Lifestyle

'A bigger responsibility': why sustainable seafood is close to Ben Shewry's heart


He’s only 42 but Ben Shewry has seen changes in the oceans during his lifetime.

The chef-owner of Melbourne’s acclaimed Attica restaurant grew up in Taranaki, on the west coast of the north island of New Zealand. As a child he would spend his days swimming and surfing, and his family would often catch shellfish for their meals.

These days the stocks aren’t as plentiful. “Because of greed, overfishing and overtaking of the shellfish, the stocks in the particular area where I grew up are now so low that sea urchins have replaced them. There’s an imbalance in the ecosystem in that area – and it’s unlikely that they will ever return.”

Shewry has an abiding respect for the sea, not least because he almost drowned as a child. While gathering mussels, he was swept off the rocks and pulled under by waves. Fortunately his father swam out and saved him but Shewry says the incident changed his perspective on the ocean forever. “You realise it’s such a powerful force and it needs to be treated with utmost respect. That really includes what I do as a cook … trying to do as little damage as possible in the restaurant with ingredients we use based around that visceral experience of learning how powerful this thing is but also how fragile it is.”

This is one of the reasons he agreed to become the ambassador of the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s recently announced Good Fish project, which sees top chefs pledge to serve only sustainable seafood in their restaurants.

“If you’re an environmentally minded food lover, then you really need to consider your choices. Shellfish in particular has always been something that has been close to my heart because it’s close to the ocean, it’s something that is fast growing and it can be farmed in a sustainable manner – and it’s delicious.”

Shewry is one of our best chefs with Attica currently ranked at 20 on the list of the World’s Best Restaurants, the highest in the country. Each dish is a sensory delight but there’s more to it. The sustainability and the provenance of the ingredients are all carefully considered by Shewry before a dish appears on his menu.

It was something he started to consider when Attica first appeared on the World’s Best list almost a decade ago. “I basically decided around that time that if I didn’t have a menu that was environmentally friendly or [environmentally] sound as much as it could be – what I call a clean menu – then I was going to be adding to this problem in a significant way. Because if I have an overfished species on my menu, then people are also going to choose that species of fish to eat at home [and] they are going to choose that fish to eat in a restaurant. There’s a bigger responsibility than one might think.”

When it comes to sustainable seafood, seaweed, blue mussels, marron and blood cockles all top Shewry’s list at the moment. He’s also experimenting with pearl meat, the abductor muscle of the pinctada maxima oyster which is a byproduct of the pearling industry in Broome. “It’s a cross between a scallop and abalone in its flesh,” he says. “It’s pretty rare and it’s really delicious and it’s ecologically friendly.”

Crab also gets a mention. “In Australia we have, without any argument, the greatest crabs in the world, the sweetest and the most delicious. And quite a few of those crabs are on the green list of the Good Fish project guide.”

His interest in sustainable ingredients has led him to some, erm, interesting choices. “We’ve been using insects as an ingredient for a few years,” he says. “I think they are really interesting [and] we have this very ancient history of eating them here [in Australia].” Green ants, black ants and witchetty grubs, all sourced from Indigenous farmers, have appeared on the Attica menu.

He’s exploring something even more unusual – albeit sustainable. “We’re experimenting with the larvae of the black soldier fly which might be a little bit controversial in the future. Essentially maggots. There is a really cool potential for the black soldier fly to consume a lot of our waste and therefore to return larvae as an edible food. That’s not something we’re serving but something that we’re exploring.”

Vegetable-based cooking figures heavily at Attica, and plant-based meat is already on the menu – even if diners don’t know it. “We do [serve it but] that’s a secret because the intention is that people don’t know that they are eating that until after. It’s a little mind game, we like to have a little bit of fun,” he says.

His philosophy goes deeper than just sustainable sourcing and Shewry wants to share the histories behind the Indigenous ingredients he serves up. “If you work with Indigenous ingredients, then it’s your moral obligation to understand something of [Indigenous] culture and engage with First Nations of Australia. That’s an absolute base level requirement,” he says.

“If you have a passion for that culture and those ingredients, to understand them as more than just food items, to understand that they connect to people and tens of thousands of years of culture. They are absolutely connected to people so there are stories that go along with that.”

He believes that those who serve up those ingredients need to take their responsibility to Indigenous people seriously. “I’m not happy with the situation we’re in in Australia with regards to Indigenous rights and issues. I don’t want to be part of the problem. I want to be a part of the solution or to at least set the tiny little spark in people’s minds when they come here about how wonderful it is that we live in this country with such rich heritage and culture.”





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