Babyface Kitchen chef Andy Burns raised some eyebrows when he started serving unconventional “natural” wine at his Keira Street eatery last year.
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But 12 months on, he says the adventurous move is paying off and helping to put Wollongong’s dining scene on the map.
“People can have a love-hate relationship with new things, but we’ve really stuck to our guns and it’s paying off,” Mr Burns said.
Since mid-2017, the restaurant has been serving mostly natural wine, eschewing the usual list of well-known grapes and styles for something also known as “minimal intervention wine”.
As part of a push to get diners out of their comfort zones, Babyface has held several “takeover dinners” where guest sommeliers from top restaurants add their own flavour to Mr Burns’ produce driven, Japanese-inspired menu.
This week, an event being held on Thursday night will be more casual than previous wine tastings, in an effort to make it appealing to a wider audience.
The owners of Sydney wine website, DRNKS, Joel Amos will be taking over the bar, serving not only wine, but cocktails and other beverages.
“His website sells organic, biodynamic, natural wine – but he also sells some spirits and beers and cider,” Mr Burns said.
“We like what he does because he’s putting this stuff, that you cannot get anywhere else, into people’s houses.
“Our menu on the night will be snacks and small plates… the idea being that you can come in and have as little or as much as you like.”
“We hope these dinners get people in and get people talking to producers and winemakers, which helps them to enjoy it a bit more and have a bit of fun.”
With more event-style dinners in the works, Mr Burns hopes to make adventurous dining “a bit more normal in Wollongong, like it is in Sydney and Melbourne”.
“The winemakers we have coming here include two-hat and one-hat restaurants in the cities, so we’re really lucky to get them here,” he said.
“We’re proud that they want to come and do collaborations – it’s about being taken seriously by Sydney media and making Wollongong a serious food destination.”
“We want to put it on the map as somewhere you can come down and stay for the weekend and go to a few different restaurants and bars that are really taking themselves and their food and booze seriously.”