Prominent settler chefs and growers have embraced native ingredients in recent years, but the First Peoples who discovered them remain under-represented and under-compensated. Over a decade ago, before the hype and Chef’s Table, Parbin-ata Dr Carolyn Briggs AM—Boon Wurrung senior elder and the chairperson and founder of the Boon Wurrung Foundation—was paving the way with her Federation Square restaurant Tjanabi, which is reborn for RISING.
Tjanabi’s ethnographic conceptual, fine dining experience sees Briggs and her guests come together to yarn and reminisce as they lead a multi-course dinner. You’re invited to break bread with them and hear their stories as told through food.
Over four courses, traverse the past and future of First Peoples food culture, using techniques and flavours from the country’s south east. Think clay baking; native raw seafood, grains, fruits and vegetables; pre-domesticated super foods; and tactile demonstrations; all in a room set with all-organic arrangements by florist Shahn Stewart (Yorta Yorta) of Alchemy Orange.
Tjanabi presents a sustainable future by highlighting what’s been here all along, for tens of thousands of years.
