Mindy Woods takes Indigenous cuisine to the world stage

BUNDJALUNG chef and former MasterChef finalist Mindy Woods will travel to Italy in June to accept the International Champions of Change award at the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards.

Woods, who runs Karkalla on Country at the organic farm Conscious Ground in Myocum, will become the first Australian to receive the accolade. The award recognises her groundbreaking work in championing native Australian ingredients and elevating First Nations cuisine.

“It’s pretty wild,” she said. “I’m totally blown away that such a small, grassroots movement has caught their global attention.

“It’s been a long time coming for First Nations people to get recognition at this level.

“It’s all happened so quickly. I’m heading over there in three weeks and I haven’t even booked flights yet.

“They’ve invited me to do a keynote speech as well, and how can I not? This is as big as it gets for the hospitality and restaurant industry.”

The awards ceremony will be held in Turin, in Italy’s Piedmont region, where Woods has also been invited to serve canapés.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be rubbing shoulders with the biggest name chefs and restaurateurs in the world,” she said.

“I want to use it as an opportunity to showcase what Australian food is all about.

“The big theme of this is storytelling and I said we’re the oldest storytelling nation on the planet.”

Woods grew up foraging for karkalla — a native succulent also known as pig’s face — with her grandmother and hunting mud crabs along the beaches of Byron Bay.

After gaining national recognition on MasterChef, she opened Indigenous restaurant Karkalla in Byron Bay in 2020. She ran it for four years before transitioning the concept into an immersive outdoor experience, Karkalla on Country.

It includes a Welcome to Country ceremony performed by an Indigenous elder, a smoking ceremony, a guided walk through a native food forest, and a feast featuring dishes such as crocodile larb, oysters smoked in paperbark and fire-roasted pencil yams with dry-aged kangaroo rump.

Woods is also a consultant with The Returning, an Indigenous-led non-profit that teaches bush skills and native food knowledge to teenage girls.