Jelarah, Wompoo pigeon, migrating lorikeet, maratha, swamp turtles, green ants. These are the tastes of Kowanyama, West Cape York. Nyoka Hrabinsky fondly remembers the bushtucker in the region where she grew up, a part of the country whose name translates to ‘the Place of Many Waters’.
Nyoka and her husband Laszio Hrabinsky co-own the Lillipad Café in the heart of Glebe on Glebe Point Road. Laszio, originally a Sydneysider, moved to Cairns in 2006. Soon after the move, he began working at the Lillipad Café Cairns, a spot known for its welcoming community atmosphere, generous portions and vegetarian-friendly fare. Somewhere along the way, a tropical love story brewed: Nyoka and Laszio met whilst studying horticulture at TAFE. Laszio, having worked on and off at the Lillipad in Cairns until late 2019, wanted to honour the original Lillipad when the pair moved to Sydney. They opened an offshoot, but with a twist. “The menu is quite similar to the Cairns location,” says Laszio. “But we added our personal touch and changed some things – we added flavours to reflect and represent Nyoka’s Indigenous heritage”.
Originally from the Yidinji clan of the Yarrabah Nation near Cairns, Nyoka spent many years living further north in Kowanyama, speaking Kokoberra, before moving to Cairns and then Sydney. When a bout of culinary homesickness hits, she calls her parents, who tell her stories of what they’ve been catching and cooking. “When you hunt traditionally, you only eat what’s in season, and only to feed the family. It’s not greedy – not take, take, take. You only take what you need and that’s it.”
“The menu is quite similar to the Cairns location,” says Laszio. “But we added our personal touch and changed some things – we added flavours to reflect and represent Nyoka’s Indigenous heritage”.
While Laszio has long-standing kitchen and hospitality experience, Nyoka has been working towards her qualifications as an ethnobotanist. Back in Queensland she worked under Gerry Turpin, Australia’s first formally trained Indigenous ethnobotanist.
Native Australian ingredients have sustained Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for countless generations. More recently some of these ingredients have found boutique popularity, particularly at exclusive, high-end venues across the country and around the world. Waterfront Aria’s summer tasting menu pairs Davidson plum with hibiscus; Chi by Lotus, the group’s latest outpost in Barangaroo, features deep-fried native saltbush on its menu; Sydney rock oysters are served with sake and pepperberry at Chippendale’s Ester.
“I think it’s a good thing that there’s more interest [in native ingredients], and that it’s more of a trend,” says Nyoka. “We live on this country, we should be eating the foods from here as well. I think it shows respect to the people from this land. But it would be great to see it accessible to everyone … We want to show that you don’t have to go to a fancy restaurant or pay a lot to eat Indigenous food. And I guess we’re maybe the first [in Sydney] in that movement of including it on a café menu. We want to normalise it and make it part of the emerging mainstream culture.”
At Lillipad Café, alongside a menu of familiar and much-loved café classics, you’ll find ingredients like pepperberry, lemon myrtle, wattleseed and saltbush.
"We want to show that you don’t have to go to a fancy restaurant or pay a lot to eat Indigenous food. And I guess we’re maybe the first [in Sydney] in that movement of including it on a café menu."
Nyoka’s favourite dish is the kangaroo burger (gangarru burger): “It took us three months to get the flavours right. I think it tastes great. We actually brought out the burger as a dedication to my people, as a remembrance for them, [in response to] Invasion Day.” Nyoka notes that while she didn’t actually grow up eating kangaroo herself – though she did grow up eating wallaby – at the café, the pair are limited to using ingredients available on a commercial basis.
“I didn’t grow up eating the majority of the [native ingredients] on the menu because they’re not from where I’m from, except for the Davidson plum … we actually call it sour plum, and it’s one of the heartiest rainforest trees. It’s not only bushtucker for us, but the tree itself is also used as a hunting tool. We use the wood to make spears”.
As for the ingredients that do feature on the menu, they’re “based on what’s [available] wholesale. Where I’m from, in the rainforest, some species take 20 years to mature, like native tamarind, jelarah, or the maratha ... Also, a lot of the rainforest species are toxic. You need to process it in a certain way to make it edible.”
Under the guidance of respected Redfern elder Aunty Beryl Van Oploo of the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) Nyoka and Laszio were able to make considered decisions on how best to use the ingredients, whose flavours can be subtle if they’re not teased out with precision. “She was coming in almost every day at one point, just working with us”.
The Lillipad has also received strong support from the vegan community as Laszio and Nyoka have made a remarkable effort to provide either a vegetarian or vegan version of nearly every item on the menu. Laszio, having followed some form of a plant-based diet on and off for at least 20 years, knows what it’s like to walk away from a vegan meal feeling underwhelmed. “We wanted this to be a place where both vegan and non-vegan people can eat together, and eat the same thing. You can both have the eggs benedict; you don’t need to just go have a salad.”
For a plant-based version of the Kangaroo burger, the Native Flora burger is a popular menu item. Both feature a house-made patty with saltbush, wattleseed, and pepperleaf, served with a bush tomato relish and finger lime mayonnaise.As for the all-day breakfast menu, plant-based sausages, bacon, cheese and yoghurt can accompany any of your selections.
Supplying the vegan ‘sausages’ and ‘bacon’ is popular Newtown business owner Suzie Spoon, Laszio’s long-term friend and occasional professional collaborator. If you dig deep enough into the dusty archives of YouTube, you can find a vegan cooking show that they co-hosted on community TV circa 2002 called Cooking Cleverly with Beverly.
An innovative inclusion in the vegan substitutes are the limited serves of house-made vegan “poached eggs”. “That took us a very long time to try and replicate – it took 3 months of trial and error to perfect. We ate a lot of…. crap vegan eggs”.
Nyoka and Laszio’s dedication to supporting the community extends to their thoughtful sourcing of local produce and partnerships with local suppliers. The bread is supplied by the Bread and Butter Project, a social enterprise whose profits support asylum seekers and refugees. They stock Marrickville’s Serendipity Ice Cream’s vegan ice cream, Parker’s organic drinks, Brooklyn Boy Bagels, and dairy milk from Riverina Dairy. Perhaps the most grassroots produce on the premises is Nyoka’s dad’s organic honey, sold by the jar. “Nyoka’s dad keeps his own bees … [he] loves being out there with [them]”. “We want this to be a community space. Everyone is safe here, there’s no judgement. You can be anybody and walk in … you don’t have to be a certain trend”. The Lillipad is clearly sowing some bright seeds of far North Queensland comfort in the heart of Sydney.