Sydney Truffle Popup with Larissa Takchi

Date: September 2019

Larissa was one of my closest friends whilst I was in the MasterChef house, and we’d talked about doing an event together so after a few months of planning we put together a Truffle Dining Experience. This was done at her family’s restaurant, The Wild Pear in Dural, Sydney.

The relationship with the truffles actually came off from when I was down at the Truffle Kerfuffle with Poh. I met the guys from the Truffle and Wine Co, who distribute their truffles worldwide and floated this idea of promoting truffles towards the end of the season. They were more than happy to assist and that’s where the base of the menu came from. We combined this with rich and decadent flavours which are used to celebrate the truffle. Truffle loves fat, chocolate, and other rich things so that’s exactly what we did. We aimed to put truffle into almost everything. My favourite dish of the night was actually a last minute dish which Larissa came up with, the sorrel ice-cream and cucumber tea, absolutely refreshing!

The menu included:
Taramasalata, salt and vinegar potato, trout roe
Smoked eel custard, roasted onion broth, puffed pork
Pheasant, Jerusalem artichoke, jus
Sorrel ice-cream (palate cleanser), cucumber tea
Fromage, pedro ximinez jelly, lavosh
Valrhona chocolate mousse, hazelnut ice-cream, prune jam

Heading to Sydney for this one, it gave me a really good opportunity to spend time in areas of this country I’m not so familiar with. Their family café is located in Dural, approximately 40 minutes north of Sydney, and was so happy that I got to visit this area. It was also a lot of fun to go out and visit some of the farmers in the area, as there is a big emphasis on farm to table in this area of Sydney. Was good fun to be back in the kitchen with Larry!