Ben Shewry’s Melbourne fine dining restaurant has been able to survive through lockdowns thanks to his mum’s lasagne recipe.
Taranaki woman Kaye Shewry’s decades-old lasagne recipe, which humbly started from the back of a packet along with some Garfield inspiration, is being gobbled up by Melburnians hungry for some lockdown deliciousness.
Her son is the owner and chef at Attica, which is one of Melbourne's acclaimed restaurants.
Photo: Ben Shewry
Ben tells Kathryn Ryan the recipe dates back to his childhood when he used to watch Garfield movies with his grandmother.
"My grandmother adored lasagne, it was definitely her favourite dish and she adored Garfield.
"It was super delicious, mum always put a lot of effort into it. It's quite a time-consuming thing to make properly, but it's the fondest memory of my childhood.
"Mum's recipe is always based on beef, we had a sheep and cattle farm and had our own beef mince and it was the dish we celebrated with every special occasion."
Kaye says she was simply following instructions off the back of a packet when she made it for the first time.
"I was in the supermarket one day and saw the lasagne pasta and I bought it. I mean it was quite an exotic thing in our time.
"I think with the beef sauce you have to break the mince down very carefully, no lumps - that's definitely one of the rules. I just made a really rich cheese sauce - plenty of tasty cheese and then Parmesan on top."
Kaye Shewry in front of mural of her son Ben Shewry in Melbourne Photo: Supplied
Now, Ben is using his nostalgia to keep his business afloat every time Melbourne enters a new Covid-19 lockdown.
"I can safely say without lasagne and without mum's influence ... there's just no way my company would've survived without our ability to make lasagne.
"We definitely were despairing and thought we'd lose our business, but we thought we'd give it a crack."
While Ben has taken inspiration from his mother's simple beef sauce, he has also reinvented some of the dish.
"We layer it up carefully with a delicious cheese sauce and handmade pasta that we pre-blanched so that we control the consistency of the lasagne. Each layer is weighed, and it's very carefully made each day."
The number they have served up just beggar's belief, he says, estimating it to be up to 8000.
"We're a tiny little fine dining kitchen and we normally cook for 50 people a day, and at times we've been cooking for up 1000 people a day [now]."
It takes about 12 hours' work for two people to complete about 120-150 orders on average per day, Ben says, but he's happy to do it.
"It creates immense goodwill and that's probably the most beautiful thing of all.
"We've got a whole wall in the restaurant just filled with messages from people, letters and cards and works of art that they've done and sent us and they're all just grateful they could eat something delicious during lockdown.
"Which is funny to me, because we're insanely grateful to the community for supporting us and we didn't think we'd be around still in business. So to still be going 18 months later, when we've been closed for more than half that time is remarkable."
