The key differentiator from the likes of Deliveroo and Uber Eats is that the cooking needs to be finished off (simply) at home.
, could quite easily relax now and let someone else do the washing up. Yet whenmeets him at Maha Bar in Collingwood, the 42-year-old is reluctant to declare any sort of market victory or talk up. Instead, we discuss problems that remain unsolved, and opportunities yet to be seized.
For the uninitiated, Providoor home-delivers food from high-end restaurants, including China Doll, Chiswick and Golden Century in Sydney, and Bar Lourinha, Matilda and Supernormal in Melbourne. It launched in Brisbane in February and plans to launch in Perth and Adelaide later this year. Did a shadowy network of well-connected Victorians – or even an established multinational – help lay the groundwork? Those suggestions make Delia laugh. “I hate the word network,” he says. “It’s so f---ing transactional. I’ve just always had really good people around me, both inside and outside the industry, and they were there when I needed them.
That’s debatable: Providoor reached its one-millionth meal milestone this year with an in-house team of fewer than 20 . Delia reportedly runs the business like a Michelin-starred kitchen, pushing his team for efficiency while setting a genuinely inclusive tone. Even with fat margins, being frugal is the default position.
The most obvious difference between the two brands is Fix’s emphasis on chefs rather than on specific restaurants. Quay executive chef Peter Gilmore, one of the four big culinary names on board for the launch, says: “It’s not about attempting to replicate the experience you get at Quay. It’s about what I would cook at home, using the ingredients I have access to and the techniques I’ve developed.”
It’s an ambitious venture, creatively and financially, and key details such as the price of Fix and the supply chain procedure were still being fine-tuned as this magazine went to print. What will be likely to see Fix through any launch-phase hiccups is the sheer talent of those assembled: not just the chefs themselves but also caterer Allison, whose finish-at-altitude formulations for Qantas are recognised as lifting standards for the entire airline industry.
What’s not clear is whether diners will commit to the relatively involved Fix process. The videos that accompany each recipe cover conundrums such as achieving the perfect ganache consistency or how to sear scallops – not rocket science, but not the sort of thing most people do on a regular basis, either. Is there room in our schedules to engage with Fix more than once or twice? Courmadias believes so.
Providoor’s restaurants work in a similar way: for example, while the Supernormal banquets on offer in Melbourne are currently being prepared by McConnell’s employees, Providoor’s own kitchens will take over when Supernormal launches in other cities.Says McConnell: “How we cook in the restaurant is different to how we cook for Providoor, but I believe that the finished product is not dissimilar as far as quality and flavour [is concerned].
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