New Hire: Robbie Noble, Residence’s Debut Chef, Has “Simple, Refined Country Cooking” in Mind

Residence is a forthcoming restaurant at the Potter Museum of Art, on the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus. As museums rotate exhibitions, Residence will rotate chefs. Every 12 months, a new name will move in and bring an entirely new restaurant concept with them.

When we wrote about Residence in February, owners Cameron Earl (front of house at Carlton Wine Room) and Nathen Doyle (owner of Sunhands and Heartattack and Vine had “no idea what the food will be or who will be cooking it”.

Now they’ve found their first unicorn: UK-born chef Robbie Noble, who’s bringing a concept named Cherrywood. Early in his career Noble worked at Northcote, a Michelin-starred restaurant an hour north of Manchester. Later, he was executive sous chef at the Vue de Monde group; head chef at Clamato, a top Parisian wine bar and seafood spot; and helped open Fitzroy North pub The Royal Oak.

When Broadsheet reaches him by phone, he’s fittingly in the middle of a three-week residency at Cap Karoso, a resort on Sumba, an Indonesian tropical island in the same chain as Bali. “Every day the menu changes, just depending on what the fishermen pull in,” he says. “They come and kick the door down with a bunch of crayfish and say, ‘Hey, do you want these?’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, okay. I’ll just change the menu.’ It’s an absolute blessing to be able to work with stuff like that.”

What attracted you to apply to Residence?
When I heard about it, it seemed a little bit too good to be true. I’ve been umming and ahing for some time as to whether or not I was willing to go out and do my own venture. There are certain things that hold you back from that, finance being one of the major ones. A couple of friends of mine heard about it and thought I might be a good candidate. I just went for it as soon as I could and filled in the application. They got back to me for an interview a couple of days later. It’s a brilliant opportunity – a good chance to demonstrate a little bit of me, my food and my creativity.

How much of your concept is dependent on the existing kitchen and facilities?
My menu doesn’t rely too heavily on any extravagant equipment. I like to cook wholesome and hearty food – braises from the north of England in the wintertime and lighter seafood dishes in the summertime. I’ve worked in kitchens with quite a lack of equipment, so I can make a lot with not a lot. But they’ve shown me around the kitchen with a little video call and there’s no reason we can’t do what we want to do. The facilities are absolutely fantastic. The only thing we don’t know yet is whether we can have any kind of open flame cookery, like barbeques, because it’s in an art gallery.

What do you have planned for food?
I was actually writing a few more ideas down just before you called. One thing I’m really looking forward to is glazed lamb tongue with Jerusalem artichokes and pickled red cabbage. It’s julienned cabbage, salted for 24 hours. Then we wash the salt off and make a really nice pickling solution, but reduce it right down so it becomes quite sticky, tart, acidic and fruity. That gets layered over the lamb tongue, which will be on a skewer if we have a barbeque. I’d like to try and celebrate some lesser cuts as well, where I can. I’m keen on doing duck hearts. I’m really keen on doing ox tail. And kangaroo tail, to lean into a little bit of Australiana as well.

I want to showcase produce, so I’m also really excited to do a whole piece of fish, whether it be flounder or John Dory with a beautiful tomato-butter sauce. Where you make a traditional beurre blanc by reducing wine and folding butter through until it’s a lovely, velvety, creamy, shiny sauce, we reduce tomato water until it’s really nice, rich, intense and fruity, and then fold butter through that. So you get the best of both worlds.

I also want to use some Port Phillip Bay sardines and marinate them in-house. We’ll salt them, brine them in a vinegar solution, then sit them in some olive oil for 24 hours, so they’re like the freshest, most amazing, sardines you’ve ever had in your life. And we’ll serve them with some really nice Ramarro Farm cucumbers and a whipped cultured cream that we’ll make in house as well.

And for dessert I’d like to do a quince Bakewell tart: just the most amazing pastry you’ve ever seen, with a quince compote and freshly cooked quince, a really nice frangipane mix, and then topped off with a meringue with a touch of Christmas spice. Something that looks absolutely gorgeous, like the kind of thing you’d see in a pastry window in Paris.

It’ll be simple, refined country cooking. Flavour-forward, respecting the produce, not over manipulating. Nine times out of 10, it’ll be taking things away as opposed to adding things to dishes. It’ll be letting the actual product do the talking for itself, just elevated with a little bit of technique.

How has all of your previous experience informed the Cherrywood concept?
Northcote was my first introduction to what fruit, vegetables, proteins, fish, meat look like outside of a supermarket. That was the first time I looked at food and thought, “Wow. This is what food actually looks – and can taste – like.”

Vue de Monde is where I learned to become a lot more organised, a lot more disciplined, a lot more efficient. When I was there, it was open four days a week for lunch, and seven days for dinner. You had to be really, really switched on at Vue de Monde at that point in time.

At Clamato in Paris, I learnt so much about the quality of seafood. I learned about the ethos and culture in the kitchen; how important it is to make sure that the staff are having a good time at work, so the guests, in turn, could also have a really good time. The culture was excellent. It was really team-based, family style and an “everybody’s important” kind of ethos, which I really loved and took a lot from.

The Royal Oak was a very creative space for me. We were changing about five or six dishes a day. It was building 20 or 30 portions of something, selling out and going again, with 20 or 30 portions of something else. I was obliged to be creative, think on the spot and cook off the cuff, which I actually really enjoy.

Cherrywood will open in June 2025 at Potter Museum of Art, corner Swanston Street and Masson Road, Parkville.