On Saturday, I was fortunate enough to get my first taste of Manjimup black truffle for 2024. At Wills Domain in Margaret River, chefs Jed Gerrard and Sergio Labbe – Gerrard is the restaurant’s culinary director, while smiley Brazilian chef Labbe runs the restaurant’s day-to-day – created an artful silo out of ringlets of slow-cooked celeriac, teamed with an unusually elegant sauce made by soaking cheddar cheese in water, then crowned with finely grated cheddar and black truffle. It’s truffle season in WA.
Credit: Rachel Claire Granted, the last weekend of May seems early for truffles, but if the rest of the year’s truffle dishes follow suit, it’s looking like a promising winter. As always, black truffles (as well as produce and drinks from the greater Southern Forests area) will be pivotal to Truffle Kerfuffle, the region’s annual winter June festival that takes over beautiful Fonty’s Pool for a weekend between June 28 and June 30. In addition to being the southern hemisphere’s largest black truffle-producing region and the source of 85 per cent of Australia’s premium black truffles, the Southern Forests region produces 70 per cent of Australia’s avocados, most of WA’s marron and half its apple production.
So produce and producers are key elements of both the region and the festival. But big-name chefs remain one of the festival’s draws. Most of Truffle Kerfuffle’s main guests will headline its major events, including the festival restaurant tha.