“Let’s meet at Cumulus Inc.” must be one of the sweetest propositions in the Melbourne food firmament.
Andrew McConnell’s food delights and pleases at whatever time of the day you visit his Flinders Lane bar and restaurant. The spiced cauliflower salad, whole slow-roast lamb shoulder and madeleines filled with lemon curd are pretty much my perfect meal. Now Andrew has written an equally pleasing cook book, Cumulus Inc., with beautiful photographs by Earl Carter – a partnership between two of Australia’s finest practitioners in their different worlds.
The recipes include tomato salad with sumac, shanklish and olive oil, the inspiration for which Andrew kindly credits as being our Nolans Road olive oil. He and his head chef, Josh Murphy, have used our Nolans Road Delicate oil for three years now.
The tomato recipe is also included in a glorious extract from the book which is published in the new November Gourmet Traveller. I’d only had my copy of Cumulus Inc for a few hours when I was trying my first recipe - lemon jelly. Superb.
Our meyer lemon trees are laden this spring. We are willing our newly planted tomatoes to be as prolific in summer so I’ll be able to make Andrew’s tomato salad at home.
