Hemp hand cream, ginger scalp-care shampoo, vitamin C serum, Himalayan charcoal clarifying night peel and camomile cleansing butter are unexpected sources of inspiration for a menu – but Hope St Radio has never been one to play by the rules. An upcoming collaboration between Broadsheet and The Body Shop will see the unconventional offering come to life, alongside live DJs, for a one-off event: Nature’s Nourishment.
Head chef Ellie Bouhadana and owner Jack Shaw have put together a four-course menu featuring ingredients in The Body Shop’s naturally inspired beauty products. We spoke to the creative duo about what to expect, and how it all came together.
“We were really excited about the ingredient list we were given,” says Shaw. “For the most part, it’s things we love working with anyway, but working with ingredients like hemp and camomile has been really cool.”
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SUBSCRIBE NOWCamomile Gimlets will be served on arrival (“They’re really cute, it’s going to be delicious,” says Bouhadana), before a course of charred kingfish crudo served with a cold ginger broth and greens from the Hope St garden. These menu items nod to The Body Shop’s range of calming camomile skincare products, and its ginger care for hair.
It wouldn’t be a Hope St dinner without Bouhadana's famous focaccia – which is “pretty widely regarded as the most wonderful output of Hope St Radio”, says Shaw – but on this night it’ll be made with charcoal and served with whipped hemp butter.
Next up is fresh gigli pasta with broccoli and anchovy, followed by a dessert incorporating cara cara oranges and “any citrus we can get our hands on” in tart form. “Citrus is so beautiful right now,” says Bouhadana.
All this will be paired with wines from the Hope St cellar. The wine list will be “bright and fresh, with a lot of local too, to promote that healthy, medicinal sense of the menu,” says Shaw. “Nourishing wines for a nourishing night.”
“We’re sticking to our guns really,” says Shaw. “It’s a distinctly Hope St menu; all of the dishes we’re making are dishes we love to make, we’re just bringing some new ingredients into what’s our bread and butter.”
The bespoke Nature’s Nourishment menu will be available only on Tuesday August 22, a night Hope St is not usually open. To attend, you’ll need to win a spot at the table – there are no tickets available to purchase. Alongside friends of The Body Shop, six Broadsheet readers will win a seat for themselves, plus one. As well as getting to attend the dinner (valued at $300), each winner will also take home a goodie bag filled with The Body Shop’s most-loved products, and other locally made goodies.
The competition is open now. Enter here.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with The Body Shop.