In November, we set out to explore regional Australia — not as a destination, but as a way of working.
Across farms, markets, and kitchens, we met people who shape their craft around the land.
There’s a moment in the kitchen at Mineral Springs Hotel when the story of a dish begins long before the plate.
It starts with herbs — picked that morning, still alive by the time they arrive. Not preserved. Not processed. Just gathered, carried, and passed hand to hand.
“All our herbs… well, a good portion of them,” says Head Chef Suthat Sathittanakun, “comes from a guy and he picks it that morning. By the time we get it, it’s real. It’s beautiful.”
This is what cooking looks like when the distance between the land and the table is measured in minutes, not miles.
A Career That Found Its Place
Suthat began cooking more than twenty years ago, without a grand plan. “Didn’t know what else to do,” he laughs. But over time, something shifted. As his cooking evolved, so did his relationship with ingredients — moving steadily toward seasonality, locality, and the people who grow the food.
That curiosity eventually drew him out of the city and into regional Victoria, where proximity changes everything.
First Names, Not Supply Chains
Here, Suthat knows his growers the way you’d know neighbours.
The chickens. The ducks. The lambs, pigs, cows. The vegetables and herbs. Each supplier known by name, not by invoice. It’s a closeness that simply doesn’t exist in most major cities — and one that shapes how food is cooked and served.
“There’s an advantage,” he says, “in presenting food that’s truly local and seasonal.”
Not performatively local. Not vaguely sourced. But specific, traceable, and grounded in real relationships.
Letting Ingredients Speak
At Mineral Springs Hotel, the menu doesn’t hide its origins. Ingredients are given prominence — named, located, acknowledged. When guests read, they can see exactly where their food comes from and why it matters.
It’s a quiet form of transparency. A reminder that good food doesn’t need excess. It needs clarity.
On an upcoming menu, Suthat describes a simple vegetable dish:
Artichokes from his own backyard. Potatoes from Dean. Snow peas from Mount Franklin. A sauce made with wild garlic growing nearby in the creek.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he laughs.
It’s humble. It’s seasonal. And it’s exactly the kind of cooking that excites him — not because it’s complex, but because it’s alive with place.
Why Regional Matters
In regional Australia, you don’t have to imagine what’s happening on the farm — you can feel it. You smell the rain before it falls. You watch the garden change. You understand the seasons not as ideas, but as lived experience.
“Every day you know what’s happening out there,” Suthat says. “You can feel it. You can smell it. You can see it.”
At Fig & Bloom, we’re drawn to this way of working — where craft is shaped by proximity, relationships, and deep respect for nature’s rhythms. Where beauty comes from attention, not excess.
Cooking, like growing, is at its best when it’s close to the land.
And in places like Mineral Springs Hotel, that closeness is not just a philosophy — it’s the foundation of every plate.
