Tracy Renkin, journalist

First published August 18 2018 in the TasWeekend magazine (The Hobart Mercury)

The Saffire Freycinet chef never says no to his guests. Never. Says. No. For one repeat guest, that means sending through a detailed compilation of exactly what dishes he wants served up for every single meal during his stay. No problem. A large Indian party of billionaires decide they want to sample a range of Australian pizzas between lunch and dinner and then only eat a few slices. No problem. A guest doesn’t like his eggs to touch his toast. No problem. A couple call up from their suite at 11am on a day the restaurant is filled to capacity and request a special room service by 6pm. They would like six different chicken dishes, rice, a variety of salads, a margarita pizza, a grilled fish and French onion soup. That one raised some eyebrows but the only thing the guest heard was “no problem”.

No guest eats the same dish twice. That’s another promise that comes with the price tag. Rooms at the luxury resort start at $2100 per night. Dining at the resort’s restaurant Palate is included.

Each and every Saffire guest is asked about their special dietary requirements and food preferences as part of their extensive reservation process. They walk in with absolute confidence the chef has a detailed file about what they can and can’t have, and do and don’t like to eat and drink. There’s the usual allergy restrictions like no dairy and gluten-free and vegan and pescetarian preferences but a mountain of others requests as well. On any given day there can be up to fifteen variations of the one menu. Given that the resort is over two hours to the nearest supermarket, it can be tricky for chefs to navigate that minefield of preferences and deliver to the expectation of the resort’s high-paying guests.

Perched in pristine wilderness, across from the famous east coast national park, Saffire Freycinet is Australia’s most awarded luxury property. It attracts well travelled, wealthy guests who are used to eating at the very best restaurants around the world. At Saffire they eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at the resort’s Palate restaurant. Eighty per cent of the guests are Australian; 12 per cent of them from Tasmania. And they must be doing something right because 40 per cent of guests come back again. Their expectations start out extremely high, and grow each time they return.

The new king of the kitchen is a humble and quietly spoken op-shopper and proud Tasmanian. Iain Todd, 35, is one of Tasmania’s gastronomic treasures who says he is well practised at scrimping and saving for luxuries like holidays. He’s a unique kind of executive chef who puts himself on dishes duty from time-to-time just to see what the guests are not eating.

His colleagues say he goes into a calming, trance-like state just before serving although Todd admits to being a bit of an arse back in the day.

“I have worked with some really horrible people in the past,” Todd says.

“In my younger days I think I was that way inclined as well. I just thought that was the way you behaved in a kitchen. There’s a bit of macho bravado proving yourself by being the Alpha male.”

Times have changed though, Todd’s proudly posted a video of himself on Instagram sliding along the kitchen floor on his bum as he scrubs the bottom of the stainless steal work benches in the Saffire kitchen. “I have learned the best way to get respect from your staff is to lead by example,” he says. “Earning respect is a far better tactic than fear.”

It is very unusual to see a kitchen that never says no to its guests, that is always able to serve what the guests want

His new boss and resort manager Justin King says it was Todd’s humility as a chef and his love and knowledge of all things Tasmanian that cemented him for the role. “To now have a homegrown, Tassie chef who knows half the food producers or has worked with them for years and knows the ins and outs of the local produce is really important,” King says. “He’s got these existing relationships that any other chef would take years to build.”

You may have sampled Todd’s cooking before because for nine years he ran his own restaurants in Hobart: firstly with Piccalilly in Battery Point and later with Ethos on Elizabeth Street. He’s also done time in the Mona kitchen. In his last cheffing gig before Saffire he was with Frogmore Creek.

King says he believes Saffire has the toughest kitchen in the country. “It is very unusual to see a kitchen that never says no to its guests, that is always able to serve what the guests want, and that is completely focused on what the guest is receiving,” he says. The chef has to use three special filters in every single dish: luxury, authenticity and surprise. “It has to be luxury, so in the case of food it has to be incredibly good produce; it has to have incredibly good providence and it has to be interesting. It has to be authentic, so the natural way for chef to meet that need is to source locally or it has to have a great story attached to it. And it has to be surprising. So if it’s a potato it needs to be done in a way that is surprising and unique or something they have not tried before.” He says guests compare Palette to some of the best restaurants in the world.

Todd and his partner Kristina Bull, a 2015 Master Chef contestant who has worked at Aloft, Ethos and Little Missy Patisserie, met in a tattoo parlour waiting room. Coincidentally, they were both there to have their favourite food inked on their skin. Todd walked out with a cluster of mushrooms on his ankle and Bull with a long, delicately detailed anchovy on the inside of her arm. “I asked her what she was getting and she told me she was a chef and that was it,” Todd says.

“We are always thinking about food. It’s what first connected us. We live it. We breathe it. We eat it. And I even dream about it.”

Before Todd starts his gruelling and “brutal” 12-hour day the pair enjoy a morning stroll along Sandpiper Beach with their 1-year-old daughter Fern, and Todd’s pound puppy Staffordshire Bull Terrier Addison, now 4.

Todd’s always been drawn to fresh produce that has been allowed the luxury of time to grow. “In Tasmanian things grow slowly because the weather is cold and that gives it time to actually develop flavour,” he says. He’s not worried about following trends in food, but instead cooks what feels right. “I’m just doing what I’m doing,” he says. “I used to worry about trends but I discovered that if I’m not cooking the type of food I’m interested in, then I lose interest pretty quickly.”

He has a plan to offer guests a half-day cooking class away from the luxury resort in a rustic kind of lean-to, bush kitchen with an open fire and views of The Hazards by the end of the year. “We might have a little pot boiling on the fire so it won’t be soufflé and tempered chocolate, it will be pasta and damper,” Todd says.

“It will be local seafood like sea urchin we catch right out the front of the hotel and wallaby tail cooked on coals.”

He’d like to recruit the help of a local indigenous person who would be keen to be involved in a project like that to help his guests get a sense of place. “It’s hard to be at the top of the game,” Todd says.

“But if I can tailor their experience to Tasmania and give them unique experiences then that will give them a better time and that would be pretty awesome.” Todd hopes the concept would become as iconic to Saffire as the white table clothed oyster experience, which has people fly in from places like New York and Oman just to experience.

While he has a budget for big ticket, luxury items like caviar and lobster, Todd says they are never the champion ingredients of the dish or even the most delicious thing on the plate.

Instead he uses his slow, locally grown and sourced produce — usually with an interesting tale to tell — and he moulds it into something exquisite. His boss calls it food art and says a good example is Todd’s roast beetroot and carrot flowered, smoked hollandaise. “None of those ingredients are foreign to us but it’s done in a way that is really creative: so surprising; it’s authentic: it’s all sourced locally; it’s luxurious: you know there’s a lot of work and care and respect that’s gone into the dish. I think the key part to any good kitchen is making a dish with so many movements seem effortless,” King says.

“It’s very easy to assume that incredible cuisine is just effortless and it is not. There is a lot that goes into it.”

For Todd, a fifth generation Tasmanian, impressing the guests is about constant evolution. “I really want to champion what we do well here,” he says. “I think Tasmania is an absolute paradise so the more people that can come and learn about that, the better.”