By ANEEKA SIMONIS
RENOWNED chef Jake Kellie has worked in kitchens around the world.
From cooking in Heston Blumenthal’s esteemed UK restaurant The Fat Duck to shaking up the inner Melbourne food scene at Northcote’s quirky Estelle Bistro, the young chef has made an international name for himself.
Now, the highly sought-after 26-year-old chef prodigy has taken on a new role – head chef at the newly opened Pakenham cafe and restaurant, The Lakeside Mill.
Asked why the widely praised young gun – named Electrolux Australian Young Chef 2015 and finalist for The Age Young Chef of the Year 2015 – decided to move out south to Pakenham, he had one explanation.
“It’s about the food philosophy,” Jake explained.
“We source great local produce and transform it into a way that the diner is having an experience with the producers in the area.”
He recalled the “buzz” he had watching potato growers work the field at the Jones potato growers in Warragul during the months he spent carefully putting together ‘The Mill’s’ unique menu prior to their mid-February opening.
“Watching a 60-year-old man plough the field in the heat … I get a real buzz off seeing that side of it,” he said, making additional mentions to a personal visit to supplier Cannibal Creek Bakehouse in Garfield.
Jake – who has also traded in his slick city lifestyle for an apartment in town – heads a team of 10 chefs working around the clock for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Their task: changing the face and feel of dining in the region.
The Mill’s ambitious menu is largely made up of small share plates, putting the focus on sharing a variety of flavours in an increasingly socially interactive setting with the $70, five-course-plus-snacks tasting menu serving as the venue’s major attraction.
“The menu took about two months together. It’s designed to be shared. It’s not about having an entre, main and dessert and leaving. It’s about getting lots of small things to share and interact over,” Jake said.
Some of the star-studded celebrity chefs to have already had a taste of Pakenham latest food sensation include Guy Grossi of Grossi Florentino in the CBD.
He came and wished the high-flying chef well on one of the opening nights while famed French chef Philippe Mouchel and Scott Pickett made the trip out to the south-east.
Jake, who grew up on the NSW Central Coast, found his passion for food in the classroom from the age of 15.
But his journey to the top in the food industry was not exactly clear – or at least at first.
During his high school years, Jake was a talented rugby player.
He trained four times a week, even representing the Manly Sea Eagles for a time.
But it was also during this time he had equally thrown himself into cooking – and it won out.
It paid off for the chef, completing his apprenticeship at ARIA in Sydney and going on to work at international renowned restaurants including the 3 Michelin Star Fat Duck restaurant in Bray and The Ledbury in Notting Hill.
Closer to home, Jake admitted one of his greatest achievements included running his own kitchen at 23 years of age.
“It was challenging because I was quite young and had a number of different, often older, people working for me,” he said of his time at The Commoner in Fitzroy.
Of his time working in overseas gastronomies, Jake said the best lesson he learnt was the value of consistency.
“When I worked at the Fat Duck I was there for a month. It was unpaid and I had just 1200 UK pounds for the time. It was hard, and I had to be quite strict on money.
“I learnt the key to any success is consistency.”
Jake’s passion to have locals experience the flavours of their own region was a dream first thought up by The Lakeside Mill’s owner, Casey Brent Summerville.
The young achiever from Gembrook first dreamed up the idea of bringing a slice of the inner-city dining scene to the outer suburbs in 2014.
The 29-year-old, who made fast friends with Jake through the inner Melbourne food scene, hopes their ‘risky’ move will be the start of something special.
“We are trying to do something that hasn’t been done in this area. We are trying to give people the opportunity to do something outside of the city that they can look back and say it was an amazing experience from start to finish,” Casey said.
“We are putting the focus back on quality good food and supporting the local producers.”
The menu is expected to change with the seasons, but at the moment dishes including local potatoes cooked in Jersey milk, Mt. Martha mussels in roasted-meat broth and O’Connor’s beef steak with beetroot, roasted kaiser and smoked marrow are among the top favourites.
