Selwyn Times: June 14, 2016

SELWYN TIMES Tuesday June 14 2016 29
Food
Cooking for the creative crowd
• By Gabrielle Stuart
LUNCHES AT XCHC are
something quite different.
The building – Exchange
Christchurch – serves as a hub
for creative people in the city:
singers, fashion designers, architects,
tech developers and artists.
Aliesha McGilligan’s cafe
is a place where they all come
together, alongside many people
from the wider community,
from tradies to foodies.
“People come from all over
town, and people travel. I’ve had
people walk an hour and a half
to get here,” she said.
Her goal is to create something
unique, with communal tables,
a fixed, seasonal menu each day
and all locally-sourced ingredients,
from the fresh-baked bread
to the milk and produce brought
from local farmers.
But creating something different
is nothing new to her.
Her first foray into the kitchen
was as a kitchen-hand at The
Tap Room, where she worked
her way up until she earned
responsibility for making the
desserts.
“It’s not just about reading a
recipe, you had to be quite agile,
and I really thought about the
science of it. I started to do the
desserts better than their chef
did, so they told me to put on
some whites.”
Since then, she has worked in
all kinds of kitchens – from fine
dining restaurant Matterhorn
in Wellington, where she said a
puree could be worked on for 15
hours to make sure it was shiny
enough, to open-air stalls at the
Christchurch Farmers’ Market
and The Commons.
At 3pm on the day of the February
22 earthquake, she was set
to sign a contract to work with
chef Simo Abbari at the Crowne
Plaza.
But Restaurant Simo’s was
badly damaged in the earthquakes
and then demolished.
“It was months until I could
help Simo restart his new restaurant,
and we went from opulence
to essentially a carpark next to
Domino’s,” she said.
Her next move was to Riccarton
House, working at the restaurant
and at the Christchurch
Farmers’ Market.
“It was a dream job, really. As
a young chef, you are always told
do this recipe, do this recipe,
weigh this out, but when I got
there they said what menu are
you putting out today? So they
LOCAL INGREDIENTS: Aliesha McGilligan prepares a seasonal
menu at XCHC.
PHOTO: GEOFF SLOAN
gave me a chance to start with
the idea, to bring myself to the
plate.”
She went on to work for owner
Jamie Bennett for four years,
helping him to open his Passengers
& Co and Town Tonic
restaurants.
On her weekends off she
worked on her own projects,
selling fresh ice cream at the
farmers’ market and wood-fired
pizza at The Commons through
Gapfiller.
That often meant she worked
seven days a week, but she said
she loved it.
That was where she met XCHC
founder Camia Young, who
recruited her to open the cafe.
She said the community she
discovered there was amazing.
“It shines through, you can
taste it, you can feel it and it’s
palpable. Customers are excited
about it and we feed off that.
For me, it’s about the whole
ecology of the whole process. I
don’t want to be just consuming,
I want to be supporting my
friends who happen to be the
best organic farmers in town.”
She said growing up without
much on the east side of town
helped to shape her vision for
the cafe.
She was inspired by her
mother’s “hospitable spirit” as
she made hearty, satisfying food
on a small budget, and by her
foodie uncle who gave her an
insight into a different world of
food.
That also fed into the way
she managed her team, and her
goals for the future of the cafe.
“I would like to work on a new
model for hospitality. It’s workers
need to be treated better, my
team needs to be supported with
a living wage, and nutritious
food and enough time to enjoy
it, and encouragement and support
for personal development.”
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