Quentin hunting for truffles at the Oberon property. Photo: Oberon Council.
Winter’s most prized culinary delicacy will be celebrated with the launch of the first Illawarra South Coast Truffle Trail, featuring six restaurants showcasing fresh truffles.
Spearheaded by Black Diamond Truffles owners Kylie Sweeney de Havilland and Quentin De Havilland – known as the Illawarra South Coast Truffle Hunters – the trail will serve up fresh truffles from their family farm in Oberon, inviting food lovers to indulge in seasonal degustation experiences throughout July and August.
Fresh, earthy aromas will emanate from Wollongong’s Centro, Mt Kembla’s Rubys, new Gerringong venue Noble, Austinmer’s WFWS, Shellharbour’s Relish and Thirroul’s Pickled Poet as part of the trail.
“My husband’s parents were ahead of the game 13 years ago when they planted 300 truffle trees,” Kylie said.
“They had them inoculated and planted them on their Oberon property, because the temperatures are perfect.”
She said being food and wine people, her in-laws thought the project was a good idea, not anticipating the success of the venture which comes to the fore from June to August each year.
“Now they’re just that much older, so it was quite interesting how we came about being truffle hunters,” she said.
“They had someone selling their truffles for them, and then three years ago he left.
“My husband, Quentin, was up there helping his parents that weekend and he came home with an esky full of truffles, and said, ‘Kylie, we have to help Mum and Dad and sell the truffles.’”
She said the next thing, the Illawarra couple, their daughter and her partner found themselves on the Oberon farm digging truffles as a family, with a “truffle hunter and his dog” assisting in sniffing out the earthy fungi.
“I thought, I’m just going to bring them to the Illawarra, because this is where we live, we don’t have access to truffles, and it’ll be something wonderful for our restaurants to have them,” she said.
“I ended up in my car, going pretty much door to door to different restaurants in Wollongong.”
She said Centro in Wollongong and Rubys at Mt Kembla picked them up in the first year, doing truffle degustation dinners for the past three years.
“I then started promoting it on Facebook and sending it out to friends, because I had truffles that were fresh and needed to be sold within the next couple of days,” she said.
“You want them fresh, and that is part of our motto is we dig them on the day and take them to the restaurant so the diners are eating fresh truffles – they haven’t sweated and lost their flavour.
“That’s why it’s grown so fast, because of the quality we’re bringing back.”
For the first time, she’s now brought together six Illawarra restaurants as part of the Illawarra South Coast Truffle Trail.
Each will offer unique truffle-focused degustation or a la carte dining experiences created by their inhouse chefs, with Kylie and Quentin offering support and guidance where needed.
“This year we’ve got six restaurants on board, which is a good start and we intend to keep growing it every year,” she said.
“That’s been part of the search for me was to find restaurants where the chefs know what they’re doing, they are experimental, and they’re looking for something new for their regulars, and also to bring new clients to their restaurants,” she said.
“It’s been great for the restaurants, because it’s such a new product on the scale that we’re bringing it in, so they’re really excited.
“Their chefs are getting to put something together for one specific night.”
She said she hoped participants of the trail had a new taste experience or for diners unfamiliar with the product it was an opportunity to introduce them to truffles.
“We want it to be a really good experience so that it’s something that grows and has people loving truffles in the Illawarra and South Coast.”
While Kylie is a full-time artist and Quentin a doctor in Dapto, she said it had become something they loved doing.
She said in past years, she and her daughter had created truffle butters, ice creams and honeys to sell at markets.
Restaurants interested in participating next year can contact Kylie on 0400 262 929.
Book seats for Illawarra South Coast Truffle Trail at Noble in Gerringong on 18 July, Centro in Wollongong on 25 July, WFWS in Austinmer on 4 August, Relish in Shellharbour on 7 August, Rubys in Mt Kembla on 15 August and Pickled Poet in Thirroul on 23 August by phoning the individual venues.
