The Aussie flavours of Native Harvest Cafe

If you have something that is yours and only yours, something to be proud of that nobody else has, wouldn’t you celebrate it?

We’re talking Australian botanicals, the flora of Australia that has been growing here for thousands of years. Native botanicals pique our taste buds with their intensity, unique flavours and freshness. They also offer great nutritional value, with many bush foods being several times higher in vitamins and antioxidants than their European-imported rivals.

Despite their role in Australia’s history and their obvious assets, few Australians use native food on a regular basis. Some people don’t even know it exists, let alone being able to name a handful of species!

Amanda and Brendan Trapnell, owners of Native Harvest Cafe in Sanctuary Cove, are some of our foremost advocates for native food. Taking a guided walk in the Gold Coast Botanic Gardens a few years ago, Amanda was fascinated by the native botanicals in the area. She decided to launch ‘Native Harvest’, a range of native spices for wholesale and corporate gifting.

With a broad hospitality and marketing background, Amanda had so many ideas on how to use native herbs, spices, seeds and fruit that she decided to open a café in the tourist-friendly shopping precinct of Sanctuary Cove Village. Sourcing as many products as possible directly from local indigenous growers and producers, Amanda leads the team on their own knowledge journeys, collaborating with them in their experimentation and profile matching.

The cafe not only sells native spice mixes, jams and relishes, but every dish (and several cocktails) served to customers contains native ingredients. That may sound like a challenge, however it’s not a huge leap of faith for the diner.

Starting with dishes we know, chefs Daniel and Dony lead us gently from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Their Smashed Avo Toast has been pimped with the robust flavours of native nut dukkah and bush tomato relish. Their Eggs Bene gains a native twist with wild basil and macadamia hollandaise-ish sauce.

When I asked Amanda why we should eat native foods, she replied, “As a group, native food is the most sustainable food in Australia. It has grown here for centuries without being farmed. Unlike much of our other food, it has not been genetically modified. We put several herb and spice species together in our spice mixes. We know what’s in it. There are no fillers, it’s been responsibly sourced, is sustainable and organic.”

Each twist on Native Harvest’s menu not only brings interest but also nutrition. Native pepperberry, (an ingredient in the cafe’s native dukkah), for example, contains high concentrations of Vitamin E, folate, zinc, calcium, magnesium, iron and lutein. High in antioxidants, it is used as bush medicine to treat a variety of illnesses.

While the health benefits of native foods are cool, Amanda says that it’s the taste that is extraordinary. This is demonstrated in my favourite dish on the Native Harvest menu, the Wild Rosella and Apple Crumble French Toast. Containing macadamias mixed with cinnamon myrtle-spiced apple, topped with rosella flowers dressed in rosella syrup and finger lime, this is not just a nostalgic dish reminding us of the long-forgotten rosella jam our nan used to make, it’s a flavour bomb, a showcase of uniquely Australian flavours, making it the star dish on the menu.

Brimming with flavour, colour and nutrients, Australian bush foods are uniquely ours, growing in abundance in their own native climate. It’s the food you won’t find anywhere else in the world; the food we should celebrate and regularly dine on. A visit to Native Harvest is a great place to start.