“You have to do your research,” Elijah says. If he’s ever unsure about a plant’s origin, he consults botanists before testing out the ingredients in his kitchen. Since qualifying as a chef at 17, and taking his first head chef job at 21, Elijah spends almost every minute of spare time rummaging for wild foods and researching their provenance. “We want people to come in any day of the week and find something new.”Įlijah’s passion for foraging and cooking started as a young boy growing up in NSW’s Blue Mountains, where his parents often foraged for ingredients and his mother taught him how to bake, ferment and preserve food. “And that’s what we want for the restaurant… local and wild ingredients cooked in a fun, approachable way. “I can walk down the street from Loti and find food down at the beach,” Elijah says. The menu draws inspiration from the local coastline, with plenty of flame, smoke, curing and fermentation. Part fine diner, part all-day café, Loti’s fire-fuelled kitchen is designed to deliver leisurely feasts with views of the bay, or quick snacks before a show at the Palais Theatre up the road. The restaurant anchors a soaring new apartment development on the site of the St Moritz ice rink. It’s a wild bull kelp soy sauce which is gluten free, vegan and 96 per cent made in Victoria with wild garlic and peppercorn leaves.Įlijah moved on from Lume to open Loti in June this year on St Kilda’s iconic Esplanade. “I also started a side business in lockdown – Ronin Kelp. “Even when we were in lockdown, we were busy doing takeaway meals and using a lot of wild foods, which helped with food costs and helped us keep staff on,” Elijah says. Just a few months later, the pandemic hit. And the birds are always beating you to the native white currants.”Įlijah is a relative newcomer to Victoria, arriving in the city in December 2019 to cook at Lume, a celebrated fine diner in South Melbourne. Other days, your harvest might be smashed by weather or bugs. “And it’s important for us as chefs to know and understand where your food comes from… how it’s not always there. “Just being out there is one of the most incredible parts of cooking. Other days, we’ll spend an hour and half down the beach in St Kilda foraging before our shift. We’re heading to the Yarra Ranges tomorrow, and we’ll stop off at a winery and make a fun day of it. It’s part of the weekly shifts of the restaurant. “We go out as a team at least twice a week and forage all over Victoria. “There’s wild food everywhere,” says Elijah, who at 30 has already built an impressive cooking career on foraging at NOMA Australia, Aria, Quay and Lume, along with four years managing a major restaurant group in China where he won multiple awards and accolades.

Elijah's Want by Victoria Blue