By Jed Lanyon
Tucked away amongst Seville’s farms and bushland lies one of the Yarra Valley’s best kept secrets – Attica Summer Camp.
Internationally renowned chef Ben Shewry created a temporary restaurant project in Attica Summer Camp and has been operating since January. Mr Shewry’s Ripponlea restaurant Attica has been listed among the World’s 50 Best Restaurants (ranked 20th in 2018) and now he’s providing a taste of Attica to the Yarra Valley.
Realising that the hospitality industry would soon look different as the world grappled with a pandemic, Mr Shewry called on close friend and Yarra Valley winemaker, Mac Forbes, who helped him in launching Attica Summer Camp.
“Without Mac, we wouldn’t have been here,” he said. “I rang Mac during the second lockdown and just told him what I was imagining and what I wanted to do and how I saw the future of dining a little bit for the next six months or a year at least.”
“I just wanted to get out of the city too. I’m from the country in New Zealand, so the country resonates with me, and so Mac just started thinking and showing me around different properties and we visited some really great people.
“I think we went to about ten different properties, but the site here in Seville was the one that stood out for me because of the freedom the site offered.”
The site offers a combination of indoor and outdoor dining and stunning views of nearby farmland and bush.
“It gave us huge flexibility, especially at a time where there’s social distancing and the square metre rule was a really big deal in restaurants.
“It has the amazing aspect of the great view, I’ve never been able to work in a restaurant with a view. It just kind of fell into place.”
But Mr Shewry said it wasn’t a simple task to set up Attica Summer Camp and labelled the project “a huge risk” coming out of lockdown.
“We probably didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the work and the job to set this place up and get it going. But I think sometimes that naivety is a good thing, if you went into every challenge that you faced in life knowing the difficulties and the outcomes would be, you probably wouldn’t do anything.
“To do another business full stop, when my other business (Attica) was struggling so badly from being closed for nine months, it was a massive challenge and a massive risk…. At some point you just have to say, I believe I can do it and then just make it happen.”
Attica Summer Camp was created as a casual escape from the stresses of the day-to-day and features a menu based around a charcoal rotisserie and laid back drinks.
“Here, in some ways, we threw off the constraints of Attica and we wanted this to be more of a freeform free wheeling place,” Mr Shewry said.
“Here I wanted to do something very different from Attica. I wanted to flip the script and offer food at a really reasonable price and for much larger numbers of people than we would have ever served at Attica and in a place that is disarming and kind and feels natural.
“I think coming out of the toughness of last year and getting through those two lockdowns, it was such a terrible time. I wanted to make something that was more life affirming and more vibrant and a reminder that even in tough times, there’s many good things to look forward to.”
Mr Shewry said he has used Attica Summer Camp as an opportunity to connect with local growers and producers and that he hopes to continue those relationships with local businesses in the future.
“The beautiful thing about being out here is connecting with some great people in the community. There’s some amazing products out here and some amazing foods.
“There’s incredible cheeses from Stone and Crow, Wandin Yallock (Farms) grow the best tomatoes that I’ve worked with… Ben from The Beef Joint in Healesville has been a huge help in supplying a lot of lamb. People like Four Pillars, who are just angels. It’s so nice to be in a place where there’s that generosity and spirit from other businesses.”
Mr Shewry said he came to Seville with a blank canvas and that included his staff as he took to employing and training a largely local team.
“Seeing them grow and seeing them flourish would be the most rewarding thing, for sure. There’s quite a few first-time hospitality workers here, especially on the floor and it’s amazing to see where they’ve come from January to where they are in May. It’s just so awesome.
“To meet their parents or families who live out here and to see that positive change in these people is really cool. And some of them are going to come back to Melbourne and work with us in the restaurant there.”
As Attica Summer Camp wraps up at the end of May, Mr Shewry said “never say never” when it came to returning to the Yarra Valley to take on a similar venture, but acknowledged the project was difficult and separated him from his family.
“I can’t imagine it, if I’m being honest. I never say never, because we tend to forget things that were difficult and redo them sometimes. But probably because it takes so much of me personally, I need to watch that and make sure I save room for the other special people in my life.”
Mr Shewry admits that despite spending nearly seven months working in the Yarra Valley, he hadn’t found a great deal of time to stop and enjoy it for himself and shared that he hopes to spend a day at Yeringberg, driving around the region and explore the antique shops of Healesville and Yarra Glen.
