The taste sensation

If chefs are the new gods of a hedonistic society – and we’re not necessarily saying they are – Margaret River has just been through its most spiritual season. The cheffy halos are always thick on the WA ground in November.

All sorts of talent contributes to the massive undertaking that is the annual Audi Margaret River Gourmet Escape, from winemakers to caterers, waiters to craft brewers, cheese makers to small-batch distillers, but without doubt it is the chefs whose presence shapes the festival that is Escape.

International stars and those with only a small, but significant profile; serious dudes with shed loads of cred, and big-name celebs more at home in a TV studio than a kitchen; domestic up and comers and guys – or girls – whose restaurants shape the major cities of just about every state in the country. 

So maybe its appropriate that the new gods of the cooking world have chosen to congregate in a corner of Australia easily lending itself to the cliche ‘God’s own country’.

Few leave the South West of WA – Dunsborough and Margaret River its major townships – with its rugged, sheltered beaches, pure surf coast and spectacular rural country so generous to the country’s best winemakers, without having been deeply impressed by its beauty, purity and generosity.

As big name guest Curtis Stone said before jetting back to the  US: “It’s a really special part of the world. The produce, the wineries, the weather, the people. Cooking with the TAFE students was a highlight and the Beach BBQ was crazy fun.”

Remote it may be, but the Margaret River region’s extraordinary concentration of “lifestyle assets,” along with a predictably benign climate, makes it a fairly logical focal point for what is surely the nation’s biggest food and wine festival. 

This year marked an official attendance of 19,073 at the Satellite Events and Gourmet Village, the Escape ‘hub’ amid the picturesque gardens and lawns of Leeuwin Estate, one of the district’s oldest and most prestigious family-owned wineries. All those people were Down South for diverse reasons but without doubt many were there to attend ‘church’ with such massive stars as Alex Attala from Brazil, Andre Chiang of Singapore, Ana Ros of Slovenia and Rick Stein of England, all luminaries of the international gastro-temple.

It is this combination of Satellite Events, such as special lunches and dinners, combined with the activities of the Village, such as the new and acclaimed World’s Best Chef’s Table by Snake & Herring, that gives food lovers and enthusiasts the opportunity to get up close with those they might ordinarily have only encountered via books, television or possibly in their restaurants. 

And this is the great asset of MRGE: so many events allow the talent and the paying public to mingle and exchange. And nothing exemplifies this opportunity quite like the Audi Gourmet Beach Barbecues held on the white sand crescent of Castle Rock Beach every year for four days and nights. Guest chefs this year were expat Australian celerity chef Curtis Stone, the avuncular and critically acclaimed food sage Rick Stein, young and acclaimed Sydney seafood chef Josh Niland and the ever-popular Melbourne king of contemporary Middle Eastern food, Shane Delia, best known for his SBS Television series Spice Journey. 

All shared drinks, food, stories and ‘selfies’ with guests on the beach under the stars. These are truly magical events.

Elsewhere were both more, and less formal events that filled out a chef- driven program: special dinners, such as that with Andre Chiang collaborating with local chef Seth James at Wills Domain; or the collaboration of Sydney chefs Ben Milgate and Elvis Abrahanowicz with international superstar Attala at the new cellar door and vineyard of winemaking legend Larry Cherubino.

An important role of Escape is to bring the stars of the Eastern states to the west, a tyranny of distance many find difficult to overcome in the course of their usual business lives, and they participate in many different events. This year they included Audi ambassador Andrew McConnell (Melbourne), Clayton Wells (Sydney and Singapore) Matt Stone (Yarra Valley), Paul Carmichael (Sydney) and Duncan Welgemoed (Adelaide). 

That’s just a drop in the ocean; nearly every winery restaurant in the region hosts an Escape event of some kind, and with the 50th anniversary of the district’s first grape plantings being celebrated this year, a number of important wine events were this year held in conjunction with the Escape, attracting names such as Jancis Robinson and James Halliday, two of the most important critics in the world.

It’s also an important opportunity for the chefs themselves to exchange ideas and inspiration, not to mention share a glass or two of local chardonnay.

“This is a beautiful exchange,” Atala told The West Australian. “Nowadays we like to share this spirit that there’s no competition between chefs.

“We became friends. There’s a kind of fraternity.”

And local chefs, along with their brigades, have the invaluable experience of opening their kitchens to interstate and overseas luminaries. It raises the bar.”

Importantly, after much speculation about Margaret River’s continued role as host to the Escape, fuelled by a change of government in WA earlier this year, Tourism WA Chairman Nathan Harding addressed the event’s opening party by tackling what he called ‘the elephant in the room that is the event’s future’.

He made the announcement.

“While I’m not at liberty to disclose the outcomes of talks with the event holder just yet, I can say you can look forward to a positive government announcement in the very near future.”

It’s fair to say a lot of people at the party breathed an enormous sigh of relief. The future of a unique – by world standards – event seems assured. For now, anyway.

*John Lethlean is a food and restaurants specialist writer with The Australian