First Look: New Generation Chinese Australian Cooking Has Arrived at Caulfield’s Potluck

Esther Sun grew up in a family of great home cooks.

“My uncle Tong is my main inspiration,” she says. “Every time there’s a family event, he’s the star chef. He doesn’t know, but he’s helped [me] a lot.”

He wasn’t the only one. Sun’s mum Rita Sun and dad Peter Sun migrated to Australia from Xinjiang and Beijing respectively, and instilled a reverence for food in their daughter. Dumpling-making sessions were a regular occurrence at their home. And the Suns’ extended family, which includes people from China, Cambodia and France, meant there was always a diverse range of dishes at get-togethers.

“Potluck as a concept comes from our family potluck dinners,” says Sun. “I’ve just taken all of those and made them my own.”

Sun joined the industry at 15 and fell in love with restaurant life. Sun ran Mum’s Burger Kitchen with her mother, who prior to the burger shop had spent 15 years running a $2 shop.

“Me and Mum did everything from scratch with almost zero back-of-house experience. [I] learnt everything on the job and through other places I’d worked at,” she says. “I was studying cookery, working the burger joint and taking as many chef jobs as possible on my days off or mornings I wasn’t working [at the burger shop]”.

They sold out of the burger shop in February this year to open Potluck. “Now we’re finally cooking the food we genuinely love eating and sharing with others.”

The restaurant shares a name with buzzy New York City restaurant Potluck Club, a Cantonese American restaurant that is similarly run by Chinese diaspora, and that New York Times food critic Pete Wells wrote reflects an “ABC [American-born Chinese]” sensibility.

It’s fitting as Sun’s restaurant is reminiscent of Chinese American NYC hotspots including Potluck Club, Calvin Eng’s Bonnie’s or Eric Sze and Andy Chuang’s Wenwen. As far as Melbourne’s scene goes, its closest comparison is likely Steve Chan’s Sleepy’s Cafe and Wine Bar.

Sun has spent the last year redesigning what was already a Chinese restaurant and completely gutted every inch, from the courtyard to the kitchen floors. The space now has an elevated old-school Chinese restaurant feel thanks to wood-panelled walls, pendant lighting and vintage imagery.

“The art is the only thing left from the old owners,” Sun says. “They gave me this big book of prints and were like, ‘This is our gift to you.’” The vintage-style portraits from the book now hang at the entrance of the kitchen where, if you peek inside, you may find Sun’s mum preparing the restaurant’s pork and prawn wontons.

Sun’s mother was also the inspiration behind the beef noodle soup, which Rita used to prepare for staff meals at the burger shop.

It’s a time-intensive dish centred on bone broth that’s boiled, strained and reduced over eight hours. The meat is slow-braised separately until tender, then added back into the broth with thick Shanghai-style noodles, fresh herbs and chilli.

“I wanted a soup that you could eat every day, in winter or summer, and never get sick of,” says Sun.

The menu also includes Sun’s spins on mapo tofu, prawn toast and san choy bow, plus rotating dishes inspired largely by Cambodia, the home country of two of her chefs.

“We’re going to be doing all kinds of specials from all over Asia down the line,” says Sun. “At the moment, everything on the menu [besides the specials] is Chinese, but Potluck doesn’t discriminate.”

Beverages include non-alcoholic aloe and honey highballs, and sour plum juice. “You can’t have a Chinese restaurant without tea,” she adds, so Sun serves infusions of chrysanthemum and honeysuckle, as well as rose, goji and date. Guests can also BYO wine or beer for $5 a head until the venue’s full liquor licence is approved.

Potluck
829 Glen Huntly Road, Caulfield
(03) 9967 5254

Hours:
Tue to Sat 5pm–10pm

instagram.com/potluck.melb