Paradise Found For Holloway

Hospitality - January 2006

“My holidays every year were always to luscious destinations. I’m seduced by the tropical lifestyle,” said Nick Holloway, who in 2004 put his money where his mouth is and moved to Palm Cove in Queensland’s far north. Previously head chef at Pearl Restaurant & Bar in Melbourne, Nick opened the modern and sophisticated Nu Nu on the esplanade at Palm Cove. Attached to the Outrigger Beach Club, it has an open front looking directly out to the Coral Sea. Nu Nu, whose name means nude coconut in East Timor, is run in partnership with sommelier and floor manager, Jason Rowbottom, also ex-Melbourne, Nick’s wife Amy and Jason’s wife Mo. “All of us needed a sea change and we came here on holidays and fell in love with the place.”

Nick has quickly embraced his adopted home. Every Friday he shops at Rusty’s Market in Cairns, a 30-minute drive south. It has a great market atmosphere and is an excellent showcase for locally grown exotic tropical fruits, vegetables and other local produce. “When I came here, I found all the seasons weren’t what I was expecting. The market is an invaluable way for keeping in touch with what’s happening. It’s a really good indicator of the seasons. “Also I just find it a very satisfying and essential part of my weekly routine. One of the things I buy most is flowers. Our house looks like a florist. The flowers here are cheap and beautiful,” he said, passing a magnificent display of bird of paradise flowers and other tropical beauties.

He particularly likes patronising the stalls run by the Vietnamese Hmong people, who sell a wonderful array of herbs and green leafy vegetables including Vietnamese mint, coriander, Thai basil, ginger and galangal. The food at Nu Nu has an Asian twist, a style he has been refinining over the years as his career has taken him to such high-profile Melbourne restaurants as Blakes, Stella and Pearl. He came to cooking relatively late, at the age of 23, after finding that he was bored with studying science and engineering at university. He had a part-time job as a kitchenhand and found that being a chef was much more to his liking. He likes the fact that it is “very tactile” and that it involves “huge amounts of energy”.

Nu Nu is a seven-day breakfast, lunch and dinner operation, which amounts to running “three very distinct restaurants in the one space.” Whereas breakfast is quite traditional, lunch is more like a bistro with sandwiches, burgers and the like. “At dinner, we turn it on. We do the best we can do.” Nick says his customers are much like those he served at Pearl. About a third are locals, many of them well-heeled professionals. The rest are from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. His “profound love of food” translates into dishes such as roast Spring Bay scallops with buttered apple puree, roast hazelnuts and a crispy sage nutty butter sauce.

The bread is a sensational Italian-style sourdough which looks like a pillow as it is puffed in the oven with a hollow centre, drenched with lemon juice, and garnished with Murray River salt flakes and cracked black pepper. Many of the dishes on the menu have an Asian influence, with Nick inspired particularly by David Thompson, who taught him how to make miang – Thai snacks or appetisers wrapped in betel leaf. One of the signature dishes is twice-cooked quail in XO sauce, the latter made with a red braise that Nick “feeds” daily with sugar, salt and aromatics. “It keeps getting a little more mysterious each day.” The restaurant makes its own coconut cream, bread and icecream.

Nick uses local produce wherever possible, including seafood from Max Pantacchini, a Cairns supplier specialising in fresh and smoked seafood; biodynamic cheese and milk from Mungalli Creek Dairy at Millaa Millaa; and fruit from Shaylee Strawberry Farm in the Atherton Tablelands. Asked to describe his cuisine, he draws on the term global contemporary coined by Sydney Morning Herald restaurant reviewer Matthew Evans. “We’re all cooking global contemporary. It’s really all about embracing the food you’re closest to. I’m into things that are beautiful and pure.” Nick has found a closer connection to the source of his produce since his move north. “Your actual connection to whether it’s been a dry summer or a wet winter, you’re not in touch with it as much in the city. I’ve found that really satisfying (to be more in touch with the seasons). It’s good for me here.”

© Christine Salins

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