Indigenous chefs-in-training plate up the flavours of Kakadu at Cooinda Lodge
The wet season air is thick and heavy in the heart of Kakadu National Park, and the grass is so vibrant it looks like someone has drawn it into the landscape with a green highlighter.
The World Heritage-listed site is known for its breathtaking scenery and unique wildlife, but few may be aware that the park is also a pantry full of native food.
"Our red apples here and white apples are a good example," Murumburr man Travis Vigona says.
"We normally just eat them off the tree."
Murumburr man Travis Vigona works at Mimi's Restaurant. (ABC Alice Springs: Victoria Ellis)
Travis grew up at remote Patonga outstation in Kakadu, but most days he works in Mimi's Restaurant at Cooinda Lodge where he is set to start an apprenticeship in commercial cookery.
"I love being around food, and just the different cultures it brings out — not just the taste," he says.
Kakadu National Park is world heritage listed. (ABC Alice Springs: Victoria Ellis)
'Explosion' of flavours
Mimi's Restaurant serves up the flavours of Kakadu using native and locally sourced ingredients to create its dishes.
Krystle Dalton is also from the Murumburr clan in Kakadu and will finish her apprenticeship at the restaurant this year.
Krystle Dalton is in the final year of her apprenticeship at Mimi's. (Supplied: Krystle Dalton)
"We were wrapping kangaroo and barramundi in prosciutto, and it was beautiful," she says.
"You're getting a white man ingredient putting it with an Indigenous one, and it just absolutely blows your mind.
"In your mouth, it's like an explosion."
Krystle Dalton enjoys sharing tastes from her home with visitors to Cooinda Lodge.
"The first thing [tourists] ask is, 'What does duck taste like?'' — so now on the tour, we can turn around and go, 'Hey, look, that's a whistle duck. That is one of our loveliest native foods here,'" she says.
"You can get that in Mimi's Restaurant, and you can try the duck you're looking at right now."
Krystle Dalton says using native ingredients with western cooking techniques creates delicious flavours. (ABC Alice Springs: Victoria Ellis)
'Totally underrated' ingredients
Other native ingredients that make up the menu at Mimi's include lily stems and bulbs, native lemon grass, melaleuca or paperbark leaves, the native currant, the bush tomato, salt bush, native thyme, native river mint, finger limes, the Illawarra plum, and the Kakadu plum.
The Kakadu Plum is found across northern Australia. (ABC Kimberley: Vanessa Mills)
Executive chef Philip Foote says designing dishes using these "totally underrated" ingredients is a process of trial, error, and collaboration with the local people.
"For example, melaleuca, which is one of the leaves of the local trees … we smoke with them a lot, and the locals have done this for thousands of years and it's part of their traditional flavours and tastes," he says.
"We use that a lot, trying to represent the local, Indigenous flavours as much as we can in a commercial kitchen."
Philip Foote is Mimi's Restraunt's executive chef. (ABC Alice Springs: Victoria Ellis)
Philip hopes to boost the profile of the bush foods, but is also passionate about supporting his apprentices, Travis and Krystle.
"That's one of the reasons why this place [Cooinda Lodge] was established — to integrate good quality skills into young people and young locals, so it's absolutely gold having them here," he says.
A chocolate and wattleseed cremeaux served at Mimi's Restaurant. (ABC Alice Springs: Victoria Ellis)
What's next?
For Travis, the restaurant is a vessel for sharing culture.
Krystle Dalton hopes to become the head chef at Cooinda Lodge one day. (Supplied: Krystle Dalton)
"You get to learn not just from chefs, but people that constantly come in and out, so they could be from other countries," he says.
"So it's always something new … learning off one another in the kitchen, not always just about food, but about everything.
"The idea was to learn as much as I can, from wherever I can … if I could move around for a bit and learn some more skills I'd be happy even coming back here and becoming a chef.
"If not, maybe get a taste of city life for a bit, see how that goes."
Krystle's end goal is more defined.
"My house is out bush here, so my dream is to be the head chef here at Cooinda Lodge," she says.
