What Does Good Cooking Mean for Julia Busuttil Nishimura?

Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s cooking is humble and real – a philosophy honed by family, heritage and a deep respect for ingredients. Her journey to becoming a celebrated food writer and cookbook author now comes with public appearances, festival events and restaurant takeovers like her upcoming collab with Sydney’s iconic Chiswick Woollahra , exclusive to Mastercard holders. But despite her steady rise, she always remembers her roots.

“I grew up in Adelaide, down on the coast, with a Maltese family very big on preserving our culture, and a lot of that is through food and coming together with family,” she says. “We used to make our own ricotta, we would make our own pasta, people would drop off bags of broad beans and we’d spend the afternoon potting broad beans with the whole family to dry them out to make bigilla, which is a Maltese dip.”

The family moved from Adelaide to country Victoria when she was a teenager, leaving Busuttil Nishimura with plenty of time to kill. She spent it learning recipes from classic cookbooks gifted by her mum and written by the likes of Stephanie Alexander, Jamie Oliver and Nigel Slater. Add a gap year in Europe and a later stint as an au pair for a family in Tuscany, and it’s easy to see how she found a unique voice for her own recipes. Before those recipes made it to cookbooks, they were self-published on her blog Ostro.

“Friends would ask for recipes and I was like, ‘I can’t just keep texting people,’ so I started a blog,” says Busuttil Nishumura. Spurred by a refreshing authenticity, it didn’t take long for Ostro to become more than a place for her friends to find their favourite recipes. “I just cook food I love, and really hope people love it, too … For me, I cook really simple food with a little bit of an elegant touch – but, at the end of the day, it is really simple, and it’s really approachable and achievable. I think that does resonate.”

Busuttil Nishimura’s latest book is 2024’s Good Cooking Every Day , a large format cookbook of recipes and vibrant food photography inspired by her heroes and favourite venues like River Cafe. Even though she’s publishing for the fourth time, Busuttil Nishumura says she’s still showcasing the same style of recipes.

“It is really seasonal, it’s simple, often with a bit of a story behind it and inspired by either my upbringing or places I’ve lived or travelled, or just the seasons, Melbourne and the produce,” she says.

While Good Cooking Every Day is, naturally, approachable enough for the home cook, Busuttil Nishimura’s recipes are getting the cheffy treatment as the kitchen team at Chiswick cook them for a one-off collaboration dinner on July 23. The partnership is a natural fit, with Chiswick renowned for its extensive kitchen garden and Busuttil Nishimura a long-time champion of letting seasonal produce do the talking.

“For me, it’s the opportunity to be around such beautiful produce and so close to the source,” she says. “Cooking dishes with vegetables that have been picked that morning is just so special and it really highlights that kind of ethos of not doing too much to the produce.”

The night will see Busuttil Nishimura and Chiswick head chef Samuel Rozsnyoi trading the restaurant’s usual menu for a selection of Good Cooking Every Day recipes and Chiswick classics. Fans of the cookbook will recognise dishes like Busuttil Nishimura’s roast chicken with oregano, olives and orange; citrus, feta and red onion salad; and prawns marinated with chilli, lemon and olive oil. On the other side, Rozsnyoi is set to roll out Chiswick signatures like porchetta with melon and Ligurian olive; roasted lamb shoulder with mint salsa; and wood-roasted parsnips with Aleppo pepper, honey and bottarga.

Set amongst the bounty of Chiswick’s restaurant (perhaps one of the most iconic dining spaces in Sydney), the night is sure to be a special one.

“I feel like it’s just such a good alignment because we’re doing dishes from my book, but also from their restaurant and it’s just a really nice, complimentary combination of dishes and influences and very seasonal,” says Busuttil Nishimura. “I think it’s going to be super delicious.”

*Beyond Gourmet: An Evening With Julia Busuttil Nishimura is hosted by Mastercard, in partnership with Broadsheet, at Chiswick Woollahra from 7pm to 10pm on Wednesday July 23. Tickets are limited and start at $170 per person for the set menu and welcome drink; additional drinks curated for the menu will be available to purchase on the night. Secure your tickets to this experience on priceless.com.This experience is available to Mastercard card-holders only. *

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Mastercard.