Fraser Island Restaurant getting back to natives

Each day Kingfisher Bay Resort gardeners collect lemon myrtle, from a small native garden on Fraser Island, as indigenous Australians have done on the mainland for thousands of years. But whilst Aboriginal people traditionally used lemon myrtle, both in cuisine and as a healing plant, Seabelle Chefs serves theirs to resort guests with red tofu curry or as a lemon myrtle panna cotta.

Kingfisher Bay’s chefs have long led the bush tucker charge - using native ingredients such as bunya nuts and pepperberries to great effect in their signature restaurant Seabelle. They add wattle seeds to their jus and bush spices to couscous, garnish with nasturtiums, and serve barramundi baked in paperbark. Their homemade wattle seed, rosella and aniseed myrtle ice cream is a real crowd pleaser.

After a short absence, less emissions-intensive low-fat meats such as kangaroo, emu and crocodile steaks are also back on the menu at Seabelle – providing a healthy, environmentally friendly meal for diners.

Bush foods are sourced from the resort’s native garden and herb farm in season and from wholesalers specializing in Australian bush foods. The small, native garden also produces a selection of 16 herbs for Seabelle’s kitchen as well as native bush foods such as warrigal greens, lemon and aniseed myrtle. From the resort grounds sour currants, midjim berries, lilypillys, lemon tea tree, banksias and paperbark are used when in season.

According to Resort General Manager Ivor Davies Australians have, for a long time, resisted eating native tucker fuelled he thinks, in part, by memories of the Bush Tucker man serving live witchetty grubs up for dinner.

“Public perceptions are changing,” Ivor said. “The health benefits of native foods are becoming more widely known and consumers are more environmentally aware in choosing foods that are sustainable to produce – both have helped profile bush tucker.”

"As native foods become more fashionable and mainstream - who knows in the not so distant future, dishes like our salt and pepper crocodile and lemon myrtle panna cotta might become as ‘Australian’ as meat pies," he said.

Ivor says the resort has an even split between international and domestic guests and while there's always interest by both, the visitors from overseas are fascinated by native food.
Seabelle’s menu includes a glossary of bush tucker used in the dishes to give guests a clearer understanding of what they are sampling and gives a detailed description of the each dish.

“We’re more than happy to talk guests through the less familiar items on the menu and Resort Rangers run a special Bush Tucker Talk and Taste program to introduce guests to the native flavours prior to dining,” he said.

Adding to Seabelle’s native menu, Ivor’s team has introduced a bush tucker-inspired degustation menu, which contains native meat such as emu combined with high quality venison and the very best and freshest of Queensland’s famous seafood and Australian wines.

For Info on Seabelle