Chef Ben Shewry guest stars at the Tippling Club

Ben Shewry's Melbourne-based Attica restaurant is listed by Food and Wine magazine as one of the world’s top 20 in 2009, and the Australian himself is known for his avant garde cuisine -- think electric bong-smoked trout -- laced with edible wild plants and vegetables which Shewry hand-harvests daily from Melbourne’s coastline.

In town for the World Gourmet Summit week, Shewry will be a guest chef at the Tippling Club. We tease out what’s in store for you at Shewry’s not-to-be-missed dinner.

CNNGo: Which are your most requested creations from Attica, and are you bringing these to Tippling Club?

Ben Shewry: Attica's three most requested dishes would be the Snow Crab," which is inspired by the volcano Mount Taranaki which I grew up in the shadow of, "a simple dish of potato cooked in the earth it was grown in," which is inspired by the traditional cookery method of the New Zealand Maori where food is cooked in the earth with fire and hot volcanic rocks, and the "Terroir," a dessert which bridges the gap between sweet and savory and is inspired by the farm I grew up on and how hard my father and mother worked the land for little gain. And yes, I will be cooking each of these dishes at Tippling Club as guest chef.

Sourcing locally in Melbourne.

CNNGo: When America's Food & Wine magazine listed Attica as one of the world’s top 20 restaurants in 2009, your cuisine was described as both high-tech and primal. Why?

Shewry: Because of my use of interesting modern technique mixed with the 40 different wild plants we forage for throughout the seasons here in Victoria. I would add that technique is just a means to an end though and not the important objective. The end result should be dishes that taste of the purity of their ingredients and are natural and not like some chef has messed around with them too much. That’s not what I’m in to.

CNNGo: Weren’t you born in New Zealand and raised in a 2,500 acre sheep and cattle farm? What was the role of food in your growing-up years?

Shewry: Yes I was, I spent the first 13 years of my life in the back country -- it was a very quiet isolated childhood, an incredible gift which really shaped the cook I’ve become. My mother and father supplied almost all of our meat and vegetables -- a very sustainable way of living and food was often our form of entertainment. I went to a school with seven students, two of whom were my sisters and my mother was the teacher and principal. I wanted to be a chef from the age of five and did all I could be pursue my dream -- I’ve had a lot of help along the way from my family, mentors and friends.

CNNGo: You spent five weeks cooking at London ’s one-Michelin star Thai restaurant, Nahm, in year 2004 and have traveled to Thailand to study Thai cuisine. Is Thai cuisine an obsession or just a passing fancy?

Shewry: David Thompson, the chef of Nahm, is a good friend and he really helped to clarify many questions I had in relation to seasoning Thai food and technique. I’d been cooking it in my spare time for years and it’s an incredibly hard cuisine to grasp properly -- it’s almost like the Thais have a sixth sense or something which allows them to have a heightened awareness of seasoning. David has this uncanny ability to walk up to you when you are working on something and make a couple of seemingly minor adjustments and take a preparation from tasting good to tasting amazing. I no longer practice Thai food as I wanted to develop my own unique style and wasn’t comfortable bastardizing what I’d learned. That said I use many facets of seasoning that I learned from Thai food today in my own cuisine.

A simple dish of potato cooked in the earth it was grown in.

CNNGo: Who and what inspired you to pursue progressive gastronomy?

Shewry: I’m pretty curious about things in life and always have been, I was born in a country where constant innovation is almost celebrated as a birthright! I guess if you have a curious nature then you will always question things -- that and my parents' positive influence and the support and love of my family which has always lead me to believe you can achieve anything you set out to do. The classics are still great though and it’s especially important for young chefs to learn them. I’d be concerned if the next generation of young cooks only know about modern techniques. There are many hidden gems amongst the classics if you are prepared to scratch the surface.

CNNGo: If you have time for only one gastronomic indulgence in Singapore , where would it be?

Shewry: To find the perfect bowl of fried rice. It is a life long obsession!