To call Jock Zonfrillo a locavore would not be an exaggeration. The chef and owner of Australia's No.1 restaurant, Orana -- as voted by Gourmet Traveller for 2017 -- was in Bangkok in September.
He was visiting as part of the 18th World Gourmet Festival held at the Anantara Siam. There, he showcased his culinary talent and adaptability by using ingredients he brought from Australia, as well as locally sourced goods he found trolling the wet markets of Bangkok.
"When I'm in a new country I love to visit the local markets as it gives you an expression of the culture and the people. The markets in Bangkok are far more colourful than those in Europe."
The 'Mad Max of foraging' Jock Zonfrillo.
Born in Scotland to Scottish-Italian parents, Zonfrillo trained under Marco Pierre White and moved to Australia in 2000. When he was head chef at Restaurant 41 in Australia, he "looked at indigenous culture and getting around Australia". In 2013, he opened Restaurant Orana in Adelaide and was soon approached by the Discovery Channel to host Nomad Chef.
Zonfrillo is a huge advocate of native ingredients and indigenous culture. Orana means "welcome" in the Aborginal language.
"The Aboriginal civilisation is one of the oldest in the world and is fast dying out. It would be a shame to not see it preserved and put out to a wider audience," he said.
Keeping true to his philosophy of eating local while giving diners a taste of Down Under, Zonfrillo's Bangkok menu started off with a salad of kohlrabi, quandong and lemon myrtle over an espuma of burrata. Quandong is a type of peach, native to the Australian bush. The menu then progressed to river prawns in broth with Australian spices and horseshoe crab roe with macadamia cream, served in its shell, and peppered pork with rice noodles. The experience ended with a delightful buttermilk, rambutan and strawberry eucalyptus.
Nomad Chef was based upon Zonfrillo's experiences -- providing insights into native cuisines of indigenous people around the world. On the show he travels across Australia, Ethiopia and Peru, to name a few countries.
Preserving gastronomic knowledge from extinction is his passion and it translates into his restaurant in Adelaide.
Horseshoe crab roe with macadamia cream, served in its shell.
"Australia's Aboriginal people have been eating natural food for 50,000 years and so that means it's a much older civilisation than the Egyptians. If that's not worth preserving then I don't know what is."
Once described by the late restaurant critic AA Gill as "the Mad Max of foraging", Zonfrillo's non-profit organisation The Orana Foundation preserves Australian food culture and assists indigenous enterprise.
"We have full-time foragers who are Aboriginal. A lot of the foundation's work is to preserve the knowledge for the younger generation because a lot of it is gone. They find it hard to retain and connect to their culture, so some of that knowledge that we are preserving will get back to them.
"We often talk to the kids about this and what their grandparents ate, and they don't seem to have a clue. We think it is a huge part of their culture -- reconnecting the kids to their community. I am not saying the indigenous people need our help and introduction to healthy eating so they are not likely to eat Mars bars.
"A lot of the men cook the meat in Aboriginal culture. They have to be very accomplished cooks and as its mostly cooking and managing temperatures on hot coals, hot fires or hot sand. It is different cooking in the kitchen and you need to know what you're doing.
"All this takes experience. Those elements of knowledge and vision are always passed down because its food and the connection to food is so strong.
"What interested me the most was their connection to the land is completely spiritual and organic in its make up. As a chef we strive to use organic produce, have food morals and use local ingredients. And here I stumbled upon a culture that had all of those things, but magnified. It was amazing."
What struck us most about Zonfrillo is his commitment to celebrating the Aboriginal culture and digging deep into their way of life, which, some might say, has been largely ignored.
He's still got his eyes on the bigger picture and the outside of Australia too, it would seem. He is not done with travelling the globe in search of remote native cuisines and cultures.
"I really want to go to Bolivia because when I was young, I was a massive fan of Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. Ever since then I've wanted to go. I think there will be interesting food. Myanmar is also fairly high up on my list as is India.
"India strikes me as being super complex and I love curry. We have amazing restaurants in Adelaide and my favourite has been run by a family for four generations. I love the passing down of recipes and the depth of flavour, and that makes Indian cuisine so much more interesting."
