Future Shapers: Food and Drink

If you’ve ever eaten great Thai food in Sydney, chances are you were at one of the Chat Thai group’s venues. Their eateries include three Chat Thai restaurants, Jarern Chai Grocer, Boon Cafe, Samosorn Thai Local Food Hall, plus catering through Boon Table. After returning from living overseas in 2010, Palisa Anderson and her husband Matt joined the family-run hospitality business. The group was founded in 1989 by Anderson’s late mother, Amy Chanta, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Opening new and varied venues across the city was the start of their work together – then, they went as far as Byron Bay, starting a farm to supply their burgeoning outposts with specialty, high-quality produce. Anderson is especially – and contagiously – passionate about the regenerative methods used at Boon Luck Farm, yielding subtropical treasures like Hawaiian pink guavas, winged glory beans and red Panama passionfruit. Situated over 30 acres, this is no backyard veggie patch; it’s an ambitious and principled operation, modelling a vision of true integration between ethical producers and the hospitality sector.

Follow Palisa Anderson here: @palisaanderson 

Through her many platforms like The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry podcast, her book New Voices on Food, and community-driven initiatives like Diversity in Food Media, Sydney-based journalist, editor and copywriter, Lee Tran Lam is challenging preconceived notions of what the food landscape is really all about while tackling head on the damaging stereotypes many of us accept of when we consider what diversity looks like. Ever humble, Lam’s accomplishments in showcasing and highlighting the stories behind culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse audiences and professionals alike have made her one of the most relevant changemakers in Australia's media landscape today. From creating networking platforms, open calls for submissions to her book, and interviewing world-renowned chefs, not just about their food but their entire cultural outlook, Lam strives to create a food scene that’s as inclusive as possible and to show that there’s more to food media than people might think. 

Follow Lee Tran Lam at @diversityinfoodmedia.au 

Most people come home from a boozy wedding with sore feet and a need for aspirin. Shaun Christie-David came home from one with a business plan to create a restaurant that would turn out to be the most talked-about restaurant in Australia. One of Christie-David's friends, Peter Jones-Best, had a hospitality background, and as they looked at the post-wedding crowd devouring Sri Lankan home cooking, the pair came to the realisation that they should start a restaurant serving this kind of food. Colombo Social opened its doors in November 2019 with premium Sri Lankan food and an even more important social conscience. Colombo Social employs a front-of-house team entirely made up of asylum seekers as a way to give people from marginalised communities employment opportunities. 

Global bar consultant and bartender Matt Whiley was already shaking and stirring up the Sydney bar scene when he brought a local outpost of his award-winning London bar, Scout, to the Dolphin Hotel in Surry Hills in 2019. Along with the bar's impressive pedigree, he brought his influential mixology style, with a focus on cocktails built from rescued fruits and locally sourced produce. Things got a lot more ambitious when he launched his latest offering. Created in partnership with restauranteur Maurice Terzini (Icebergs Dining Room & Bar; the Dolphin), Re- is the world's first no-waste cocktail bar in the up-and-coming South Eveleigh dining precinct. But the low-impact ethos doesn’t stop at the drink and food menus – everything including the decor and interiors is upcycled and sustainably sourced. At Re- you can sit at a bar made from recycled bottles and Tupperware, sip on a highball muddled with ‘ugly’ fruit and herbs, and gaze up at an artwork forged in charcoal from the recent bushfire disaster, and a stairwell built from recycled plastic bags.

You can follow Re- on Instagram at @_wearere and Matt at @matt_whiley

Fish don’t have noses, but if they did, Josh Niland would find a way to feature them in one of his dishes. Best known for his ‘nose to tail’ approach to seafood, Niland is the founder of three celebrated Sydney venues: intimate Paddington fine diner Saint Peter, boundary-breaking fishmongers the Fish Butchery next door, and upmarket chippie Charcoal Fish in Rose Bay. As one of Australia’s most highly regarded restaurateurs, Niland is not so much an enfant terrible as he is wise beyond his years – he may only be in his early 30s, but his name is already uttered amongst the ranks of the elder statesmen of Australia’s food scene. That is in no small part due to his unflinching seriousness about showcasing the parts of a fish that almost always end up in the bin; the eyes, blood, sperm and guts. Niland’s distinctive menus strive to break down the squeamish stigmas that might deter diners from trying dishes that feature unconventional elements, but he is also driven by a desire to educate about the wastefulness of Western food culture. His vision for a more sustainable, ethical, and waste-conscious dining scene in Australia has made him one of the most important changemakers in the food industry today.