The Farmers Behind the Menu

Wanguri Farm — the lamb people

Sam and Robyn Hartley run Dorper lamb on 400 hectares of saltbush country past Sedan. The saltbush does the seasoning — the animals graze it their whole lives and arrive pre-salted in a way no dry brine can imitate. We take whole carcasses, age them ourselves, and the Hartsleys come down twice a year to eat what their paddock became. That accountability loop is the entire business model.

The garden we did not build

Our herbs, leaves and half the vegetables come from a two-acre market garden in the Hills run by a former pastry chef named Ilse who walked out of a commercial kitchen seven years ago and now grows forty-two varieties. She sends a harvest list every Sunday night; the menu on Monday is written around it. We do not tell her what to grow. She tells us what the season is.

Coffin Bay and the oyster run

Angasi and Pacific oysters land from the Eyre Peninsula on Tuesday and Friday mornings, harvested to order on a nine-hour freight run. The grower holds the lease on the same beds his family has farmed since the eighties, and he prices on tides, not markets — which is why oysters move on and off the menu mid-week.

The honey from our own roof

Twenty storeys above the dining room, four hives produce around ninety kilograms of honey a year. It flavours the sourdough, glazes the carrots and finishes the wattleseed panna cotta. Urban rooftop honey sounds like marketing until you taste it next to commercial stuff — the flowers on North Terrace are doing real work.

Why names are on the menu

We print farm names because they create consequence. If the Hartleys' lamb is ever below standard, the name on the menu is the name that explains it. Producers know this and we know it, which is why the standard has never dropped. Ask your server who grew anything on the plate — they will know.