If you’ve ever attempted to cook a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi, the beloved British-Israeli chef, restaurateur and author, you’ll know the process almost always requires a trip to the shops.

That is, of course, unless you’re one of his millions of loyal fans, in which case your kitchen is probably already stocked with Middle Eastern staples such as sumac and harissa, and sauce-splattered copies of his cookbooks: Simple, Jerusalem, Plenty, Ottolenghi Flavour, Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and the more recent Ottolenghi Test Kitchen titles Shelf Love and Extra Good Things.

For his part, Yotam believes gathering ingredients is all part of the joy of cooking and feeding people. “It's the moment where I get to go and choose what I'm going to cook, because I’m always seduced by ingredients,” he says. “It’s an essential part of putting a good meal on the table.”

Yotam’s love for the ingredient-gathering process is reflected in his famously transnational cuisine. By exploring local marketplaces and regularly interacting with different cultures and ingredients, he has cultivated an innovative and eclectic cooking style that heroes Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and North African flavours. All around the world, his recipes are inspiring new ways of cooking – a phenomenon often referred to as the 'Ottolenghi Effect.'

To see him in his element, we joined Yotam at the Adelaide Central Market for the Adelaide leg of his long-awaited Flavour of Life tour through Australia and New Zealand. As we cruise through the city in the Mercedes-Benz GLE 450, he tells us the two-week tour feels like a homecoming.

“I love visiting here… I just feel like I’m at home because people appreciate good food,” Yotam says. “Everybody knows about a great place around the corner, so I feel like I learn but also just enjoy immersing myself in deliciousness.”

Yotam certainly looks at home behind the wheel of the GLE, a car he describes as “the smoothest” he’s ever driven. Our mid-size SUV is as spacious as it is agile and aerodynamic, and offers luxurious interior highlights as standard, including a digital widescreen cockpit, and multifunction sports steering wheel. From the multicontour driver’s seat, Yotam concludes simply that “a car that drives well and offers you comfort at the end of a long day just feels like pure joy.”

Sharing food stories

Weekly visits to the fruit and vegetable markets in West Jerusalem with his mother are among some of Yotam’s earliest food memories. “You get this kind of sensory attack of wonderful smells and aromas,” he says. “I guess the best thing about food markets is that you know you’re getting something fresh and something real… the [sellers] really care about their produce so you’re not only buying, you’re also learning from the experts.”

Equally important to his shopping expeditions is learning the stories behind the ingredients and the role they play in culinary traditions.

Our first stop at the market is Le Souk, a family business that specialises in traditional Algerian dishes such as paella, lamb merguez sausage and twice-steamed couscous. Its shelves are stacked with Middle Eastern spices and condiments, including Ottolenghi staples such as harissa paste and preserved lemon.

Le Souk is run by Azou Bouilouta and his son Adam. Adam shares his father’s passion for introducing Australian palates to traditional Algerian cuisine.

“I was born in Australia, but my mum is English and my dad's Algerian,” Adam explains. “Nobody else here is doing Algerian food. A lot of people think we’re Moroccan… [my dad] really wanted to get the cuisine out there and that’s been quite an accomplishment of his.”

Australia’s original local produce

While Australia’s rich history of migration has created a culinary melting pot influenced by cuisines from all over the world, bush tucker – our original local produce – is enjoying a resurgence.

Yotam’s next stop at the market is Something Wild, a First Nations food store that stocks native ingredients, seasonal greens, fruits and sustainably sourced open-range game meats such as kangaroo, wild boar and camel. Former AFL player Daniel Motlop, a proud Larrakia man, started the business in 2016 with his brothers Steven and Shannon and their father Eddie to showcase Australia’s native ingredients.

“You walk around Australia and you think it’s very multicultural – obviously the Italians have got their food, the Greeks have got their food – and it’s very strong… but you don’t see a lot of Indigenous ingredients,” Daniel explains.

Condiments such as Saltbush Dukkah and Karkalla Pickle and an award-winning Green Ant Gin represent Something Wild’s efforts to create accessible entry points for home cooks to learn about native ingredients. The company also supplies produce to more than 100 restaurants around Australia, allowing top chefs to put their own spin on bush tucker.

“Aboriginal people have used these ingredients and eaten them raw off trees and haven’t really explored the ways they can be cooked,” he says.

An Adelaide icon

Our final stop is at a stall with almost as much history as the Adelaide Central Market itself. Lucia’s Fine Foods is an Adelaide institution and has held the same spot in the market since Pasquale and Lucia Rosella established their pizza and pasta bar in 1957.

Today, Lucia’s is run by the couple’s daughters, Maria and Nicci, and grandchildren Emma, Lee and Simon, who have expanded the business to include take-home sauces, panini, charcuterie and ready-made meals. Despite all this growth, some things haven’t changed – including Lucia’s original Bolognese recipe.

“People come here because they know what they’re going to get,” Maria says. “We’ve been here since the 1950s so you can imagine people came in and brought their children, and now it’s the grandchildren who have grown up and come back saying ‘we just want a taste of the Bolognese’.”

Though the Ottolenghi name has become synonymous with innovation in the kitchen, Yotam says his own recipes remain steeped in tradition.

“I’m not an innovator in the sense that I invent techniques that haven’t existed before,” he says. “The mixing together of culinary cultures is actually what has made world food so exciting.”

“What drives me is the desire always to try something new… I just feel like I’m part of a long tradition of people who messed around with their food and got something really exciting at the end of it.”

Stallholders at the Adelaide Central Market kindly gifted some meals and produce for the purposes of producing this story.

Discover the Mercedes-Benz GLE here.

By Jo Davy