coomer at his Hunter & Hound production kitchen in Manjimup. Credit: Rob Broadfield
A decade ago, he left frontline cooking to grow truffles at his small holding in Manjimup, which he has done with success. He harvested about 400 kilograms of truffles last year, increasing annually as his truffle grove matures.
These days his Hound & Hunter business in Manjimup, deep in the state’s South West, is a 700-square-metre factory and ferment room in a former petrol station, pumping out all manner of truffle-related processed foods. His partner in the business is also a truffle grower and the former chief executive of the Manjimup-based Wine and Truffle Co., Gavin Booth.
To say Coomer’s new venture is a commercial food business is an understatement. He is surrounded in his shiny new building by hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of high-end cooking kit.
He has a digital 300-litre kettle you can park a moped in, a massive autoclave to steam his canned truffles, a canning line, a huge combi oven, food-grade pumps to move product around the kitchen and a factory shed filled with barrels where his soy sauce and miso ferment away quietly for months on end.
He even has a café out front where you can buy lunch, coffee and his sauces, miso, stocks and charcuterie from chiller cabinets.
“The idea is to make value-add truffle products, so we can be less concerned about truffle’s price fluctuations from year to year,” Coomer said.
“In bumper years when prices are down, we can use the truffles we don’t sell to the restaurant and retail market to create products for sale all year round.
“It also gives other local truffle growers a market for their excess production. It’s kind of symbiotic. We’ve created a space in the market to use surplus truffles for value added products.
“This year, we’ll preserve half a tonne of truffle.”
Preserved truffles are not a thing in Australia, but in France chefs and home cooks routinely use them as a part of their culinary repertoire.
Many WA chefs are tinkering with koji and soy ferments in their kitchens, but Hound & Hunter is the only large-scale soy and miso business in WA, and probably Australia.
Hound & Hunter is more than just truffle though.
The soy sauce takes about one year to produce. Miso has a three-month timeline.
David Comer hand-plunging soy bean mash for his Hunter & Hound truffle soy.Credit: Rob Broadfield
Coomer grows koji on clumps of roasted wheat and cooked soybean. Koji is the spore which creates the yeast which in turn kick-starts soy sauce and miso production to supercharge the fermenting process and leave unique flavour behind.
“It’s not just about truffle and Japanese condiments,” Coomer said.
“We are developing a range of products which we aim to have available in better grocery stores across Australia.”
These include hot sauce, pork and duck rillettes, terrines, dressings and a range of stock bases including a glossy, rich demi-glace.
“We’ve sold our terrines to a large-scale kitchen in Perth. It saves them the grind of producing their own, safe in the knowledge that our terrines are chef made from local produce,” Coomer said.
Hound & Hunter has been open for just a month and some of the first batches of Coomer’s truffle miso have already been bottled. His white and red misos are recognisably miso, but are a fresher, less salty, more funky and deeper-flavoured version than those you might find in a tub in the supermarket.
Unlike the mass-produced miso, Coomer doesn’t pasteurise his product, which ensures it retains an uncommon freshness and perkiness that elevates the flavours.
“It’s Japanese, but also not so much. You can use our miso to make a quick beurre blanc sauce or as an additive to sauces, even in western cooking. It adds depth to, say, a boeuf bourguignon.” Coomer said.
“It’s also great for vegans who want to add flavour to a vegetable stock.”
Hand-plunging his miso mash beside a forklift and industrial racking filled with barrels, Coomer gets going on his favourite topic: fake truffle oil.
“None of the truffle oil you buy at your local shop is made with truffle. It’s a deepfake, mostly made in China from veg oil and truffle flavouring, synthesised in a laboratory,” Coomer said.
“You can simply buy the chemical and mix it with oil. We’re not having any of that. We use real truffles to scent good fresh oil.”
Hound & Hunter’s next moves are to increase production and expand into agritourism.
“Our retail outlet has already morphed into a café with a far greater interaction with the public. Cooking classes are next and, if possible, factory tours and special dinners,” Coomer said.
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