Australian Elijah Holland is the Executive Chef of oyster-centric venues The Plump Oyster and Osteria, as well as Beijing’s C Pearl Oyster. After working with René Redzepi’s team as a forager at Noma’s pop-up in Sydney and introducing Foshan to garden-fresh modern Australian cuisine at The Locksmith, Holland is currently transforming the Plump Oyster’s rooftop into an open air restaurant, Botanik, housing 100 (and counting) species of edible plants. We checked in with him to discuss the project.
What can we expect at Botanik?
The focus at Botanik will be local products because China has such a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish that it is silly to import. The menu will change based on what suppliers have, as well as what I can find, prepared simply at the raw seafood station or charcoal barbecue. The drink program will consist of organic, natural and sustainable wines, while cocktails will mostly be gin-based so we can play with the botanicals that we grow.
"I'll go out once a week to search for things to incorporate into the menu, because foraging is shopping to me."
How appreciated are local products in Shanghai’s restaurant scene?
When sourcing unique, high-quality ingredients for a Western restaurant, the local products are massively underused and underestimated. Take the fact that you can go to any market to buy things like live scallops and prawns, yet we’re still importing Carabinero prawns from Spain – that are frozen at sea and have hardly any meat on them – doesn’t make sense.
Is it actually possible to forage in Shanghai?
Yes, absolutely, you have to respect parks so I’m not going to rip something out just because I know it is edible, but we’ll take things that grow in specific places but are technically weeds. I’ve found wild strawberries, amaranth, mugwort, chickweed and three types of sorrel in parks around Shanghai. The other day, we went to Gucun Park and returned with eight different species that I planted around the garden here.
What percentage of the products at Botanik are locally grown?
Everything! I won’t even use olive oil at Botanik. Oils and grains will be local and I’ll mill my own flour for bread. Even the yeast will be made naturally by fermenting lavender for a sourdough starter. After opening, I’ll go out once a week to search for things to incorporate into the menu, because foraging is shopping to me.
That being said not everything will be native to China, but they will be grown here. We’re going to have a variety of plants growing at different stages here, and we’ve been collecting tomatoes for the past couple weeks.
Sounds great, how do we book a table?
As we are going to be working with the weather and seasons, we won’t be open every day and the menu will be constantly changing, but there will be a system with weekly updates.
See listing for Botanik.
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