From innovative fine dining at Melbourne’s Lume to creating vegan cheese in an LA lab and his recent move to Canberra to launch a dining precinct, Shaun Quade’s CV doesn’t look like that of your average chef.

The former Lume co-owner and chef has been named group culinary executive of The Lawns of the Lobby, a new dining precinct within Canberra’s Parliamentary Triangle. Quade will soon open a laid-back Italian kiosk, Rosa’s, and an energetic bar and restaurant, Bally-hoo. He will also oversee the precinct’s event catering.

Quade had been in LA since 2019, working to create plant-based dairy alternatives.

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“We wound up our food-tech business in LA very successfully. So we [were] thinking of what to do next, and I kind of missed hospitality [and] the directness that you have with hospitality, where you make something and then give it to people straight away as opposed to making a product,” he tells Broadsheet.

Veronica Fil, Quade’s wife and business partner in their LA company, was previously an economist and did a deep dive into the most economical places to live and work in Australia.

“[We were] looking at where has the best economic landscape for hospitality over the next five years, and we just kept looking at Canberra because it’s kind of recession-proof, to be honest,” says Quade. “There’s always a guaranteed workforce and lots of double income, no kids, and disposable incomes. It’s a growing region and it’s very liveable.That’s a pretty boring answer as to why we came to Canberra. Plus, you know, the food scene is really amazing here.

“Without sounding like a city slicker snob that’s just moved back from America, there’s actually so much opportunity here. There are some great restaurants. So the bar is really high, and it’s such a great space. We just want to do it justice.”

The precinct’s first venue, Japanese fine diner Koto, is already operating in the restaurant space formerly known as The Lobby, where politicians, journalists and other powerful people wheeled and dealed for 50 years – the precinct is adjacent to Old Parliament House (now the Museum of Australian Democracy). The remainder of the hub – spilling out onto the National Rose Gardens, which is covered by its liquor licence – is under construction and set to open in early 2024.

“We want to show off the capital and [its] produce,” says Quade. “We’ve started to connect with some of the local farms and see what’s around. There’s a lot of produce that’s under-utilised … and we’ve got a couple of different people we’re working with to have custom fruit and veg grown for us.”

Don’t expect Lume 2.0, though.

“The last restaurant that I was in was very much like a passion project, and we did some crazy stuff there,” says Quade of the restaurant known for its exacting, experimental 14-course tasting menus. “We were constantly booked out, but I was doing 100 hours a week to do that tasting menu.”

Rosa’s will be an all-day, casual kiosk serving coffee and Italian-style pastries in the mornings, and pizza by the slice and salads from lunch until evening. Everything will be made from scratch.

“We’re going to start making our own salumi, and all the pizza dough is made in-house – I’ve been working on a new starter for that,” says Quade.

Bally-hoo will be an accessible wine bar and restaurant with seasonal menus that draw on Quade’s varied experiences.

“We’re doing a lot of cooking over fire … so smoky, charr-y flavours, and mixing that in with what I’ve been doing for the last five years, which is a lot of fermentation and getting a bit tech-y about manipulating some foods to get different flavours. I think that’ll be quite unique for the food scene here.”

The menu is being finalised, but you can expect dishes like lamb cooked over fire and finished with fresh lemon myrtle in the flames just before serving, to allow all the perfume to permeate the meat. That might then be balanced with a ferment from the pantry. Other seasonal ingredients, such as mulberries, could be bought in bulk then used in a dozen different ways – preserved, pickled and lacto-fermented, and even incorporated into the drinks list, which will skew two-thirds Australian, one-third international.

As well as creating an exciting menu, Quade is also focused on creating a great workplace and offering a liveable wage.

“It should be completely achievable here compared to either Sydney or Melbourne, which is very difficult,” Quade says. “It’s the same thing that’s happened in the US, where people working in these industries can’t afford to live anywhere near where they have to work. So they’ve got these huge commute times or they’re living in shared houses as a 30-year-old.

“We really try and look after the staff. That old-school mentality of the hierarchy … has no place in this kitchen. It’s a creative industry. Everyone has something to say.”

The Lawns of the Lobby will open in early 2024.

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