Garagistes’ Luke Burgess Is Living His Best Life at Scholé

Even in a place as small as Scholé, Luke Burgess isn’t pulling punches.

The former Garagistes chef’s new wine bar on Liverpool Street in Hobart has just 20 seats in total. But in every way, it’s just a continuation of the big thinking and flavours he’s renowned for.

Throughlines at Scholé include a fiercely local offering to ride with the seasons. Single-use plastics are banned altogether. Spontaneous fermentation and organic farming practices are essential to the wine list. And the dining style changes depending on the day you visit.

But as far as Burgess is concerned, he’s just doing what he’s always done: quietly honing the “double-edged sword” of working in Tasmania.

“Living here is about living with limitations. It’s regional, it doesn’t have access to everything,” he tells Broadsheet. “But at the same time, if you put in the effort, you’re rewarded with produce that’s harder to get in the big cities.

“With this size venue, we just look at what we can achieve within the hours allocated, using the best ingredients we can possibly get our hands on. It means you can discard so many things because there’s just no time or space for it.”

The result is a “nimble” menu of around seven dishes: previously Albacore tuna on a Swedish fröknäcke cracker made from local hemp seeds, with espelet pepper and sour cream from Elgaar Dairy. And a Burgess take on Japan’s tamagoyaki omelette with nori, sweet corn and shiitake.

Japan is an obvious reference point for Burgess. The 2019 book he co-authored with Michael Ryan, Only in Tokyo, is a speed run through that city’s vibrant hospitality scene, and his travels in the country informed aspects of Scholé, including the tight menu and a focus on interesting sake – supplied by Matt Young at Black Market Sake.

“What they can shoehorn into such small spaces and the atmosphere it creates was such a huge catalyst for what we’re doing here,” he says. “There are other spaces I could have taken that were much larger, but it wouldn’t be the same.”

But the biggest cue is evident on Tuesday nights, when Scholé becomes a standing-room only tachinomi bar with no bookings or minimum spend. Otherwise, Scholé has two dinner sittings from Wednesday to Saturday with a $100 minimum spend.

In all other ways, Scholé is a Hobart venue, from the bar downstairs to the private dining room up top.

Architects Gabrielle Phillips, Poppy Taylor and Mat Hinds (Taylor & Hinds), and the Lane Group builders have wrapped Ivy Preddis’s original confectionery in Tasmanian blackwood salvaged from former coffin-making workshops on Liverpool Street. A modular dining setting by Matt Prince dials up the izakaya aesthetic, while the original pressed-tin ceiling from the 1890 build has been thoughtfully preserved.

In Broadsheet ’s retrospective of the most influential Australian restaurants of the past 15 years, food journalist Pat Nourse described Garagistes as “something that had fallen … from outer space” for its groundbreaking approach at the time. What does Burgess think about his legacy now?

“It’s all the venue’s name really – scholé is the old Greek word for leisure, but it doesn’t mean leisure or holidays. It actually refers to the concept of work [or leisurely learning],” he explains.

“So many people have jobs without any meaning or legacy attached to them. I want to look beyond the fetish of having a job and create a place with a focus on living a good life. Not being stuck in the kitchen slaving away.”

Scholé
227 Liverpool Street Hobart

Hours:
Tues: 4pm–12pm
Wed–Sat: 6pm–12pm (sittings at 6pm and 8pm)

@s.c.h.o.l.e
schole.com.au