Arintji, an indigenous word for Orange, was opened over ten years ago by widely respected French chef Jacques Reymond.

The restaurant changed hands to the current owners around 10 years ago. Their cuisine caters for most palates with its Modern Australian flavoured menu. Dave Louey is the current sous chef, and has been with the restaurant for over two years now.

His association with food and cooking, however, goes all the way back to his childhood growing up in Warrnambool, where his parents opened the town’s first Chinese restaurant.

Being pioneers of Cantonese cuisine in country Victoria wasn’t always smooth sailing for Mr. Louey and his family. Without a hint of bitterness he recalls they often had to deal with racism and the narrow-minded views of some locals. He shrugs this off, seemingly accepting this as par for the course, growing up a minority in small-town Australia in the 1980’s.

From the age of 12 he worked in his parent’s restaurant…

First as a dish-hand, eventually being promoted to kitchen assistant. The food they served was your typical 1980’s highly-westernised version of Cantonese cuisine. “No chicken’s feet or shark’s fin soup here!”, Louey says laughing ruefully. “More your typical 80’s Asian fair, such as lemon chicken and sweet and sour pork.”

Working in his parents restaurant for several years was enough to put him off the food industry for a while, but at the age of 22 he returned to cooking, when he experienced a-la-carte dining for the first time. He completed his apprenticeship at The Graham, a hatted restaurant in Port Melbourne.

From there he went to Grossi and Florentino’s which was a steep learning curve. “Everything had to be plated perfectly, or it was thrown out and we started again,” Dave says.

With pride clearly showing on his face, he explains how far Arintji has come in the past few years, saying, “the food and service is now of the highest standard”, adding they now have loyal customers who come in every week.

The waitress Irina overhears our conversation as she serves our coffees. She cheekily promotes Dave’s Crème Brulee, saying that some customers will often come before a theatre show for dinner, then back again afterwards for dessert!

He says the highlight of his career happened at Arintji when the previous Fed Square CEO, Kate Brennan, personally commended him on his signature special: a deconstructed nori roll, consisting of flathead fillets, with a prawn and coconut mousse, scallops, sweetened sushi rice, Japanese mayo, wasabi aoli, avocado puree, and a ponzu dressing.

Dave says he maintains his passion for food by, “constantly inventing new dishes and adapting existing ones to make them my own”.

All photos by Mathew Knight