Inside Tim Wimborne’s pasta shop in Braidwood in the New South Wales Southern Tablelands, perfectly curved pasta shells are slowly extruded through Italian-made brass dies before being cut off and falling into a mesh tray.
Once full, the tray is transferred to a drying rack where it will spend about 80 hours at room temperature.
It’s a methodical process which the chef says preserves the pasta’s nutritional value and means it holds sauce better.
“Because we use traditional techniques, it’s slow compared to industrially produced pasta,” Mr Wimborne says.
“We try to do something different by using old-fashioned, artisan techniques.
“All our equipment is Italian but we’re trying to put our local stamp on it.”
Bounce-back idea becomes success story
Three years ago, Mr Wimborne turned to pasta-making after losing the infrastructure and crop from his native mountain pepperberry orchard — the first commercial orchard of its kind in New South Wales — in the 2019 bushfires.
Now he is struggling to keep up with demand for the boutique product.
“It’s been a good journey for us and towards the end of the year it’s the busiest time for us,” he says.
“We have 30 retailers in Canberra, the Southern Highlands and the south coast and it’s growing organically.”
Local flavour
As well as his slow method of production, Mr Wimborne’s main point of difference is flavouring his pasta with locally grown ingredients.
Originally it was infused with native pepperberry, a fruity and spicy bush food that turns the pasta light grey.
“From there, we use a lot of garlic because Braidwood is known as a garlic area now,” he says.
“We have roasted garlic and rocket and now we’re doing a non-wheat version using red-lentil flour.”
He also diversified the business by making dried flatbread.