Ben Shewry Channels His Inner Willy Wonka To Resurrect Attica’s Most Famous Dishes in Chocolate Form

Even if you’ve never had the pleasure of an experience at Attica, Ben Shewry’s world-class Melbourne fine diner, you might be familiar with some of its dishes.

“A Simple Dish of Potato Cooked in the Earth It Was Grown” is perhaps the best known. Inspired by the Māori hāngī cooking style, in which food is buried and slowly baked in an underground “pit” oven, this iconic dish helped establish Shewry as a culinary star more than a decade ago. There’s also the soft, salty, spicy lamb brick – aka “The Dish That Saved Attica” because of its raging popularity during a quiet period in the diner’s early days.

For most, these dishes live on only in memory. Although he makes the odd exception, chef and owner Shewry has a disdain for doing anything twice. “I’m always looking forward to the future,” he tells Broadsheet. “The dishes take a long time to develop. They stay on the menu for a period of time and then they come off and they’re gone forever.”

But Attica’s new 10-course chocolate degustation, created in collaboration with leading Melbourne-born chocolatier Koko Black, has allowed Shewry – and will allow you – to take a stroll down memory lane.

Called Stories in Chocolate by Ben Shewry, each creation in the limited edition box has an associated tale inspired by a dish, or events at the restaurant, or Shewry’s personal life.

For one of them, called Plight of the Bees, Shewry drew inspiration from a vivid dream he had after pulling over for a roadside nap. His visions of tree-lined paddocks and a beekeeper tending to their handmade hives informed one of his most famous desserts – as well as this chocolate iteration. It features spotted-gum-honey cream, lemon curd, mandarin ganache and chocolate crisp, all encased in 54 per cent dark chocolate.

In true Shewry fashion, some flavours are a tad outlandish. There’s crocodile fat in milk-chocolate-wrapped caramel shortbread, and lamb floss in the savoury chocolate version of the lamb brick. (Tried pork floss desserts or even lamb mole? You know this works).

The Terroir, made with beetroot sponge and single-origin Vietnamese chocolate, is designed to be finished with a fresh crack of black ants – a Marlux pepper mill comes alongside it. For a fully immersive experience, each box also comes with a custom Dinosaur Designs plate and a complementary Spotify playlist with songs selected to suit each course.

Most chocolates are exclusive to the degustation box, which is priced at $449 for two people. But if that’s a little out of your price range, three are available to buy individually from Koko Black: Plight of the Bees, Finger Lime Clouds (finger-lime marshmallow dipped in 54 per cent dark chocolate) and Ben’s Rocky Road (a spin on the classic made with native plum, roasted macadamias, anise myrtle and more black ants).

The limited edition degustation gift box is available for online pre-order for $449. Plight of the Bees, Finger Lime Clouds and Ben’s Rocky Roads are available for $19.90 each – or in a trio for $64.90 – in Koko Black stores and online.

kokoblack.com/attica-x-koko-black