Blue Mountains Wine Bar Frankie & Mo's Launches Chef Residency
In the two years since father-and-son winemaking duo Bob and Tom Colman opened Blackheath wine bar Frankie & Mo’s, Tom noticed a worrying phenomenon in their tight-knit hospo community: recruiting new chefs could take up to a year.
So when Frankie & Mo’s head chef Em Evans (ex-Golden Gully) announced she was moving on, Tom decided to take a different tack.
“It’s ridiculously hard to get chefs anywhere regionally,” he tells Broadsheet. “So we decided to offer chef residencies of between four and eight weeks.”
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Modelled on programs offered by European restaurants like Pimpant in southern France, and Paris’s Chop Chop Love and Early June, the Blackheath residency is open to chefs looking to head up a kitchen; work with local, sustainable produce; and enjoy a change of pace from busy city life for a while.
“I think the program could make a lot of sense for people. You’re an up-and-coming chef, or you’ve been a sous and you want to do your own thing. If you come to us, you can run your own kitchen and trial what it’s like to live regionally. If you can find the work, regional is better value life-wise – rent is cheaper, you’re in touch with nature, you have more time.”
The idea is to create a platform for chefs to express their personality. The Frankie & Mo’s team – Tom, his partner Jessica Liske and his dad – will connect them with the local growers, but otherwise chefs will have carte blanche with the menu. And accommodation can be part of the package, too.
Initially, they advertised for a chef – and received hundreds of applications, many from people overseas looking for a visa. But hiring someone he’d only met in a video chat was too risky.
“We’re not a traditional place. The chef is in front of people all the time, and it requires a certain personality. We need to be able to hang out with that person to make sure they would do well in that environment.”
In the end, the team reached out to industry friends to find their first chef in the program: Leila Khazma of Where’s Nick and P&V Paddington begins her six-week residency on Thursday June 26.
Khazma is also one half of Lebanese Cherry Pie, the pop-up and events business billed as “two femmes, any kitchen”. Her Frankie & Mo’s menu is inspired by her Egyptian and Lebanese roots.
“I’m so excited,” she says. “It fits perfectly into my schedule at the moment, cos I’m freelancing and studying, and committing to a full-time chef gig is a bit difficult. And I miss the romance of cooking in a wine bar, so it all lined up.”
She’s planning on leaning into the outdoorsy lifestyle in her out-of-kitchen hours, bushwalking and swimming before taking to the tiny kitchen to serve up snacks like confit leek crostini and cured mackerel in “very good oil”, followed by larger plates of brothy stewed chickpeas; confit chicken and moghrabieh, a cinnamon-scented Lebanese and Palestinian pearl cous cous dish; and old-school desserts. Her menu will change every two weeks.
“My food inspired by memory and things I’ve grown up eating. Keeping things really seasonal and paying homage to the whole animal: using bones for stock, using offcuts, offal – I love cooking with tripe and tongue and neck. I want to make sure everything’s really nourishing.”
So far there’s been plenty of interest in the program, and Colman is trying to line up chefs at least six months in advance.
“Hospitality is great and rewarding, but I think people are really burnt out. We’re trying to create balance. People deserve to have a better life in the industry, and we want to show people that you can achieve your career goals and not be in the city.”
To apply for Frankie & Mo’s chef residency program, send the venue an Instagram DM.
Additional reporting by Grace MacKenzie.
