By Leigh O’Connor.
There’s a particular magic to an Australian lunch when it tastes like the landscape it came from - salty air, red dirt, rainforest shade, or sun-bleached pasture. Building a ‘truly local’ plate isn’t about ticking off a list of native ingredients; it’s about letting the country do the talking. Think of lunch as a little road trip: each bite a different postcode, a different story.
Start with the wild, smoky heart of it. Smoked kangaroo prosciutto is the kind of ingredient that makes you pause mid-slice and grin. Lean, gently gamey and perfumed with woodsmoke, it’s brilliant draped over warm damper, folded through a salad of peppery leaves, or tucked into a sandwich with something creamy and cool.
Balance is everything: kangaroo loves sweetness and acidity, so pair it with grilled peach, roasted beetroot, or a smear of macadamia ricotta.
Then bring in a sharp flash of citrus from the desert. Desert limes - tiny, fierce and jewel-green - are Australia’s answer to the moment you want your palate to wake up. Whisk their juice into a vinaigrette with olive oil, a little honey and mustard and suddenly your lunch is humming. Spoon it over kingfish, a shredded cabbage slaw, or charred zucchini and you’ve got that clean, zingy ‘outback meets coast’ energy.
Now for the slow-burn comfort of bush tomatoes. Sun-dried by nature and bursting with umami, bush tomatoes feel like a secret weapon. Blitz them into a condiment with garlic, native pepperberry and a splash of vinegar. You get something between chutney and romesco, sweet-savoury and a bit mysterious. Slather it on a lamb burger, swirl it through mayo for chips, or dot it around roasted pumpkin and feta.
The joy is that every region has its own heroes. Wattleseed brings coffee-chocolate warmth to crusts, dressings, even a humble sandwich loaf. Tasmanian seaweed adds ocean depth to butter or a quick pickling brine. Wild rosella, riberry, muntries, Illawarra plum - each one a small, bright clue to a wider country.
Sourcing these ingredients is half the adventure. Seek out Indigenous-owned growers and producers, farmers’ markets and small stores that carry native pantry staples. Ask questions. Learn the seasons. Buy a little, taste a lot and let your curiosity be greedy.
If you’re in the city, specialty grocers and online makers can deliver a bush pantry to your door; if you’re regional, you’re often closer than you think to the people harvesting and preserving these flavours.
To pull it together, try a simple ‘Australia on a Plate lunch board: warm damper or sourdough, smoked kangaroo prosciutto, macadamia ricotta, grilled stone fruit, a crunchy leaf salad dressed in desert lime vinaigrette and a bush tomato relish on the side. Add a wedge of sharp local cheese and you’ve basically mapped the continent in midday form.
The best part? This kind of lunch doesn’t just feed you - it locates you. It’s a reminder that Australia isn’t one flavour, but a whole pantry of places. When your plate carries the bush, the reef, the ranges and the wheatbelt all at once, lunch stops being routine.
It turns into a love letter to where you are and where you’ve been - even if you’re only sitting in the backyard right now.
