It seems fitting, given Rick Stein’s love of the sea, that Australian lifeguards inspired his decision, at the age of 19, to travel to the other side of the world from his home in Cornwall.
“Australian lifeguards employed by the local council to patrol the beaches in Cornwall gave me the enthusiasm to travel to Australia. They saved tourists from drowning and were a wow to the locals, particularly the girls. At just 19, I decided to go there and took a Greek ship to Sydney by way of Athens. On arrival, I discovered a place of sun, colour and optimism. Although a bit overwhelmed initially, I can remember thinking, 'this is me, this is my life',” he says.
“Hitchhiking from Sydney, up the coast and into parts of the outback, the adventure I had, changed me. Looking back on it now, I can see Australia grew me up.
“It was the start of my love affair with this country – the people, the places and, of course, the food.”
Today, with three restaurants in Australia, as Rick says, “Australia is much more than a travel destination to me. My wife is Australian, and it’s become my second home.”
Now, in Rick Stein’s Australia, he embarks on a road trip retracing some of that first life-changing journey and making new discoveries, from Sydney Harbour to the NSW Central Coast and into the outback.
Here's everything you need to know about the show, including where to watch, what recipes Rick shares and more.
What happens in Rick Stein’s Australia?
Where can I watch Rick Stein’s Australia?
What recipes does he make in Rick Stein’s Australia?
What does Rick Stein set out to discover?
Rick Stein’s Australia Episode Summary
What happens in Rick Stein’s Australia?
In this six-part series, Rick takes a nearly 5,000-kilometre road trip to six very different regions across New South Wales. From Sydney harbour, and Australia’s oldest city, Rick journeys through multicultural coastal communities and into the country’s vast interior, as he discovers how migration, heritage and place are shaping the country and its food today. Along the way, he reconnects with experiences that forged his love of Australia, cooks inspiring simple dishes, and uncovers the new flavours, people and ideas that are transforming Australian food.
Where can I watch Rick Stein’s Australia?
Rick Stein's Australia premieres Thursday 30 April at SBS and SBS On Demand. Episodes air weekly on SBS starting Thursday 30 April at 7.30pm, with new episodes arriving weekly at SBS On Demand. The series will also go to air on SBS Food on Wednesday nights starting 6 May.
You can also catch Rick Stein in other adventures in the Rick Stein Collection streaming at SBS On Demand, including Rick Stein’s Road to Mexico, Rick Stein’s Cornwall and Rick Stein’s Food Stories.
Who is Rick Stein?
Australia has embraced Rick Stein with the same genuine enthusiasm and love he has developed for our shores. One of the world’s most beloved chefs and television personalities, renowned for his love for seafood and authentic regional cuisine, his gift for storytelling and his zest for travel, food and people, he sees Australia as his second home.
The force behind some of the UK and Australia’s leading seafood restaurants, he has also shared his love of food on screen and in many cookbooks. Across more than 30 series and documentaries, Rick has travelled across the globe, from the coasts of the Mediterranean to the rivers of Asia and beyond. He has written more than 25 cookbooks, many of them bestsellers. His work has won multiple awards, including James Beard and Guild of Food Writers accolades.
He opened his first restaurant in Australia in 2009: Rick Stein at Bannisters in Mollymook, on the New South Wales South Coast. New South Wales is also now home to a second Rick Stein at Bannisters restaurant, in Port Stephens, plus his Sydney restaurant, Rick Stein at Coogee Beach.
What recipes does he make in Rick Stein’s Australia?
Throughout his travels, Rick cooks with and for some of the extraordinary people he meets, and is inspired to share recipes and dishes that reflect his travels. They include a zesty kingfish-and-prawn ceviche whipped up in Sydney to share with long-time friend, artist Ken Done, an emu egg omelette after a visit to an emu farmer in the Riverina and a comforting fish pie cooked in his own Australian kitchen.
Find links to Rick Stein’s Australia recipes (new recipes each week) in the show’s Episode Summary below.
Find more recipes from Rick Stein here.
What does Rick Stein set out to discover?
“I can see now that Australia has shaped my life, and my approach to food and cooking, but like all relationships, it’s still evolving, and this series is about sharing some of that,” he explains.
“Beginning with retracing some of my first journey, it’s a new adventure of discovery – to explore how Australia and its food is changing. I do hope you’ll enjoy what I find as much as I did.”
Beginning in Sydney, where he first arrived in the late 1960s, Rick uncovers how successive waves of migration, along with its First Nations heritage, are making Australia’s oldest city such a dynamic and exciting place to live and eat. From here, Rick’s trip takes him to the Hawkesbury River and Central Coast, and into the vibrant bush and coastal communities, on the city’s fringe. He then follows the highway up the NSW north coast to Byron Bay, before heading into the country’s vast interior. Making his way across the NSW plains and into the outback, Rick travels through the country’s food bowl, the Riverina; finally crossing back to the coast of southern NSW, where he welcomes viewers into his home-from-home.
Rick Stein’s Australia Episode Summary
Episode 1: Sydney
Rick Stein kicks off his nearly 5,000-kilometre road odyssey by exploring Sydney, the city where he first arrived as a young 19-year-old in the 1960s. His journey begins on the harbour as he recalls his memorable first visit, and takes a ferry to Double Bay to meet an old friend and chef whose helped transform Australian food, Neil Perry. Rick’s curious to hear Neil’s take on the influences shaping Australian food – and try his fish! Next, Rick heads into Sydney’s Chinatown, where he explores some of the city’s earliest and most important food influences with writer Jennifer Wong. Jennifer takes Rick for “yum cha” at Royal Palace Seafood. Rick wonders if Australians have simply embraced Chinese food, or found ways to make it their own. He goes in search of answers to the fine-dining restaurant, Mr Wong, where head chef Dan Hong is transforming Cantonese classics by giving them a unique Aussie twist. Dan cooks Rick his famous char siu-glazed toothfish.
Visiting the harbourside home of artist Ken Done, Rick makes a bright and zesty kingfish-and-prawn ceviche. From here, Rick travels to Australia’s largest produce market, The Sydney Markets, meets stallholders like Eileen Yip, who’s from a fourth-generation family of Australian-Cantonese traders, and shares her experience of how new waves of migration are transforming Australian food. His Sydney experiences also include a visit to FoodLab, a grassroots community-enterprise kitchen that helps emerging food entrepreneurs from refugee, migrant and First Nations backgrounds get their first start by providing them with a commercial kitchen and business training. Returning to the harbour birthplace of the city, Rick meets First Nations chef Mark Olive at his acclaimed modern Australian restaurant, Midden. Over a native plum margarita, he introduces Rick to some of his favourite herbs, including lemon myrtle, wattle seed, riberries and ice plants.
Inspired by the openness with which Australians have embraced food from diverse cultures, Rick shares his own Chinatown-inspired recipe — salt-and-pepper crab served with bok choy and oyster sauce.
Episode 2: Central Coast
Rick Stein heads north out of Sydney and explores the NSW Central Coast – a region defined by its river, bush, and ocean. Here he explores how Australia’s great outdoors influences how people live, eat and cook.
Rick’s first step is to take himself on a “bush picnic”, recreating a meal that was first recorded by early British settlers in the 1800s. From here, Rick travels up the mighty Hawkesbury River, to meet two of its traditional custodians, Dharug elder, artist and writer Leanne Redpath, and her daughter, Rhiannon Wright. Welcoming him to country, they share some of their knowledge of the river, the Dyarubbin as they call it, where for thousands of years custodians farmed yams and fished for eels.
Making his way along the river, Rick travels to the tiny bush community of Spencer to meet John Ralley, formerly a pastry chef in a Michelin-starred London restaurant, who moved here to live within nature. At his off-grid Bush River Kitchen, John shares his food philosophy, as they prepare a dinner of fire-roasted venison. After visits to Woy Woy, where he joins a group of ocean swimmers for their morning plunge, and into the hinterland to meet some young farmers, he then heads north to Lake Macquarie to meet Australian Vietnamese forager, Balong Nguyen. Balong introduces Rick to his “playground” – Australia’s largest coastal salt-water lake, which is twice the size of Sydney Harbour. Boating out to Elizabeth Island, they forage for cockles, which Balong serves up after roasting them on a grill, with a beer.
For Rick, it’s a perfect day that speaks to the enduring influence of the Australian outdoors on food and culture. Inspired by the people he’s met, Rick shares a recipe of sauteed chicken served with sweet potato.
Episode 3: The North Coast
In this episode, Rick Stein retraces the journey he first made as a 19-year-old hitchhiker, travelling up from Sydney on the NSW North Coast.
Looking back on that first adventure, Rick remembers a rushed trip through a remote, sparsely populated region, filled with long days on the highway and endless fast food meals. This time, however, he’s taking the opportunity to explore a region that’s become a beacon for people in search of a more laidback way of life. Rick braves the surf at Sawtell Beach, near Coffs Harbour, enjoying an iconic Australian pastime. Popping into Coffs Harbour, he reflects that when he was last here, the town’s only claim to fame was that it grew most of the nation’s bananas. The ‘Big Banana’ statue remains a popular tourist landmark. Curious about how banana farmers are faring today, Rick heads to the centre of local banana production, the nearby hamlet of Woolgoolga or “Whoopi”. Here, he meets members of the Sikh community, descendants of the Punjabi farmers who began cultivating bananas here more than a century ago. Rick’s visit coincides with the annual celebration of the Vaisakhi harvest festival, and he joins a colourful street parade and samples traditional vegetarian feasts at the local Sikh temple. Rick also visits the bustling Coffs Coast Growers Market, where Ethiopian cook Tigist Teressa, known to locals as Tigi, runs a popular food stall, dishing up curries with injera bread.
Continuing his journey north, Rick goes in search of the essential staple: a meat pie. His quest takes him to the village of Glenreagh, where pastry chef Brooke Stephen, who made her mark at Claridge’s and the Ritz in London, now serves up what has been voted as “the best meat pie on the coast”. A few hours up the road, Rick takes a detour to the fishing town of Ballina. Here he pays homage to another of Australia’s oversized icons: the Big Prawn. Heading into the lush green hills, known locally as the “big scrub”, Rick visits celebrated contemporary artist, Chinese-Australian Lindy Lee. At her subtropical rainforest studio, Rick prepares a lunch of “big prawns” for Lindy and her crew.
Rick then journeys up to world-famous surf spot Byron Bay and meets British-born chef Darren Robertson, who has made Byron his home, creating his relaxed fine-dining paddock-to-late establishment, The Farm. The day ends with a shared feast of “surf and turf” pizza, topped with clams in homegrown macadamia XO sauce, native locally grown Australian crayfish, and homegrown herbs and salami.
Rick is also inspired to make an adaptation of a favourite recipe, banoffee pie.
Episode 4: The Outback
Leaving the coast behind, Rick Stein travels inland into the wide plains and huge skies that, for him, signal his arrival in the country’s remote interior. He wonders whether a pioneering spirit is required to inhabit this sparsely populated region – or if the small communities here cling to their traditions. At the annual Moree Show, he meets people who are passionate about preserving their farming heritage and helps judge the finals of one of the baking competitions, for Australia’s national “cake”: the lamington. At Moree pool he learns how the community here has been at the forefront of seismic social change with the Freedom Rides, which helped end segregation in Australia. He also meets Kerrie Saunders, a First Nations pioneer who is leading a community project to rediscover the use of native grains, and an agricultural pioneer, Dick Estan, who takes him on an airborne tour of his huge orange orchards, which inspires Rick to make a fragrant orange cake.
Heading further west to the gateway of the outback, Rick visits the “Port of Bourke” and witnesses the changing fortunes of grazing families who once rode high on the sheep’s back. Here, amongst the red dirt, he cooks a classic lamb roast, reflecting on the toughness, pride and poetry of outback life.
Episode 5: The Riverina
Rick journeys down into the Riverina, uncovering how the harsh plains here were transformed into a fertile food bowl through the country’s first nation-building scheme – an irrigation project on the Murrumbidgee River that created millions of acres of farm land, and attracted an influx of postwar Italian migrants who reinvented their lives here. He also meets a farmer who’s turned emu into poultry (inspiring Rick to make an emu egg omelette), and celebrates the region’s vibrant Italian heritage, tasting iconic local dishes and world-famous wines. Just outside Griffith, he visits the Piccolo family farm, which has reinvented itself as an agriturismo (agrotourism) enterprise.
In a region synonymous with legendary stories, Rick discovers a liking for a unique Australian invention – the “democracy sausage”; uncovers the story of Australia’s gay bushranger, Captain Moonlight; and revisits a favourite teenage food discovery: the iconic Australian hamburger. Finally, he shares a recipe for slow-cooked beef ragu that pays tribute to the enduring spirit of the region.
Episode 6: The South Coast
In the final episode of Rick Stein’s Australia, Rick travels through the high country of the Snowy Mountains and back to the NSW South Coast. Passionate about the future of this beloved stretch of coast, and its exquisite seafood, Rick delves into what the future holds – going fishing with historian, Anna Clark; kayaking with traditional Yuin custodian, Nathan Lygon; and harvesting two of the region’s most famous, and sustainable seafoods, Pambula Lake rock oysters and sea urchins. Returning to Sydney, Rick joins up with legendary chef Josh Niland, whose innovative all-of-fish approach is reshaping how restaurants use seafood.
Back at his Australian home in the south-coast town of Mollymook, Rick serves up oysters with sea urchin and an Australian version of his signature fish pie – enjoying a welcome home dinner with friends, including Australian-Scottish rock legend, Jimmy Barnes and his Australian-Thai wife, Jane.
SBS Food is a 24/7 foodie channel for all Australians, with a focus on simple, authentic and everyday food inspiration from cultures everywhere. NSW stream only. Read more about SBS Food
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