LEAH Clarke’s relatively young age defies her wealth of experience in the local food industry. The 23-year-old is head chef at Subiaco’s Meeka, but this isn’t her first time running a busy kitchen.
At the age of 19 – after finishing a four-year apprenticeship at Applecross’ Citrons – Clark moved to Kalgoorlie, where she was appointed head chef at Akudjura.
Even though her mother Faye had bought the modern-Australian restaurant, Leah still had to prove her worth in the predominantly male kitchen.
“It was a lot of hard work,” Leah said from the kitchen of her recently opened Subiaco restaurant.
“I was operating a large kitchen with six chefs under me and the place had a huge turnover, so I had to grow up pretty damn quickly.
“It was hard to get respect, but I learnt it was all about giving respect to get it in return.”
While running Akudjura’s kitchen, a visiting Melbourne chef introduced her to Middle Eastern cuisine, with Leah instantly drawn to the flavours and style of this type of food.
So when it came to deciding on a style of food for the Rokeby Road establishment, Leah decided to introduce some of the new concepts into the mix.
“I like to define Meeka’s food as modern-Australian with a Middle Eastern twist,” she said.
“I think Perth is lacking in this area and I wanted to do something a bit different.”
Meeka’s food ranges from modern Australian staples like eye fillet steaks to more unique Middle Eastern dishes served in colourful tagine pots.
“For the tagines, we do a lot of slow cooking and slow baking,” she said.
“I do braised lamb shanks or a slow cooked sauce, which I will then add seafood to. All of the tagines are served with Israeli couscous.”
For entrees and Meeka’s newly revamped lunch menu, Leah said she was concentrating on meze dishes, serving such items as shredded duck pastry and lamb boreks.
“The meze style, which is like tapas, is all about introducing something new and allowing people to taste a number of different things and share,” she said.
Leah said she decided to mix the two cuisines because she did not want to be put into a corner where people thought of the restaurant as purely Middle Eastern.
“Because then people will always ask me if I am Middle Eastern, which I am not – I just love the food,” she said.
Just like Akudjura, Meeka is a family affair for Leah and the Clarke family.
Her mother is the co-owner, her brother is the barista and her little sister helps out on weekends.
“I would much rather be working for family,” she said.
“Most people say ‘whatever you do, don’t work with family’, but you can yell and scream and it’s fine, but you can’t do that to a boss.”
In fact, Leah’s family actually helped spark her initial interest in food.
“I wanted to get out of school and I knew I liked cooking. When mum went through a marriage break-up, I pretty much ended up doing most of the cooking, which is when I discovered how much I loved it,” she said.
“Back then, it was very simple food that mum used to cook.
“Growing up in Northam, you use lots of meats and things like that; it wasn’t Middle Eastern, that’s for sure.”