Cameron Matthews - Spicers Clovelly Estate
ON A sunny Sunday in July, I joined Slow Food members and friends in Montville for a Long Apron Long Table Long Lunch at Spicers Clovelly Estate. We dined on a magnificent spread created by chef, Cameron Matthews, and I caught up with him to chat about his approach to food. The first thing you notice about Cameron is that he’s tall. Very tall… hence the ‘Long Apron’ moniker for Clovelly Estate’s restaurant. With that height comes a different perspective on his food, too.
For Cameron, the dish must be balanced and all the components interrelated.
“For example, we’re currently doing a cos lettuce risotto with confit of salmon and glazed snails from Glass House. The risotto incorporates a French technique of braising the lettuce first – it has a lovely peppery bite; the confit salmon is slowly cooked in oil, which is normally used to dress a lettuce; to tie it all together we use horseradish, which goes really well with the salmon; and snowpea tendrils, which snails like to eat.”
Cameron claims that all their dishes are quite simple but rely on the produce – it has to be high quality produce to start with.
“I say to my suppliers, don’t send me rubbish. I appreciate seasonality, so I don’t mind if something is not available – I’d rather change my menu.”
“I love working with new shoots, baby carrots, baby beetroots…” he swooned. “That’s where you find flavour and tenderness. I don’t mind paying good money for good quality produce – in the end you waste less.”
According to Cameron, his dishes are both complex and simple: a lot of different components make a dish complex; for each component, he takes great produce and does simple things with it.
“Too many people take good produce and muck around with it and it comes out tasting like rubbish produce,” he asserted.
“I take a carrot and make it taste like a carrot. I take a tomato and make it taste like a tomato. You don’t need a sophisticated palate to appreciate those flavours. A discerning palate might identify all the different flavours and appreciate some of the subtleties, but our food is for everyone.”
I asked Cameron if he sees his restaurant as belonging in the fine dining category?
“We run a quality restaurant but I don’t think of what we do as fine dining in the sense of it being stuffy or overly formal. It should be about great produce, great food, great service, and great surrounds. It’s not about us!”
Having said that, I can attest to the quality of the food at Spicers Clovelly Estate. It might be all about the guests, but their dining pleasure is safe in the hands of this talented chef’s lofty aspirations.
The next Slow Food event is a ‘Farmed & Free Dinner’ on August 28 in Nambour. For more information, call 0439 944 690.
Julie Shelton is Leader of Slow Food Sunshine Coast Hinterland.
For more information on Slow Food go to www.slowfoodsunshinecoast.org.au
Leave a Reply