How one NSW hotel restaurant pivoted during Covid

Weathering the challenges of COVID-19 is just one reason executive chef Jason Barrett is thanking his lucky stars.

Jason Barrett of Paper Daisy. Picture: Kara Rosenlund

Jason Barrett feels pretty lucky. The executive chef at Halcyon House’s eatery Paper Daisy is talking to WISH on a Monday, his day off, and he’d already been for a swim at 8am at the beach near his home in Brunswick Heads, grabbed a coffee and was contemplating a surf when his phone rang.

But the Melbourne-born chef feels not only fortunate to be living “in paradise” on the NSW North Coast, he’s also very grateful to have a solid team behind him that has ensured Paper Daisy has managed to survive COVID-19 and the devastation it has unleashed on the hospitality industry.

“The world has gone upside down; it has gone so crazy,” Barrett says. “Some of the best restaurants have just closed their doors for good, but we have adjusted [to these new circumstances] and have found the right fit for us. We have our heads above water now and it feels nice. I feel lucky to be where I am, not just because of the location. I also feel really lucky to have a good job and have good owners and a good management team.”

The main adjustment Barrett and the Halcyon House team has made is to include breakfast and dinner in any hotel stay. The 100-seat restaurant had to drop to 46 seats to meet COVID-19 social distancing rules and has obviously felt the impact of travel restrictions.

“When we closed down in March, it was overwhelming,” Barrett tells WISH. “Everyone was going through the same thing and the thought of losing my job completely was a possibility. But within a couple of weeks we all got back to work and began planning right away. We redesigned the dining room offerings and that works for us because we are guaranteed bums on seats at night time. So if we have 40 staying in the hotel, we have 40 eating in the restaurant guaranteed.”

Paper Daisy. Picture: Kara Rosenlund

Paper Daisy became a destination restaurant almost as soon as the Anna Spiro-designed luxury boutique hotel Halcyon House opened in the tiny town of Cabarita Beach in 2015. Helmed originally by chef Ben Devlin, it soon became one of the best eateries in the state and has regularly been included in top restaurant lists across the country. Barrett took over its running in March 2019 after earlier moving from Melbourne to become head chef at Raes on Wategos in Byron Bay.

“I got headhunted,” he says. “It was definitely a good career move in terms of scalability. Halcyon House is a much bigger property; it has a bigger restaurant, a bigger kitchen and more staff. Also, it has a bit more of a worldly aspect compared to Raes, which has more of a local/Australia-wide thing. So I could see the potential to grow my reputation and my skills on a bigger stage for a bigger audience.”

Barrett says to cope with the new dining model (which allows for about 10 local bookings after accounting for hotel guests) they had to change the four-course menu to ensure people weren’t eating the same thing every day. “We have just decided that we are doing to do a daily menu, so if you stay for five nights you can have five different menus, which is pretty cool. We have a core menu each day and we will change a couple of dishes.”

The pandemic has also brought a few silver linings for Barrett in the form of access to local produce, which was normally shipped off up and down the coast to restaurants in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. “We are using a lot of seafood, lots of vegetables and not much meat,” he says of his menu. “We are doing lots of foraged seafood and herbs. The dish that has probably become our signature dish now is kelp-baked fish. We have foraged the kelp from along the coastline, we braise it, wrap fillets of fish in it and roast it over the fire. It is definitely a dish I am excited about.”

Dish from Paper Daisy. Picture: Kara Rosenlund

BAY LOBSTER WITH GREEN GARLIC PUREE

4 x 300g Bay lobsters

Salt

Olive oil

150g daikon radish

100g celery heart

50g granny smith apple

Chardonnay vinegar

Pickled desert lime, chervil, society garlic flower, to garnish

Green garlic puree

100g green garlic stem

100g blanched spinach

15g Dijon mustard

Salt

1 egg yolk

Olive oil

Blanch the lobsters in boiling salted water for five minutes, chill in iced water. Once chilled, cut open from the underside and remove the inner shell. Season with salt and olive oil, and cook shell side down over an open fire or in a preheated oven at 180C for 8 minutes. Finely slice daikon, celery heart and apple, season with olive oil and chardonnay vinegar. Garnish with pickled desert lime, chervil, green garlic puree and society garlic flowers.

For the puree, chop and freeze the green garlic stem and blanched spinach. In a blender, blitz the greens with mustard, salt and egg yolk on high speed while slowly adding olive, oil as when making mayonnaise. Quickly transfer to a chilled bowl and set aside.

Serves 4