Community warms to shared oven at Blackheath restaurant Vesta
There is little down time for the 120-year-old wood-fired oven at this Blue Mountains restaurant.
In the heart of Blackheath in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney lies a secret weapon. It’s not one of mass destruction but of mass creation … of food. Think breads, patisserie items, roasted meats and vegetables, puddings — in fact anything that can be roasted.
It’s a Scotch oven and it nestles at the back of Vesta, a restaurant previously known as Vulcans in Govetts Leap Road.
Designed and installed in the original bakery on this site in 1896, the wood-fired oven was built of double brick with a wall of sand between the layers to retain the heat, and could bake 180 loaves of bread to supply the daily needs of the settlers.
These days, the fire is lit on Wednesday morning, when it heats to about 80C in time to cook that evening’s food. By Sunday morning, it can be up to 130C.
Vesta (meaning “goddess of the hearth”) isn’t the only user of the oven. David Harris, joint owner and his partners generously lease it out overnight to Alex Riviere, a young independent baker, and so the oven is not idly loafing, so to speak. It’s this kind of co-operative spirit that so often defines and binds local communities like Blackheath.
The restaurant’s use of the enormous oven harks back centuries when wood-fired ovens were prevalent throughout Europe and even parts of North Africa. Consultant chef Misha Laurent says: “This oven is gentle, loving, warm, a matriarch, an oversized mama. But she’s not temperamental at all. We just put the fire on and she warms up and 10 hours later the food is cooked. Literally, the lamb shoulder is always perfect.”
What’s the style of cooking that French-born Misha prefers?
“The trend is to go back to the early days of cooking; all the old recipes are coming back,” he says. “I like to bring in a modern touch, not so much in the decoration but old style cooking was quite heavy, so I modernise it by keeping it light.’’
As well as the breads, most dishes on the menu are cooked in the oven and reflect the chef’s obsession with sourcing local and regional produce. Meat from Rydal, fresh organic vegetables from Hartley, wines from Mudgee and Orange are predominant. The results are outstanding, especially with signature menu items like slow-roasted lamb, stuffed spatchcock and trout with fennel and couscous.
Across the road from Vesta, Ashcrofts Bistro is a stylish, uncluttered space but there’s nothing basic about the food created by owner/chef Adrian Hunt. It’s big on flavour and presentation, again with local emphasis and signature dishes like twice-baked gruyere souffle with pickled pear, and whole roasted and deboned Holmbrae chicken. And its bread? George, the affable maitre d’, told us that its excellent sourdough comes from Black Cockatoo … you guessed it … from Alex Riviere and the Vesta oven.