CHEF & co-owner DAVID LAKHI
Chef and co-owner David Lakhi’s culinary journey began in the farming heart of Punjab when he was 12 and his father bought him a solar oven. His first successful recipes were caramel and cakes and every neighbour on the street had a taste. On starting his own restaurant, he said “I was looking for a place I could call my own. I had this idea of bringing the entire world into one small dining room, and all I needed was a venue to express it.” On elevating simple ingredients into fine dining, David says, “Cooking doesn’t need to be complex. It comes from within. I think of my mother’s hands when I prepare food and the way she let the air whistle out of the bhatura (deep-fried, leavened North Indian bread). She showed me how to care for others using the simple ingredients I have in front of me.”
On finding inspiration and the meaning of Italian cooking to an Indian-born Australian, David says “Cucina povera encompasses the meaning of simple, handmade, artisan food, no matter which country you’re from. My muse and teacher, Nonna Clara, immigrated to Australia from Abruzzo, near Rome in Southern Italy, just like I immigrated from Khanna in Northern India. At the age of 74, she showed me how to handmake her family’s cavatelli with rich Goulburn Valley pork sausage meat ragù (on the menu this week), cut spaghetti using only a knife, cook using only sight, smell, taste and touch. She taught me how to cook from my heart with only the ingredients in front of me and my gut instinct as a guide. She reminded me of my mother, because cooking to her meant bringing family together with food as medicine, without recipes or preconceived ideas of how meals had to look or which ingredients must be used. Nonna Clara showed me that it’s OK to put your true self on a plate.”
This simple food philosophy still exists in David’s kitchen when he cooks, serves, and speaks to customers at his restaurant. He never forgets a face, and can remember when you last dined, what you ate, and who you were with. Little Black Pig & Sons patrons are diners in his own living room, sitting with the spirit of his adopted Nonna. “I finished working with Nonna Clara when my wife and I moved into Little Black Pig & Sons. Clara was 86 years old and I was 31. She continues to inspire me today – I think of her every time I roll gnocchi or break bread with staff. When she passed away two years ago, it felt like losing my own grandmother again.”
Little Black Pig & Sons offers a dynamic, evolving culinary experience that rivals city spots for fine dining. The creative process of working with his hands with ingredients fresh from the soil stems from David’s culinary roots. As a child, he watched thela wallahs carrying vegetables direct from farms (cart men selling produce house to house), aubergines being charred, vegetable pickles and savory marmalades being hand-made. He remembers his mother and aunties sitting in a semicircle on their outdoor patio with clay pots rested upside down between them, Indian vermicelli noodles being hand-rolled down the dome created by the bottom of the pots. David grew up helping his Massi (mother’s sister) on her dairy farm.
As a child, David collected buffalo milk every morning at 5am during school holidays. Using a hand-operated cream separator, he would pour the milk with one hand while spinning the handle with the other, separating the cream, which he would use to make ghee (clarified butter). He has always had a fascination with the slow preparation of food.
Married for ten years to Emilia Lakhi, they have four beautiful children - Violet, Rose, Zoravar, and Iris.
