Food stylist Stephanie Stamatis creates an inspired winter vegetable still-life to match our mid-winter Chef’s Table lunch.

Our CEO Emma Yee’s monthly Chef’s Table lunches are always a hot ticket. When Emma hosted a lunch in our South Yarra tasting rooms to herald the arrival of winter, Group Executive Chef Matthew Haigh created a menu to

showcase winter vegetables. With aesthetically pleasing organic vegetables such as globe artichokes, brussels sprouts, carrots and beetroot on the menu, we knew we wanted to celebrate the produce in the table styling, too, so we called in celebrated editorial food stylist Stephanie Stamatis (aka @stephaniesomebody), who is known for creating swoon-worthy tablescapes.

Once the menu was finalised, we ordered additional vegetables and briefed Stephanie to make the table look beautiful, to which she replied: “Dream job! I’d like to be doing that every day of my life.”

“Winter vegetables are particularly fabulous. Summer is brutal but in winter so much is happening underground.”

STEPHANIE’S WINTER VEGETABLE TABLE GARLAND

Once the menu was finalised, we ordered additional vegetables and briefed Stephanie to make the table look beautiful, to which she replied: “Dream job! I’d like to be doing that every day of my life.”

STEPHANIE’S INSTALLATION IS INSPIRED BY DUTCH AND ITALIAN STILL-LIFE PAINTINGS

“With this project, there was a sense of formality, with the repetition and the movement. I created a kind of sweep to the sculpture – to give your eye somewhere go,” she explains. For height, she created plinths – wrapping beetroot leaves around blocks – and then set about teaming up artichokes with cabbages, using bunches of carrots in different colours. Throughout the process, she was also mindful to leave room for the guests. “Sometimes when you create a table setting it can encroach too much on the essential space. I like to avoid that – people need to be able to eat comfortably; the table has to be used!”

WINTER VEGETABLES FRESH FROM OUR GROWERS

Stephanie says that while eggplant might be her favourite vegetable to eat, as far as styling goes, she loves anything leafy. “I love working with cabbages; they’re so dramatic with their outer leaves. Radicchio is visually spectacular; and artichokes are always stunning.”

If you want to swap flowers for vegetables at home, Stephanie suggests working with one or two types at a time. “You could place some artichokes on one side of a bowl and have carrots spilling out the other. Or, very simply place a few cabbages down the centre of the table. The table styling for this event was very dense; we aimed to make it look luxe, like a garland. The key is to always use beautiful produce.”

And how about making sure the table setting doesn’t outshine the food? “I feel like I’ve done my job when people can walk in and say ‘Wow’ but then settle into the space and kind of get used to it. When a plate of food is placed down in front of a guest, that moment should be everything. When it comes to table styling, you can never do anything that might take a diner’s attention away from the food.”

ON THE MENU

Carrot and cardamom salmon, salt and vinegar gel and olive oil snow
Saltbush lamb, wild mushrooms, Jerusalem artichoke, smoked sprouts, baked onions, beetroot, nasturtium, macadamia

Mandarin curd, star anise, pickled nashi pear, mandarin sponge, brown sugar, clotted cream

FEELING INSPIRED? BROWSE OUR PRIVATE EVENT MENUS NOW.

Photography by Lisa Atkinson