photographer FIONA STOCKER
Perth is a quiet place since the bypass was built. But its café, Feast, in pride of place in the main street, is not quiet.
I arrive at half past eleven on a Friday thinking I will get in before the rush, and it is chock-a-block. “We call it the tidal wave effect when this happens,” says owner Felicity. They’re always full but occasionally there’s a surge. Why does it happen? ‘No idea,’ she says.
Before the bypass and after, Feast has long been popular and is often thronged with locals who know about it. A handsome but unassuming double bay frontage onto the street hints about the abundance that lies inside. Flowering bulbs in vintage timber boxes spill down the steps and give an impression of people with a talent for growing and making.
That’s the secret of Feast. Co-owners Felicity and Lewis make almost everything that appears on the plate. They bake the bread, make the pastries, mix the chutneys and even make the bacon in-house, buying in sides of pork and soaking it in brine before drying and slicing it. It takes a dedicated foodie to go that far.
She can’t explain the tidal wave, but Felicity is adamant that making everything in-house and keeping it consistent is what brings the throngs of faithful customers and keeps Feast full.
It’s a friendly place too. My companion and I have several conversations with strangers while we’re there. On a large table in the side room, we share with three different parties as people wait for a table of their own, and come and go. When we arrive, the woman next to us is just polishing off what I have ordered, the Scottsdale pork belly with apple slaw on Turkish bread. She and her husband used to call in here on their way to and from the hospital from their home in the Midlands and always had the pork. Now a widow, she still calls in if she’s visiting the Launceston shops and has the same. It’s an easy, friendly place for lunch and a poignant moment of memory and tradition.
While we’re pouring tea and sipping orange juice (with Felicity’s signature orange ice-cubes), I get to grips with my camera. Suddenly a fellow diner appears at my shoulder and asks if I’m photographing the silverware for the reflections. I’m not. But I needn’t have worried as she shows me the shot she has taken on her phone. Before she has time to swipe through her fascinating collection, our food arrives.
The pork is melt-in-the-mouth good – two swirls of belly nestling in a bun with greens grown in vegetable beds at the back of the property. The apple slaw lends a tangy note. My companion eats only in small quantities and has a half-sized fish and chips with house-made slaw and tartare which she enthusiastically dips everything in.
She used to run her own restaurant in Launceston and is very particular. “You can say it straight – I’m a fussy eater.” Bad service or coffee served wrong can rule a place out forever. She has recommended Feast as answering our desire for consistency and something delicious. It turns out Felicity was once her apprentice, before several years cheffing in UK restaurants and Monaco super yachts, where she and Lewis met. Returning to Tasmania, they worked for four years in the kitchens at the Red Feather Inn cookery school at Hadspen, a stalwart of the Tasmanian scene.
For the past six years they have run Feast and done food the way they like it, growing the greenery and produce out the back. Within its two rooms, Felicity indulges her love of kitchen paraphernalia, with dressers and shelves stocked with flavour-enhancing spices, oils and honeys, and stacked up collections of ceramic mixing bowls, “very much for display only!” There is art on the walls by the couple’s daughter and a local Tasmanian artist, and the surroundings add up to a decorative clutter which very much creates cosiness and a feast for the eye.
Felicity always had a talent for styling as well as food, says my companion. She once decorated her tables with a sprig of green tomatoes cut from the plant and it looked glorious. “If I did that, it would look rubbish,” my companion says ruefully, as we stand admiring a terracotta chimney pot filled with thyme.
After coffee and an exquisite Portuguese custard tart – soft, yellow and unctuous – there’s more unexpected chatting and photograph-taking for other customers emboldened by the conviviality. Then it’s a brief tour of the vegetable garden to meet the cat, the chickens, the neighbour and her dog, before we take our leave, certain of a warm welcome down the track whether we’re friends together or dining solo.
