Native ingredients stars of the show

The evolution of Paul Iskov’s pop-up dining revolution has taken him to most corners of WA, and this month he will cook at two long-table dining experiences at Taste Great Southern 2015.

It will be the second foray into the festival for Isakov, who plated up in Denmark last year using authentic Australian produce.

Iskov started using native Australian ingredients at the beginning of his career and he is single-handedly revolutionising authentic native ingredients in fine dining.

“I really want to showcase what we have and what could be defined as Australian cuisines down the track … I’d like to see the native ingredients be the star of the show … I think (native ingredients) are a bit confronting, but people are happy to try new things,” he said.

He names a marron dish as his most trusted.

“Marron tail roasted over hot coals cooked delicately on a lemon myrtle emulsion with a pile of handmade sea salt … we serve this without cutlery and encourage people to season their marron and drag it through the emulsion … I like it because marron is extremely local and it gets people involved,” he said.

After working at Sydney’s famous Tetsuya’s, Marquee, Perth’s top degustation restaurant Amuse, as well as stints in San Francisco and Mexico, Iskov found his niche in long dining and the art of degustation.

“It’s not just about the food, it’s about the experience,” he said. There is no restaurant. Instead Iskov takes food to the diners in the bush, including a feast in Dumbleyung last year. “We basically gathered ingredients from around Dumbleyung, like using salt from the salt lakes,” he said.

Iskov’s schedule at Taste Great Southern will include a joint dinner with Adam Liaw and a dinner on February 21 with camp-oven cook Cole Sippe incorporating food cooked by camp fire.

“It’s some of the best food I’ve ever tasted before and it’s a real work of art,” Iskov said.