Tasting Australia’s $795 debut train trip an instant sell-out

“I’ve come up with a menu that will work in a galley,” chef Asma Khan says of the coming journey. Here’s a taste of this and other events at next month’s culinary extravaganza.

Necia WildenContributor

Apr 16, 2024 – 5.00am

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When Asma Khan was a young girl growing up in India, train travel was a way of life. On holidays, her family would take the train from their home in Calcutta to Aligarh, some 1350 kilometres to the north. They were “quixotic” journeys, as Khan recalls today, far removed from any modern Western notion of travelling by rail.

“It was pretty rough,” she says, speaking over the phone from her London restaurant Darjeeling Express, itself named after a famous Indian train. “We had to carry our own water in one huge urn and be careful not to knock it over because the journey lasted two days and there was no drinking water on board.

Asma Khan will headline Tasting Australia’s first train journey on The Overland.

“We had to take all our own food, and because there was no refrigeration you couldn’t take any meat, either.”

By the time she was “around eight or nine”, her family’s financial situation had improved to the point they would henceforth travel by air, rather than rail. For Khan, it was a loss of innocence.

“I loved the rhythm of being on a train, and there was always so much excitement when we could see the Ganges at night,” she says.

Fast-forward a few decades, and Khan is gearing up to revisit her childhood love of train travel, albeit under rather different circumstances. As the headline act of Tasting Australia’s inaugural train journey – from Melbourne to Adelaide on The Overland – the celebrated chef and author will be boarding the train as a cook, not a passenger.

The Overland passenger train’s Tasting Australia trip will run from Melbourne to Adelaide.

It sounds so delicious, doesn’t it? For the first time, 36 guests on the 10-hour trip will travel in dining and bar carriages that are coupled to The Overland from The Ghan.

Departing Melbourne at 8am, their day will kick off with a Nordic-leaning breakfast from Melbourne chef Jae Bang (of Freyja), followed by a cuisine-hopping lunch from Adelaide chef and mentor Cheong Liew OAM, and then on to aperitivo hour from Khan for the journey’s last leg into Adelaide. Not forgetting drinks, including a glass of Bollinger champagne on bording from sommelier-turned-professional-train-signaller (yes, really) Stacey Edwards. Unsurprisingly, the $795-a-head, May 5 event was booked out within a few days of going on sale.

For Khan, it’s a chance to reconnect with the food of her childhood.

“We’ll be cooking in the galley kitchen, so I’ve had to come up with a menu that will work in that very limited space,” she says.

Rogni roti, a type of roti known as “bread for travellers” because it stays soft for longer than other Indian breads, will be served with eggplant dip (baingan ka bharta). Chicken pakora, equally easy to eat on a train, harks back to Khan’s memories of the pakoras her father would pop out to buy during a brief stop at a station.

“For me, cooking has to be meaningful, it has to connect to what I am,” says Khan. “And you don’t need to come from my culture to taste that connection. At my restaurant, you can taste the patience, the care we put in to cooking freshly for you. Fresh dhal, fresh rice; we don’t reheat it.”

A dish at Darjeeling Express in London. “I’m just cooking the food that makes me happy,” says Asma Khan.

By “we”, Khan is referring to the nine women who comprise the famously all-female kitchen at her 150-seat Covent Garden restaurant, a favourite of Hollywood A-listers and the first British restaurant to feature on the hit Netflix series Chef’s Table.

For all her success and achievements – she holds a PhD in British constitutional law from King’s College London, and her latest book Ammu was The Times Book of the Year in 2022 – Khan makes it clear the fundamentals of her restaurant, and her approach to cooking, are non-negotiable.

Khan with some of the all-female staff at Darjeeling Express.

“My food is very personal,” she says. “You won’t find edible flowers and micro-herbs at Darjeeling Express because that would be disrespectful to my background.

“I don’t follow trends; I’m just cooking the food that makes me happy. When you come to my restaurant, you put your burden down. We take you on a journey.”

Next stop: Adelaide.

Khan will also co-host Darjeeling Express, a dinner honouring Indian culture, at the festival’s Town Square on May 9.

More morsels

San Diego-based hit chef Claudette Zepeda will be celebrating regional Mexican cuisine.

Fiesta dinner | She’s a chef, culinary anthropologist and star of TV’s Iron Chef and Top Chef. Now, San Diego’s Claudette Zepeda is bringing her “grandma chic” style of cooking to Adelaide, where she’ll be throwing a party in celebration of regional Mexican cuisine. Joining her will be local chefs Daniella Guevara Muñoz, Duncan Welgemoed and Jessie Spiby – and a mariachi band, too, of course.

Mark Best will host this year’s Tasting Australia event on South Australia’s Limestone Coast.

Limestone Coast | Join Sydney chef Mark Best on an overnight trip to South Australia’s unique Limestone Coast region, courtesy of Tasting Australia Airlines (May 11-12). Bullet points will include the caves of Naracoorte, the wines of Coonawarra, Mt Gambier’s magical sunken garden and great food from the foursome of Best, Hentley Farm’s Clare Falzon and local chefs Kirby Shearing and Paul Stone.

If you want to learn more about wine, try a masterclass with Max Allen.

Town Square Canteen | No time to explore the regions while you’re here? Never mind. At Town Square Canteen at the festival’s hub, the regions come to you. Enjoy lunch, a glass of wine and a chat with the team at any of six different regional restaurants including Flinders Ranges’ Prairie Hotel, Kangaroo Island’s Sunset Food & Wine and Clare Valley’s Watervale Hotel.