This month in The Press, we head into the kitchen at Heide to meet Laura Boulton, a chef whose thoughtful, ingredient-led approach defines the restaurant’s fresh and quietly confident style. Laura is known for cooking that feels both intuitive and deeply considered, with a focus on simplicity, seasonality and making the most of every part of an ingredient.
From her love of herbs to her passion for reducing waste in creative ways, Laura brings a calm, grounded philosophy to the fast-paced world of restaurant cooking. We caught up with her to talk inspirations, underrated ingredients and the recipe she’s sharing with us this month: a vibrant, textural broccoli salad that speaks perfectly to her ethos.
Q: Could you describe your cooking style in three words?
A: I always say my cooking style is simple and organic. I like to let ingredients be themselves rather than push them through endless processes just to make them unrecognisable. For me, the fun is in getting something fresh, beautiful and seasonal and working out how to show it off with as little interference as possible.
Q: Where was the last place you dined out, and what did you order?
A: I went to Soi 38, which is always spot on. I ordered the deep-fried pork jowl. Unbelievable. It came with a spicy little salad and a knockout dressing, and honestly, anything porky and deep fried with Thai herbs is my happy place.
I went with a group of chefs after watching a documentary about food sovereignty and the Jonai Farms team, so it felt extra connected, going from watching a pig being butchered on film to eating mindfully in a great Thai restaurant.
We shared everything, including dishes I would never normally order, like fermented soft shell crab and raw prawns. It was fun watching everyone try things outside their comfort zone.
Moments like that make me love the team even more. I think of us like a sports team, disciplined, supportive and structured, not a family, as families can be quite dysfunctional. Eating together helps keep that bond strong.
Q: If you owned a restaurant that cooked only one dish, what would it be?
A: That is genuinely so hard. I love using absolutely everything, so choosing one dish feels like abandoning all the other things I adore. You can take the simplest ingredients and still create something brilliant. But really, narrowing myself down to a single dish feels impossible because my whole cooking philosophy is about using the whole ingredient in as many ways as possible. Choosing one dish would feel like cutting off all the other little creative pathways I love so much.
Q: What ingredient could you not live without?
A: Herbs, absolutely herbs. They are the most diverse, hardworking ingredients in the kitchen. They can be sweet, savoury, bitter, bright, lemony, aromatic, and they change the entire character of a dish with just a handful.
I use every part. Leaves go into salads, sauces and garnishes, and all the stalks go into the dehydrator. We grind them into powder and mix them with other vegetable trims to make seasoning for roasted veg and other dishes.
It means nothing gets wasted, and the flavours become deeper and more layered. Herbs bring so much colour, freshness and personality to food. I would be lost without them.
Q: What do you think is the most underrated ingredient in a kitchen?
A: Definitely by-products. Onion skins, garlic skins, herb stalks, spring onion roots, all the things people peel off and toss out.
You pay for the whole ingredient, so I think you should use the whole ingredient. We dry the onion skins above the stoves because they can handle the high dry heat, and everything else goes into the dehydrator.
Then we turn the lot into powders such as onion powder and vegetable powder and use them to season roasted veg and sauces. The onion skin powder, especially, is gorgeous, sweet, bitter and savoury. We used it in a winter salad with almond cream, and it became one of the best-selling dishes of the season. It is such a good example of how flavour often hides in the things we usually throw away.
Q: What is your favourite dish on the menu at the moment?
A: It is hard to pick. The schnitzel with apple cabbage slaw and nduja mayo is a classic, simple but so tasty.
Steak Béarnaise is another forever favourite, but honestly, the salads right now are perfect for the season. They are hearty enough that you feel satisfied but light enough that you are not weighed down after lunch. The broccoli salad and the chicken salad are probably my two top picks at the moment. They hit that sweet spot of freshness, texture and comfort, exactly what you want this time of year.
Q: Tell us about the recipe you have chosen to share with us.
A: I chose the broccoli salad. Broccoli is such an underrated hero. You can use the stalks, the leaves, everything. We roast the whole thing simply with olive oil and salt, then chill it so it stays a bit al dente.
It gets mixed with mint and parsley from the garden, Zaatar spiced roasted pepitas, shaved radishes and yay feta, which is a vegan, fermented tofu-style cheese that gives the dish a rich, almost meaty protein hit.
We add quinoa and black lentils from Mount Zero because they hold their shape and texture beautifully. The quinoa is cooked absorption style after being toasted in olive oil, so it stays nutty and flavourful. Then everything is dressed with a bright lemon dressing made with Mount Zero olive oil. It is fresh, textured, shareable and sits beautifully on a table.
Q: What is your favourite Mount Zero product?
A: Olive oil, always. At home and at work, I love the lemon-pressed oil for finishing dishes, but the Frantoio is our workhorse.
We buy it in 20-litre barrels and go through one every two weeks.
It is gentle enough for toasting grains like quinoa but flavourful enough to finish a salad. Their products fit naturally into how I like to cook, simple, clean and full of flavour.
Q: What do you cook when you cannot be bothered after a big shift?
A: Pasta, always pasta. With a young family and tired brains, it is the easiest thing that still feels nourishing. I cook the pasta in bone broth for extra protein, drain half the liquid, then stir in tomato sugo and butter. As it finishes cooking, it turns into this rich, creamy tomato sauce without any fuss. I sneak in zucchini or broccoli for the adults, and for my three-year-old old we put things on his plate and hope for the best.
Sometimes I whisk an egg into the pasta off the heat for even more protein. It is like a shortcut carbonara. Simple, comforting, quick.
Q: Who is your biggest culinary influence?
A: There are a few. When I was a first-year apprentice, 25 years ago now, someone gave me Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour, and it completely lit up my curiosity about kitchens and French food.
My first seven years were all in French restaurants across Sydney, Melbourne and London. Working at Racine in London from 2005 to 2009 was huge for me. Proper French provincial cooking, game birds, whole fish straight off boats, deep tradition and incredible technique.
It changed everything about how I cooked and how I thought about ingredients. Coming home was not easy, but it led me to the life I have now, which I love. And of course, as a woman in the industry, Stephanie Alexander and Maggie Beer were massive influences. When I started, there were so few visible women in professional kitchens. Seeing them made the industry feel possible.
Q: How do you and the team prepare before service?
A: We are lucky. We start service at 10am, so we are not a late-night kitchen. I start at 7:30am with a podcast in my headphones and half an hour of quiet setup, which I love.
The team arrives around 8am, and that is our social time, chatting, easing into the day, talking about what we cooked last night or what game someone watched. Then service builds naturally, busy, focused, rhythmic. Toward the end of service, we start chatting again as everything winds down. It is a nice ebb and flow, work, connect, work, connect. Music happens occasionally, but mostly it is conversation. It feels like a team warming up before a match, which is how I think of us anyway.
Heide Kitchen
7 Templestowe Rd
Bulleen VIC 3105
Reservations: click here.
Article and interview by Hilary McNevin