Mick Nunn has joined a growing league of Ballarat born and bred creatives.
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He’s one of many who left Ballarat after finishing education to pursue their career dreams – only to return later in life enriching Ballarat with skills, knowledge and experience in their craft from around the world.
Three and a half years ago Nunn set up Salt Kitchen Charcuterie in Delacombe, harnessing his skills and passion for charcuterie.
As an experienced chef, he had realised making charcuterie by hand was what he loved doing best in the kitchen.
Salt Kitchen Charcuterie uses pork from Western Plains Pork in Mount Mercer and beef from Sher Wagyu in Ballan.
It supplies to a number of Ballarat restaurants as well as some of the best in Melbourne, something Nunn admits wouldn’t have been easy if he had started the business in Ballarat 10 years ago.
The food scene here has exploded.
- Mick Nunn, Salt Kitchen Charcuterie
“There are certainly more businesses in Ballarat that we can tap into say compared to eight years ago. The food scene here has exploded,” he said.
Before opening Salt Kitchen Charcuterie, Nunn worked as a chef in top restaurants in Melbourne and London. He returned to Ballarat in 2002 and found himself in a different field working as an advertising representative.
“I came back then to Ballarat and looked around at jobs I could have in the industry as a chef and there was nothing here. I would have had to commute to Daylesford every day to get the sort of experience I was after,” he said.
With a desire to get back in the kitchen, Nunn once again moved away from Ballarat to work in the United Kingdom and then in London before visiting France to develop skills in charcuterie.
“It was a pretty steep learning curve. You go from being in a commercial kitchen where a customer walks in and there’s your sale, whereas here it is make the product and then find someone who wants to buy it,” he said.
“I’d always loved charcuterie. Over time it was always a prominent part in every menu I wrote, that we would have something that we made ourselves.”
Nunn admits the first few years of business were tough, but he now employs four staff and is hoping to continue to expand.
“We want to grow this business to sell interstate and hopefully Australia wide,” he said.
And for Ballarat’s food scene? Nunn says we have only just started to scratch the surface.
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