CORNERING THE MARKET

“My style of cooking is based on a passion for where the ingredients come from and valuing the farmers who grow them,” says Napier Quarter chef Eileen Horsnell. “The dishes on our menu are driven by what my suppliers are delivering to the kitchen door, not from an idea I have in my head about what I might like to cook.”

The recipes Horsnell has shared for this issue are all about what’s coming through the door of Napier Quarter in spring. All the dishes have appeared (or will) on the menu at the tiny bistro in Melbourne’s Fitzroy, where she returned as head chef earlier this year.

“I moved down from Brisbane to help open Napier Quarter in 2016 and stayed for six months. My philosophy has always been about connecting directly with local farmers, but when I first moved to Melbourne I had none of those connections,” she says. “It made it very hard to cook the food I wanted to.”

Horsnell went on to work with Sean Quade at avant-garde South Melbourne fine-diner Lûmé (she had worked for him previously at Biota in Bowral, NSW), but found fine dining unsustainable in the long term. So she returned to Napier Quarter, where she could highlight and finesse “the beauty of simplicity”.

“I like to source my ingredients directly from farmers and make things from scratch,” she says. “I like making bread, pickles, jams and pasta, knowing where all the things I’m cooking with come from.”

There’s a lot of making from scratch with the dishes here and, in line with the restaurant’s motto “quality, community, artisan”, they’re designed to be shared.

“I’d start with the rye toast and pickled mussels, then follow with the squid-ink pasta served on its own, perhaps with a simple green salad,” she says. “Then I’d serve the saltbush lamb and broad-bean tagliatelle together and finish with the panna cotta, but put the dessert