Turnip CheckIn #72 is Zackary Furst, head chef, Bar Liberty and winner of Good Food, Young Chef of the Year Award Victoria 2022.

Amenity waste; it’s a thing. We all chat about food waste in restaurants and cafes but what about amenity waste… Toilet paper, hand soaps, hand towels and/or dryers, do restaurant have access to  products that can help them cut down on amenity waste.

Baresop is a plant-based powder that, with the simple addition of water, makes a hand soap. It’s  delivered with a good looking bottle-to-keep in which to mix the foaming hand soap.

Last year, saw Megan Griffey and chef Jenna Abbruzzese, business partners and owners of Hawthorn cafe Our Kitchenette, make the permanent change from a cafe to retail and ready-made meals, online and in-store.

The pair have stocked the shop with fresh meals prepared by Jenna as well as beautiful tableware and ceramics, selected by Megan. The change has been embraced by  their regulars and broader community and their catering arm is going strong, so we checked in to see how they’re going as they reopened this week to kick off 2021.

Scarf Community partners with restaurants and other hospitality businesses to run Scarf Dinners and provide meaningful training, mentoring and paid work experience to their participants who are from refugee and migrant backgrounds. 

So what happened in this – their 10th year – when those restaurants and business had to shut due to COVID lockdowns? 

We checked in with Scarf Co-founder, Hannah Brennan to see how she’s going. Things are looking up and  there’s some magnificent merch available for purchase  to help support this dynamic organisation, thanks to a collaboration with Melbourne-based Ethiopian artist, Olana Janfa.

Victorian winemakers, Matt & Lentil Purbrick of Minimum Wines, have been in Italy for just about all of 2020,  making wines and getting their heads around the world we now find ourselves in.

We checked in to see how they’re going.

Michael and Christian Dal Zotto of Dal Zotto Wines in the King Valley are working through 2020 as best they can and slowly coming out the other side feeling strong.  The family-owned business and Australian Prosecco pioneers base the culture of their operation on their team and customers. So, while having to change the way they do business, they are also learning a helluva lot. One thing that hasn’t changed? Their people are everything. 

We checked in to see what’s happening.

Julian Hills,  chef and owner of award-winning Navi Restaurant in Yarraville is looking forward to welcoming diners back into his  small  dining room in November. 

Like everyone, he’s had a hard year trying to find balance, support his staff and find other revenue streams, including Navi Bakery that sold out every  weekend it was operating. 

We checked in to see how he’s going. 

Menu Community Kitchen Kind Edible Futures Hospo Check-in Turnip Table Clients Contact Mike Baker and Daniel Mason Henry Sugar Bar – Carlton North We checked

Menu Community Kitchen Kind Edible Futures Hospo Check-in Turnip Table Clients Contact Shane Delia Maha Group The first Hospo CheckIn was on March 21, the