Page 29 - foodservice magazine Feb 2019
P. 29

DINING
29
When I first met Charlie Carrington in 2016, the story hook was irresistible: 22-year-old chef opens restaurant that changes cuisine every few months.
But two-and-a-half years later, neither Carrington nor his degustation-only restaurant in Melbourne, Atlas, are gimmicks. They’re both prescient examples of a new age of dining and a new generation that understands how to engage future diners.
Carrington travels three times a year for Atlas, each trip generating a whole new menu, based on a whole new cuisine for the team to learn. And not only does all this travelling bolster creativity, it’s good for business too. This revolving restaurant, as it were, solves one of the biggest problems bedevilling set-menu venues: return business.
At most fine-diners, guests rarely go back for round two after they’ve had their special-occasion meal, no matter how brilliant a 12-course extravaganza is. And food writers are no different, as we tend to ignore a restaurant after its first year. Atlas however gives customers a compelling reason to return every four months, and gives journos something to write about.
“Everyone is guilty of wanting to try the next best thing, which is great, but this concept gives people a big incentive to come back,” says Carrington. “And even if they didn’t enjoy it. They might have hated our Korean menu, but they'll come back and try the Peruvian menu. It's a get out of jail free card.”
Atlas even issues passports to diehards, which get a new country’s stamp for every menu. “A lot of people collect them, and have every [stamp],” says Carrington. “That's insane when you think about it, we've created a restaurant where people must go.”
In his early career, Carrington took ample advantage of the stagiaire, a French tradition that sees young chefs volunteer in kitchens to gain valuable experience. In today’s hyper-competitive industry, a month or two at a Michelin-Starred restaurant can make a real difference to your curriculum vitae.
But often overlooked are the creative benefits of said mentorship; it’s an opportunity to open one’s mind to something totally new. “Honestly, it's career defining,” says Carrington. “I would say it's one of the most important practices for anyone. Working internationally, going and meeting all these new people, it just gives you experience you wouldn't get otherwise.”
After spending eight months travelling and working in top- shelf establishments in Antwerp, San Francisco and Mexico City, Carrington wanted to institutionalise the practice. So, he hit on
a wild concept: to open a restaurant that operates as a kind of culinary travel journal, a place whose degustation menu constantly changes to reflect the countries where he’d cooked and eaten. Thus Atlas began.
It kicked off with a Vietnamese tasting menu inspired by his visit to the hills of Sapa. Four months in, Atlas paused for two weeks while Carrington visited Israel to research a suite of new recipes
for his second menu. Since then, the restaurant has cycled through eight ‘destinations’, closing 2018 with Brazilian, and opening the new year with Thai, which is in residence from January 9 to May
12. “The trips are all about getting inspired,” he says. “I designed the business in a way where I could go overseas every four months and then to come back and teach myself something with the help of my whole team. I feel like we're teaching ourselves to cook a style of food, but then our customers or our guests are trying it, and then they're learning something too.”


































































































   27   28   29   30   31