Greasy Zoe's is a restaurant at the end of the Hurstbridge line — literally. Set in the centre of Nillumbik Shire, as far as you can get to the edge of Melbourne before entering regional territory, it occupies a former grocery store that has been fitted out, by hand, by the two people who run it. The dining room looks, as more than one writer has noted, like a ski chalet — pitched timber ceiling, brick walls, recycled timber tables. Eight seats. No written menu. A daily-changing 12-course degustation that begins when you arrive and ends when Zoe Birch and Lachlan Gardner wash the last dish.
Birch grew up on a property near Seymour, picking homegrown vegetables, bottling preserves and baking bread with her family. She went on to work in Melbourne kitchens, including the Courthouse Hotel and Healesville Hotel, before arriving at a frustration shared by Gardner: both long-time chefs, they were ready to leave hospitality for good, frustrated with its commonplace yet unsustainable practices — excessive food waste, ingredients flown in from far-off places. Instead of leaving, they moved to Hurstbridge. Greasy Zoe's opened in May 2017.
The name is an inside joke between Birch and her mother, and it tells you nothing about what happens inside. What happens inside is this: a 10-ish course, daily-changing degustation as vigilant about the local, seasonal and sustainable as it is focused on creativity, surprise and deliciousness — Birch's food skipping lightly across cuisines, a two-bite spelt crumpet with warrigal greens, a duck-egg chawanmushi with Mornington Peninsula seaweed, flash-grilled wallaby beneath a sweet and salty Tropea onion tarte Tatin. Small Victorian producers are listed on the menu as Our Family. The ceramic plateware is hand-built by local creators. Green waste becomes compost. The only seafood served is green-listed by the Good Fish Project. Birch and Gardner make their own soft cheeses, preserves and dehydrations, and regularly go to the farm to harvest produce alongside their suppliers.
The kitchen is Birch's alone. The floor is Gardner's. Birch is a technical wizard and a patient and loving inventor, while Gardner is a deeply attentive and collaborative host. The accolades have followed without changing any of it. Birch has been awarded two Chef Hats from The Age Good Food Guide and received two Chef of the Year nominations. Gourmet Traveller named it among the best restaurants in the country. At just eight seats, Greasy Zoe's is a classic of the micro-restaurant genre — intimate, homespun hospitality, precise cooking, and a wonderfully calm vibe that is almost as nourishing as the food itself.