“Tell you what, my truck was pulling some big kilometres,” says Elijah Holland with no small amount of exaggeration.
As a forager for noma Australia (watch the inside story of the restaurant's Australian pop-up ), Holland covered some serious ground in the search for wild ingredients. Noma might have been based in Sydney’s Barangaroo precinct, but its shopping trolley featured contributions from around New South Wales and across the country.
For Holland, this meant travelling as far as the Blue and Snowy Mountains as well as up and down the coast to gather herbs, seaweeds, plants and fruits for the Noma menu. And just in case errands such as driving four hours from Sydney to Cooma and back to pick wild plums weren’t demanding enough, he’d then join the kitchen’s brigade for service. In short, Holland was a busy boy during Noma Australia’s 10-week season. And he loved it.
“It was a dream of a lifetime to work with René,” says Holland. “I thought it was going to be daunting, but he’s an absolute legend. A top bloke. He just treated me like a mate.”
Redzepi was similarly impressed with the 23-year-old’s work ethic and knowledge. “He’s so eager,” says Redzepi. "He wants to know every nook and cranny of Sydney and the surroundings. How you eat it, how you cook it, what you do with it. That’s the DNA that runs through all of us, and when you see that in a guy here, you think, get him on board, we need him. Knowing what grows around you is the first step in making you a chef of your place.”
Working with one of the world’s most influential chefs probably wasn’t on Holland’s mind growing up on Sydney’s northern beaches. Instead, he was busy absorbing knowledge from his botanist parents and grandparents about plants both native and introduced. Permaculture and horticulture were part of his day-to-day and today, he’s a part-owner in three farms across the state. After working at Jonah’s and Aria, he opened The Powder Keg in 2014 but resigned after being invited to join the Noma Australia team. Post-Noma, he’s keeping busy running Natures Pick, a business that supplies seasonal wild ingredients to restaurants, and catering private events. While Redzepi might have hired him for his knowledge, Holland says the experience was a two-way street.
Source: SBS Food
“My business has gone off the charts,” says Holland. “René really helped me realise that I could run this business full-time. But what he really did was open my eyes to the possibilities of everything. I’ve just been doing so much more and experiencing more and loving it.”
See , the inside story of the challenges of opening the award-winning restaurant in Australia.
