Professionals Serendipity 
It’s always sad to say goodbye to a local fixture, but everything has its time, and Tamborine Mountain’s Three Little Pigs restaurant is no exception. However, before the mourning sets in too deeply, residents would be best off referring to their childhood fairytales, because everyone knows after the three pigs comes the wolf. Chris Woodberry, owner and operator of multiple kitchens in the area like those of Bush Turkey Bistro, Shamballa Estate, Mt. Nathan Winery, and even Cauldron Distillery (a name longtime readers might recognise) along with his business partner Daryl Jordan, has set his sights on filling the gap left behind by the vacancy with the restaurant Wolf. He lays out the game plan for us today, illustrated by photos taken during their stunningly successful opening night.
by Kyle Hitchmough
What was your inspiration to open Wolf?
There’s a few of us in the group that have worked in fine dining before and we thought it would be nice to have a bit of a push back to the top end. We saw the hole in the market up here.
Where does the name come from? Is it a reference to your filling the vacancy left by Three Little Pigs?
That was partially the case! There’s no such thing as bad advertising, it gets people talking. We were a bit cautious of it to start with, but we’re pretty happy with the decision at the end of the day.
What kind of food do you offer?
It’s contemporary Australian, probably the bottom end of fine dining to start with. We just wanted to get a foothold and then we’ll grow it into higher-end fine dining.
How long have you been open?
We opened softly the week before our grand opening in March. We just had the door open and if people walked in, they walked in, no bookings or anything. We were waiting on all our online stuff to get launched, so we put the hard opening off for a while, but now we’re wide open. Instagram, Facebook, all of the socials are up.
Is there a most popular or bestselling dish so far?
The kangaroo is selling really well, and we’ve got an amazing supplier for wagyu. We can’t hardly keep up. The kangaroo is a bit different, it’s a variation on a dish that I used to do many years ago. We use a lot of the botanicals you find on the mountain, the lemon myrtle and things that we grind up by hand. We rub the kangaroo with it and then cook it very softly. It’s a tataki style, so it’s almost a rare serve with some of the native beetroots and things that we’ve broken down into purees and whole slices.
Where do you source your ingredients from?
As local as we can. It’s not always possible with everything across the board, but we have some very good relationships with suppliers. Our seafood comes from Rocky Point Aquaculture at Jacobs Well. They do cobia, groper, prawns, oysters, all that sort of stuff that they usually catch to order for us.
Are you a local? What’s your opinion on the Tamborine Mountain area and community?
Yeah, I’ve been around for 7 years. I don’t know if you’re allowed to call yourself a local until you’ve been here for 20! I love it, I love the lifestyle. The small village feel and the potential to fill the holes that we see in the market is great. We’ve got multiple venues and they’re all busy. We’re obviously doing something right! Being supported by the locals is very important. We’ve almost got 50 staff now, so we employ a lot of the local kids. It’s good to give something back.
Do you have any personal favourite things to do in the area?
I do like to have a walk, there’s plenty of beautiful walks up here. I head to the golf course a couple of times a week. It’s just a great spot to be, my kids go to school up here.
You’ve mentioned the hole in the market a few times. Is that what you believe Wolf provides to the area?
I think once Three Little Pigs unfortunately closed, there was a definite gap, specifically on Main St. The guys here do a great job, Michael in the pizzeria and the boys at Provedore, but the gap really needed to be filled. There’s plenty of people with enough money up here to enjoy the higher end, and the space is gorgeous and deserves to be treated with respect. We hope the food shows it enough respect!
What do you enjoy most about doing this?
It costs a lot of money and we spent a lot of time doing it, but that initial setup. People were in here weeks before the front doors were open. The amount of people asking when we were going to open, for drafts of menus and wine lists and things, just getting the excitement of the community up for something we find very exciting, it was just incredible. It’s a great place for us to work.
Can you tell us more about your grand opening?
Opening night was great! We had a great turnout. Everyone was really happy with what they were eating and drinking, the feedback was great, and the support by the locals was absolutely amazing. We said we were only going to do it for three hours but we got more people over the period of time than we thought, and we didn’t end up shutting the doors till about 1am, I think!
You also offer an extremely exclusive olive oil, correct? Can you tell us more about that?
Yes, Manni olive oil. We’ve got this exclusive agency in Australasia, this is grown on the side of a volcano. It’s the most exclusive oil in the world. It’s rated the highest, big writeups by Heston Blumenthal and Thomas Kessler, the big names. You get a small bottle of this in your bag if you’re a presenter at the Oscars. It’s not cheap! We use it in the cooking, and we also offer an oil tasting. We make focaccia, gluten free, every day and we offer a high-end olive oil that we use already, but if you want to have some of this, for $15 you can buy the best oil in the world for a tasting.
Is there anything else you would like to go on the record?
Big thank you to all the locals who are supporting us, and we hope we do it right for you!
Wolf
13 MAIN ST, TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN QLD 4272
We are always looking for new topics for our blog. If there’s something you like to see more of, email your suggestions to: social@professionalsserendipity.com.au, or email the writer at kyle.hitchmough@hotmail.com
