“ Matt and I met 3 years ago and we were drawn together where we both played for the local soccer team, the Nimbin Headers so we were a soccer romance. Little did we know at the time that we were both chefs by trade so our background was really similar as we are both traditionally French trained chefs. We went into different fields though for a while. I did Naturopathy and Nutrition and Matt studied Soil Science and Environmental Science. So we kind of left chefing but we didn’t know we had this commonality. I was French trained in Cairns at a 5 star seafood restaurant and Matt worked in Darling Harbour in hatted restaurants so we both have really good background training.
We got together when we were both in this really transitional stage of our lives. We moved into a bus on a bit of land and we turned it into a market garden growing our own produce and we started selling food at The Farmers Markets. We started doing value adding at the Farmers Markets and then our little baby was born called Barefoot Affair and that’s when we started stocking shops with more healthy, organic, local produce, gluten free, vegan, sugar free, Paleo products. From there it grew and we stocked more places. We were farming and it seemed like the beautiful balance of producing and growing as well as making it into product. It grew more and we were determined to own our own bit of land.
We were looking for a commercial kitchen because the business was growing and then the option for The Pantry came up. We were already supplying cafe’s and restaurants around Lismore as well as doing the farmers markets. We saw the Pantry come up on Gumtree, it was really serendipitous and we were searching for something to sink our teeth into. We wanted to have a proper business, give life a crack and we were looking anywhere between Tweed and Coffs Harbour. We were willing to move anywhere where an opportunity presented itself and this came up. The next day we signed the lease and now we are negotiating purchase pretty seriously which is very exciting.
We’ve both fallen back into chefing but we are really keen to certify the farm and do more organic production. We have 350 pecan trees here. This is our first harvest and we’ve decided to become organic farmers, biological farmers so we’re not processing or harvesting the trees with machinery. It’s all hand harvested to minimise erosion and soil compaction and it also increases job opportunities for local people so all the nuts this year have been hand harvested. We are the only producer in the Northern Rivers that keeps the nuts in The Northern Rivers here on the East side. Most of the nuts grown here now are exported to China so we are keen for that food security and local stability of our food.
We’ve recently invested in a heap of free range chickens as a part of our pest management and also to supply eggs for the cafe and now we have our bees so we do our own honey. We want to do more market gardening and turn it into a more holistic farm as opposed to just a one monoculture crop of pecans. Chickens under the pecans, small scale agriculture under the pecans as well.
I have a 12 year old soon who goes to school here which is lovely. He can ride his bike and it’s almost next door. Matt and I have both been in the Northern Rivers for 10 years now and we’ve just put two caravans on the block that we are living in. The block has a DA for a house site but the mortgage will overwhelm us for the next 5 years and then we will build our little cottage.
We use all local products, organic Norco milk, free range certified organic local eggs, we source all our produce from the Tuesday Lismore organic market, The Wednesday Nimbin Farmers market and The Thursday Lismore Farmers Market. Our bread’s from local wood fired Sourdough producers. We use only free range meats and certified organic chicken so there’s real accountability in our food.
Our vision for The Pantry is to continue to grow a really relaxing, family friendly space. High quality, fine dining, high level of service, beautifully presented and a really high standard without being pretentious and highly priced. We like to make hospitality a profession again. Mother’s day was huge but we didn’t take double bookings for tables and we just watched people relax knowing they could be there for the day. More and more people are taking up the picnic blanket option.
People come here in all different ways, walking groups, cycling groups, bus tours, helicopters, horse riders, vintage car drivers. People come to the pantry in a real diversity of ways. It appeals to everyone, we’re very inclusive. Every week we set a new project to make it even more beautiful. We’ve started doing re-gen along the creek, removing invasive species and replanting with local natives. That’s us in a little nutshell.”