Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) hosted five chefs from the USA on a tour featuring Australia’s leading beef and lamb ranches, processors and some of the country/continent’s top restaurants. It might sound exhausting traveling half way around the world (30 hours door-to-door); then leaving for the airport at 4:30 the next morning to board yet another plane; landing and immediately boarding a bus to a feed lot and ending the day with another 3.5 hour bus ride to another destination for dinner. Trust me it was worth every minute! Stephen Bulgarelli, Senior Director of Global Innovation for Chili’s International and Rick Wolff, Director of Culinary Standards/Corporate Chef for HMS Host were invited along with three chefs from independent restaurants. Bill and Yvonne Kim owner-operators of three Korean influenced casual restaurants in Chicago: San Francisco chef and Moroccan cuisine expert Mourad Lahlou from Aziza and Dirk Flanigan, former executive chef of The Gage and Henri in Chicago, who plans to open the first of several Italian restaurants there in the next year were joined by Plate Editor Chandra Ram and Elissa Garling, Business Development Manager – Foodservice for MLA to learn from Australia’s Red Meat industry leaders.

Elissa Garling with the AAco Staff

