Lorcán Kan is a half-Malay, half-Irish chef who was once an aspiring artist and is currently finishing a food science degree. “I’ve spent a fair chunk of time in the UK and travelled extensively, popping up around the world with my supper club, Things Palace,” he says. When he came home to Australia after the pandemic, he bumped into Etta owner Hannah Green, an old colleague from Attica. “The rest is history,” he says, “and here I am as Etta’s newly minted head chef.”
You might remember me from such establishments as Attica, Contra in New York City and Where The Light Gets In in the United Kingdom.
I’ve been cooking for 18 years, but I don’t feel old enough to say that.
My brief for my new gig is… there wasn’t really a brief as such. The main things from Hannah were that the menu needed to reflect everything Etta stands for: generosity, seasonality and deliciousness. From there, I went through what I wanted to cook, and we made it work within the Etta context.
And I’m passionate about so many things.
Those who know me know I’m a bit of an obsessive when it comes to food, and I’m really interested in the history of different food cultures. The start of my process is usually a deep dive into where two cultures interact, then I take this knowledge and create my own idea for a dish using the traditional techniques I’ve learned.
Take the egg tofu, for example. It’s similar to what my uncle would make in Malaysia, but here I’m exploring the other flavours that suit it. So right now we serve it with a corn puree that leans a bit Japanese, and then a Thai nahm jim-style dressing with kohl rabi and wild onion, like a spicy-chilli-lime-vegetable sort of thing.
Sustainability is at the core of everything I do – knowing the seasons and when something is abundant, considering how we preserve, how we’re able to use produce in its entirety, be it an animal or vegetable. I’m really passionate about working with local farms directly, too. I actually spent five years in Manchester working in community gardens established on repurposed bowling greens.
It’s been great to reconnect with the incredible Victorian growers and producers since being back in Melbourne. A couple that spring to mind include Somerset Heritage, who have amazingly fragrant bush lemons, which currently go into a dressing on some asparagus we’re serving. Working with the legendary Judy Croagh at Western Plains Pork has been a real inspiration, too. I was making lup cheong with her pork, and I’m keen to get my hands on whole pigs (once I figure out the storage question).
Which means I like to cook whole animals, putting all cuts to use, and exploring pairings for eclectic fruits and vegetables. I’m working on a new dish now that brings together flathead with jackfruit and lemon cucumbers in a blachan-like paste. We barbecue the fish in banana leaves, so it’s vibrant and herbaceous.
And if there’s one thing I don’t want you to leave without trying it’s I think it would have to be the chilli-oil parfait. It’s all about the fruitiness of the chilli rather than its spice, light and fluffy in texture, with a numbing mouth feel from both the heat of Sichuan peppercorns and the frozen parfait. It kind of tastes like gingerbread. But honestly, I’m pretty happy with everything on the menu.
Etta, 60 Lygon St, Brunswick East, open 5pm-10pm Tue-Fri and noon-10pm Sat, (03) 9448 8233, ettadining.com.au, @etta_melbourne