Cooper Thomas founded The Wilderness Chef on an idea: to create sustainable and ethical restaurant-quality dining experiences for people in unimaginable locations.
He built the business from the ground up and today heads a team of full-time staff, many of them chefs, who travel the countryside and cater for weddings and events under The Wilderness Chef banner.
This month, though, Thomas tried something a little different. He's an ideas man, after all. With a team keen to work and a quiet winter wedding season ahead, he launched a month-long series of Around The Globe pop-up dining events at Talulah, The Junction.
The dinners fuse core The Wilderness Chef values with international flavours and cooking techniques and, to date, have explored Indian and Spanish cuisines.
On Saturday, June 24, diners will be taken on a four-course Middle Eastern journey that celebrates the rich and vibrant flavours unique to the region. The menu includes dishes like shawarma, harissa BBQ tuna, baharat lamb rump and baklava.
The following week is French in flavour (Friday, June 30, at Talulah. Tickets are $80 and on sale now).
Thomas is not afraid to delegate and welcomes input from his team. Employing more chefs over the past year has freed him up to focus on other aspects of the business, like marketing and administration.
"We do more events now but I don't participate in the daily grind, like food prep during the week, unless it's a crazy, crazy week."
The pop-up dinners give his chefs a chance to think outside the square.
"We're all restaurant-trained and the catering menus - although we do some interesting things with them - are based on feeding the masses and appealing to a majority," Thomas explains.
"At these pop-up events we can play around with different cuisines and different cooking techniques and work on different concepts to then introduce to the wedding menus.
"It's also an opportunity for us to do the restaurant side of our jobs again and enjoy that service side of things."
A creative itch that each chef needs to scratch?
"Definitely," Thomas replies.
"They're driving a lot of this, looking at the calendar and coming to me and saying 'There's a gap here, what can we do?' They all worked at Talulah with me, ironically, when I was there. None of them were poached, I'm proud to say, it was a natural progression. They all moved elsewhere before they came to work with me again."
In recent months The Wilderness Chef has "scaled back on the more unique venues" to focus more on the Newcastle and Hunter Valley area, having identified "a few gaps in what we offered in this space". The business has a venue in Islington plus a commercial kitchen at Wallsend with a large function space and restaurant seating.
"We still travelled down to Yass three weeks ago, though, because there was no caterer between here and Yass that would go to the client's location," Thomas says.
"It's not necessarily the most sustainable option to go there, but for us it's about sharing great food and our passion for it. We'll go where the work is to enable us to do that.
"We bring restaurant quality dining to the venue of your choice, whether it's your property, the Hunter Valley, or even the side of a cliff in the Blue Mountains.
"The more we grow the brand the more we see people coming to us for collaborations, looking to add something that complements their event and brand.
"We love innovating, it keeps us on our toes."
Around The Globe - Discover the Middle East, 6pm, Saturday, June 24, Talulah, 52 Glebe Road, The Junction. Tickets $80 at thewildernesschef.com
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