ALL THINGS INGREDIENTS

I’m headed to Melbourne soon. One of those returns that feels half like a visit, half like re-reading a favourite chapter in my life. But this time, there’s a little sting of absence in the itinerary. A small ritual has been struck from the list. The Essential Ingredient, my culinary temple of stainless steel and salt flakes, has closed down.

This was once a must. South Melbourne Market, tucked behind the stalls of chatter and cheese, held within it a shop that was never just a shop. It was part deli, part food porn, part dream. The sort of place where you could lose hours and half your carry-on allowance, browsing preserved lemons in jars that looked like sunlight, or wondering if maybe this was the year you finally learned to make terrine (which ironically I have, thanks to a book purchased from said shop)..

Last time I was there, I had to negotiate luggage space with the kind of gravity normally reserved for international diplomacy. A kilo of salted capers (absurd? Yes. Worth it? Undoubtedly), a stack of tinned escargot, and a few other pantry indulgences that clinked and threatened to burst limits with every turn of the suitcase. The capers, incidentally, sat in my kitchen for years like a culinary time capsule, patiently waiting for the right roast lamb or act of domestic theatre.

Now, after 34 years, The Essential Ingredient is folding. South Melbourne has already closed. Last I heard, Prahran was on borrowed time. The usual suspects are to blame—Covid’s long tail, soaring costs, the impossibility of running a bricks-and-mortar business on the fumes of good taste alone.

What’s saddest, though, isn’t just the loss of a shop, it’s the disappearance of an experience. Of standing among shelves lined with preserved vine leaves and obscure Italian flours, elbow to elbow with people who speak olive oil like it’s a second language. It was a place that made you want to cook, not to feed yourself, but to attempt something generous and a bit grand.

So this time, when I touch down in Melbourne, I’ll pass by the old storefront with that quiet little ache reserved for the gone-too-soon and the gloriously magnificent. I’ll think of capers, escargot, and the kind of shop that reminded you how food could be joy, performance, and affection, all decanted into a jar.