STREAT

If you didn't know anything about the concept behind STREAT in Racecourse Road, there's nothing that would make you suspect it's anything but a great local cafe serving top-notch brunch and lunch. Under the guidance of head chef Rob Auger, though, the kitchen and front-of-house staff here are part of a social enterprise program providing homeless youths with training and work experience in the hospitality industry, as well as offering support and life skills. Yet nothing here feels compromised, particularly the excellent food.

"That's the best compliment you could give us," Auger says.

Since 2010, STREAT has trained 120 people in the industry, either in their kitchens or as front-of-house staff. Canadian Auger worked as a chef  in Toronto, New Zealand and at the Michelin-starred Chateau Neercanne in the Netherlands before moving to Melbourne eight years ago and working at Glaze and Three Two One.

"Then I met my wife and started a family at which point I decided to pursue a career in training," he says. "My wife is a social worker, and while my first passion has always been food, I've also always been passionate about issues surrounding social justice. Chatting to my wife about what she does each day inspired me to want to use my skills to combine these two passions."

Auger works in the kitchen at the Flemington cafe  (there's also one in the CBD and a coffee cart at Melbourne Central) as well as running the organisation's catering kitchen, and working with the trainees. "But STREAT has grown to the point that most of the praise has to be given to our team of professional chefs and baristas who go that extra mile every day, performing their very busy regular jobs, whilst still finding time to be incredible mentors to the youth we work with," he says. 

His all-day brunch menu is a mix of classic dishes –  baked eggs with hash brown, cherry tomatoes, olives and Spanish onion on seeded sourdough ($16.50), avo and feta smash on seeded sourdough with heirloom tomatoes, pea tendrils, spiced pepitas and scorched lemon ($16.50) and a range of bagels and burgers. The more adventurous like the popular crushed peas and broad beans served with poached eggs, eggplant kasundi, Meredith goat feta and dukkah on sourdough, equal parts filling and fresh ($16.50). The coffee is their own roasted blend, with a changing roster of single origins, and all the cakes (save some room for the rosewater and pistachio slice, $4) made at STREAT's catering kitchen.

"Our general rule when putting a menu together is 'create dishes that you want to eat'. If you're hungry for the dish you're creating, you'll always strive to have the dish taste as good as you picture it in your mind's eye," Auger says.

"I've been lucky enough to have a team of young chefs stay with me for the last couple of years.  As the crew has gained experience the menus have become a more collaborative effort – the eggplant kasundi on the crushed peas and broadbeans is Hari Dhakal, my cafe chef's, grandmother's recipe. He had made some at home and brought it in for me to taste. It was so fantastic, we actually began engineering dishes on the menu to complement his kasundi ... there's nothing like creating dishes that your team of chefs are also passionate about."

Since STREAT's inception in 2010, many of the trainees have gone on to jobs in hospitality, and two have completed apprenticeships to become fully fledged chefs.

"Generally, we're happy if we give them the employment skills and confidence to go on to any from of employment," Auger says. "Sometimes what might seem to someone else to be the smallest improvement in a young person's life is the most rewarding to our staff, because we know what they were up against when they came to us."