By Jed Lanyon
A Yarra Junction cafe is relishing in the spoils of victory following an array of success at The Great Aussie Pie Competition in Sydney.
Red Relish Cafe earned a gold medal for their beef Guinness peppercorn pie and lamb honey rosemary pie.
They also took out silver medals for their chicken leek mustard pie and the mushroom and veg pie, while snaring bronze for a few classics in the beef sausage roll and plain chunky pie.
Owner Sue Cordina told Star Mail she was “happy” with the results.
“The two gold medals, they are by far our most popular pies and we’re certainly very proud of the food we put out as a cafe. We think it’s quite a notch above normal food.
Ms Cordina shared the secret behind Red Relish Cafe’s success and was quick to heap praise on head chef, Adam Van Der Zwart.
“He does his best and it certainly shines through in his product,” she said. “He’s worked all over the Valley at Rochford Winery and other fine dining restaurants and cafes.
“He’s well experienced and takes great pride in the work he does. He just produces fantastic food.”
Red Relish entered the pie competition in 2018 and took home silver for the same pies that won them the gold this time around.
They have a panel, who give you feedback and Adam took it on board and improved. Clearly, it’s worked very well because this year we got the gold.
Ms Cordina said that like many small cafes, the coronavirus pandemic hurt the business badly when tourism in the Yarra Valley came grinding to a halt.
“When they reduced the kilometre boundary, a lot of us (small businesses) hung on by the skin of our teeth.
“We have a lot of people who come from a long way away just for our pies and a lot of these customers came from the last time we entered the pie competition. So now with gold under our belt it’s going to be even better. This was a positive in a really grim year for us.”
