Showing off and being boastful arent always the best of manners – but for the regions chefs – its a reason to celebrate with the worlds leading culinary masters at the Margaret River Gourmet Escape food festival.
In its eighth year, some of the regions best join the worlds most acclaimed chefs to showcase produce from around the South West.
Cape Lodge executive chef Tony Howell will be helping out with an event at Fraser Gallop, then on Saturday he will team up with Australian chef Luke Mangan for a dinner celebrating WA produce at Cape Lodge.
“I am really looking forward to cooking with Luke on Saturday night he is a great guy, and of course we have the wind up party on Sunday and Ill be looking after all the chefs at Cape Lodge as well,” he said.
If you are lucky enough to have scored a ticket to Cape on a Plate expect to tuck into plenty of local delicacies such as dhufish, venison, kangaroo and more.
“We are very lucky to be able to do this and as a chef we are spoiled,” he said.
“It is always a great thing to be able to showcase this stuff because not many chefs in the world get to do this or have produce like this.
“You walk around with a puffed chest, you are like a owner of the area, you respect it and you teach your children to respect it and you become quite proud of the area.
“Weeks like this really showcase how special the area is and how lucky we are, it makes you say that old saying, stop and smell the roses”
For Howell it has already been an exciting week after he had a surprise visit from the Bachelors Honey Badger who wanted to hang out for a couple of days.
Howell has also been assisting international superstar Curtis Stone who is in the region filming a new television series for the US.
“Stone came out to my place and raced motorbikes with my son, I took him surfing and we were using the local products from this area for his show in America,” he said.
“His show will showcase WA to America, it is a highly watched program there which is great for WA, great for the chefs here and also great for the area.”
Kayleigh and George Cooper at this year's Margaret River Gourmet Escape.
For Dunsborough chef Geroge Cooper he will get to live out a culinary dream and cook alongside Tim from Heston Blumenthals restaurant and Ashley Palmer-Watts.
Cooper said their styles were similar and they would be creating a secret menu to invoke nostalgia and childhood memories through a food experience.
“I am really surprised they have never matched us before, we got into the kitchen yesterday and it just worked it was like we had been working together for years,” he said.
This story Regions chefs in the spotlight at Gourmet Escape first appeared on Busselton-Dunsborough Mail.
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