Cooking with her grandfather – Gunditjmara Elder Ivan Couzens, who established the first Dictionary of the Gunditjmara Languages in 1996 – is what ignited Niyoka Bundle’s passion for food and cooking.

“I used to live with him sometimes and I would cook his favourite foods, which were often Western, but as I got older, I would try to re-create those incorporating native ingredients,” says Bundle.

Fast forward a few years and Bundle met her now-husband Vincent Manning, a chef from the Isle of Man, and together they established Pawa Catering in 2019. Pawa means “to cook” in the language of the Gunditjmara people, and its mission is to highlight native ingredients in new ways. The pair are also dedicated to ensuring their products are sustainable and ethically produced and to providing a place of employment for Aboriginal communities.

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After initial discussions about a pop-up at the Arts Centre were halted by Covid, Bundle and Manning have now opened a permanent spot – Pawa Cafe – at Hamer Hall. Expect all your lunchtime standards – with a native twist. Alongside toasties, rolls and wraps, the pair are turning out danishes made with tart lilly pilly berries, quandong croissants, strawberry gum pain au chocolat and wattleseed choc chip cookies.

At night, you can look out across the Yarra to the lights of the city while sipping local wines and beers, Bells Beach vodka and spiced rum, and Bundle and Manning’s own Taka gin made with native lemongrass and lemon-scented gum. There are also grazing platters – which might come with red wine kangaroo salami, green ant brie, mountain pepper cheddar, caperberries, bush tomato relish and pepperberry olives – for a pre-show snack.

Most of the food on the menu has either a native ingredient or foraged element, and they are all ethically and sustainably sourced through local farmers or foragers. For now, there isn’t a kitchen on-site so all the food comes in daily from Pawa Catering. In the near future there’ll be hot options including saltbush and warrigal greens tarts, beef and wattleseed sausage rolls and roo pies.

While the original Arts Centre fit-out – with its bright-yellow-walled nod to notable Melbourne sculptures (Eastlink cheese stick, ACCA’s Vault) and blown-glass pendant chandelier designed by Canadian artist Omer Arbel – remains, Bundle and Manning have added an undulating serpentine artwork on the front window and on the screen behind the counter. “It represents Mount Emu Creek,” explains Bundle, “which is where our people camped and fished, and it sustained the peoples of that area.”

Pawa Bar and Café
100 St Kilda Road, Southbank
(03) 9281 8350

Hours
Tues to Wed 8.30pm–3pm
Thurs to Sat 8.30am–late
Sun 8.30am–5pm

pawacatering.com.au/cafe-bar