Keen hunter and former Three Blue Ducks co-owner Mark LaBrooy is opening Australia’s first wild game butcher and pizza shop.
You’ll soon be able to grab a kilo of venison mince and pick up a wild boar pizza when Australia’s first wild game butcher and pizzeria opens in the Illawarra.
The venture, called Barney’s Pizza and Wild Game Butchery, will be launched by one-time Tetsuya’s chef and former co-owner at Three Blue Ducks, Mark LaBrooy, who is a keen hunter, and wild game meats advocate.
With prime cuts of venison and wallaby product at the counter, will it be Australia’s first wild game butcher shop when it opens in early October? “I don’t know of anyone else doing it exclusively,” LaBrooy said.
The chef, who has turned venison into chorizo and schnitzels, plans to fill the fridges with products such as wallaby pies and meatballs made from boar and wallaby. “There’ll be a wild boar dim sim, but I’m calling them ‘dimmies’ because I’m a huge fan of [TV drama] Mr Inbetween,” LaBrooy said.
Last year, LaBrooy joined The Boathouse Group as its head of culinary. Part of that group role involved the launch late last year of Boathouse North Wollongong, near his home. Tired of work travel, he wanted to spend more time with his family, and start his own business “in my community”.
Buoyed by venues such as Ciro’s, a new wood-fired pizza restaurant in nearby Thirroul, LaBrooy is keen to offer something similar in a takeaway form at nearby Woonona.
When a former frock shop on the Princes Highway became available, LaBrooy jumped at it and put in an order for a $70,000 pizza oven. “I don’t want to be too divisive,” LaBrooy said of his approach to pizza toppings, which will mostly lean toward traditional toppings such as buffalo mozzarella and prawn and chilli.
He plans a couple of specials, in line with the butcher, including his own “wild” version of Italian sausage and a “wild meat lovers” pizza.
“We want to create demand for the product.”
Chef Mark LaBrooy
A long-term advocate of wild meats, LaBrooy points to the waste created and millions of dollars poured into culling invasive species. “There’s a property in NSW where they recently culled 13,500 animals,” LaBrooy said. “They were all left on the ground to rot. We want to create demand for the product.”
The solution to the issue is complex. The Invasive Species Council (ISC) argues some proposed measures to stem the immense damage caused by feral animals can be counter-intuitive, such as “showcasing these animals as food”.
The council’s policy director, Dr Carol Booth, said promoting invasive species as a resource, whether for profit or pleasure, often entrenches problems. She pointed to feral camels, where years of talking about sending the meat overseas delayed plans to cull them, resulting in escalating numbers.
Booth also points to evidence of maverick hunters establishing feral populations in new areas to create hunting grounds, with wild pig populations found to be related to mobs in different parts of the country.
But Booth remains open-minded about launch of LaBrooy’s butchery. “As long as he’s not claiming this is a solution, I wouldn’t knock him for using the carcasses that otherwise would not be used,” she said.
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