“They steep and ferment the leftover citrus skins,” says our waiter, the obliging Megan Powell.

She seems to know more about this dining room’s offerings than anybody except, and maybe including, the owners. What could be considered waste is quite the contrary at Ethos – everything here is put to good use, and will turn up on the menu in one form or another, evidently even in drinks.

Ethos, the deli-cum-dining room in East Fremantle, is a place that can start by serving your breakfast coffee, transition to being your almost New York-style deli dishing up house-cured meats at lunch, and then turn into a pretty lovely casual (but seriously good) diner for dinner. I’m here, because this is where anyone who cares about zero waste, who cares about provenance, who wants to eat really well and know the stories of their meals, comes in WA.

_{Susan Whelan and Melissa Palinkas, Co-owners, Ethos Deli & Dining}

From first impressions, it could be mistaken as just a decent local bistro. But Ethos walks the talk behind its name. It has a strong ethical bent, they have strong idea of who they are, what they do, and how to do it well. Melissa Palinkas, chef and co-owner, entices every bit of flavour out of each ingredient, curing her own smallgoods, drawing on her Hungarian and German heritage in everything from the breads, the cheese and potato pierogi (dumplings) to bagels with quark. The whole thing, however, has the credibility not just of provenance and careful sourcing, but also of culinary knowledge. Dishes are built on the confidence of the chef in her own abilities, and the abilities of growers who supply the raw ingredients.

_{Continental Roll, Ethos Deli & Dining}

Matching the waiters, and the style of food, the drinks live up to the hype, too. Susan Whelan, the other owner, has built a West Australian wine list that has depth, breadth, and cred. Between the two, it’s a formidable team, and results speak for themselves on the plate, and in the very small bin.

_{Spring Garden, house made cottage cheese, Ethos Deli & Dining}

Zero waste is a hard thing to master when you run a restaurant. Just ask Guy Jeffreys. Executive chef Jeffreys and the team at Millbrook Winery have come up with an elegant solution to the problem of having food left over at the end of each busy weekend. Their $50 a head, fixed-price, no-waste lunch on Mondays means every table gets a slightly, or perhaps wildly, different menu.

_{Millbrook Winery}

Everything in the kitchen is served to grateful diners who’ve usually had to book weeks in advance. None of the vegetables and fruit, usually grown in the on-site garden, are overlooked or left to rot. Which means they serve what they have. But this is no simple day of leftovers. At Millbrook, it’s still restaurant quality, it’s just that nature, not you, dictates what is served. What’s more, the dishes sing on the plate, be it house made unsmoked ham with new season asparagus and spring eggs, or viognier-braised rabbit risotto.

_{Caigua and tuna, Millbrook Winery}

If dining in is more your thing than dining out, One Table Farm near Cowaramup in the Margaret River region could well be your best bet. With a cooking school and kitchen garden on site, Cree Monaghan and Tim Hall do honourable things with nature’s gifts: they host one-day sourdough workshops (Tim is a gun as self-taught baker, who built a Covid business baking to order each week for his subscribers), and Cree can teach you how to harness the most from your garden or the farmer’s markets in their purpose-built demo kitchen (tucked, appropriately, in a farm shed). It’s a far cry from Tim’s corporate background and Cree’s training as a zoo and wildlife vet.

The garden has everything from capers to custard apples, and the orchard has 40 varieties of fruits and nuts, meaning there’s always something to pick and cook. You might end up with some sourdough crumpets and a seasonal selection of vegetables to eat, but there’s a not-so secret agenda: Cree and Tim are keen on getting everybody to care about what they eat, how it was grown, and to question whether it is climate friendly. In fact, climate change is a big part of the reason they established the joint in 2013, to explore what sustainable really means, and to spread the word more broadly in terms of food on our plates.

Western Australia abounds with regional pride. Sure, it has to be self-supporting in so many ways, and the ways to taste the bounty has many facets. But caring about country, caring about waste, while also caring about the quality of the meals that get put on the table, and what that costs the earth, is something Ethos, Millbrook and One Table Farm share as a philosophy. It not something they just talk about. Together they lead the way to a bright future in food.

Published February 2022