The Montrachet crew has launched a slick meal-kit delivery service

Celebrated French chef and Montrachet owner Shannon Kellam has launched Click Chef, a new Brisbane pick-up and home delivery meal-kit service.

Operating out of the Kellam Group’s production kitchen in Newstead, Click Chef prepares elevated family sized pre-made meals. The service doesn’t require a subscription.

For Kellam, the idea had its origins in the Montrachet at Home service he ran during the pandemic, which was so popular at times that it was delivering 1000 meals a day.

“I’d be lying if I said I would’ve thought of it as a good idea so easily if I hadn’t done Montrachet at Home,” Kellam says. “It wasn’t my experience to have to prepare food and have a delivery system and all of that.

“That was very successful because it encapsulated the true Montrachet experience, at home, but that [also] made it difficult to do, and long and arduous. This is a little bit different … I thought, ‘We can do something here in the central kitchen that can bring out that style of cooking, but make it economical.’”

These are not upscale Montrachet dishes. Rather, Click Chef peddles the kind of meals you might attempt at home, but prepared properly by a trained chef. Kellam says the service’s menu will change regularly but dishes available at the time of writing include coq au vin; a pumpkin and spinach dahl; a pumpkin, feta and sun-dried tomato penne; curried pork meatballs; a classic beef bourguignon, a lamb and bean cassoulet; and slow cooked Black Angus beef brisket.

“That’s our strength,” Kellam says. “We can do this with our central kitchen and the brigade we have. And how cool is it to have something nice at home for dinner and not feeling guilty about not cooking at home. I want everyone to experience good cooking, not just Montrachet customers.”

Click Chef sets itself apart from some other meal kit delivery platforms by not requiring a subscription to access the service. Kellam says its large, simple portions are particularly home-friendly too, given they’re flexibility for families.

“My oldest boy is 22. He’s a carpenter,” Kellam says. “He eats twice as much as my wife [Clare Kellam, Shannon’s business partner].”

Click Chef is a natural addition to Kellam Group’s operations at its Newstead production kitchen, which opened in 2020 and already produces pastries, breads, stocks and consommés for the group’s venues, including Mica, King Street Bakery, Lumiere cooking school and the iconic Montrachet, which is still often regarded as the yardstick for French cooking in this city.

“I didn’t think when I built a $4.5 million production kitchen that Covid would stop the world four weeks later,” Kellam says. “But we can’t complain. People in the world are going through a lot harder things than us. That’s what I keep telling my team: we might be a bit tired physically and mentally over the last few years, but at least we have the opportunity to keep going.”