Ballarat's 40 Under 40: Liam Downes - The Courier - January 22, 2024 - video Dailymotion

Meet Black Cat Truffles head chef Liam Downs in The Courier's 40 Under 40 series. Video by Lachlan Bence and Adam Spencer.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - So I love Ballarat's uniqueness as a town.

00:10 I think it used to be cold and gold

00:12 and now it's this beautiful town

00:14 with a fantastic hospitality scene.

00:16 A big town with a small town mentality.

00:19 I think Ballarat's always had

00:21 quite a unique hospitality scene,

00:22 like the pubs and the cafes,

00:24 but I think the restaurant scene

00:25 has kind of exploded in the last few years.

00:27 And people did embrace it.

00:29 Like we opened a few, all these restaurants

00:31 and people loved it.

00:32 So that's something we really saw Ballarat changing

00:35 and embracing it.

00:36 I think more growth.

00:43 I'd love to see people stay,

00:45 like instead of leaving the town to go and train or learn,

00:48 especially hospitality,

00:50 love to see them train under our chefs we have here,

00:53 grow, open their own restaurants

00:54 and just keep this movement

00:56 and the food scene really evolving.

00:58 Yeah.

00:59 There's so many little lanes and cool places in Ballarat.

01:06 I think the more we can keep people in the town

01:09 and the more we train and learn and grow,

01:12 I think we're gonna see these really cool,

01:14 unique little places open up.

01:15 You know, there's lofts in buildings,

01:18 there's all sorts of stuff.

01:19 So I think, yeah, the bar scene, the food scene,

01:21 all that sort of thing will just keep growing

01:23 and I think people will embrace it.

01:25 (upbeat music)

01:28 (upbeat music)

01:30 (upbeat music)

01:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]