When Daylesford catering company Spade to Blade celebrated its 25th birthday in March, there was no shortage of people to invite to the party. 

Owner Gary Thomas made a timeline on the wall for his current and former staff to post Polaroid snaps of themselves along it. “There were about 70 people, which was great to see. I’ve had a lot of kids finish year 12 and come and do a gap year with me, so there’s always a floating population.”

Spade to Blade has ridden ups and downs over its quarter century, the most challenging being Covid, which saw 450 event cancellations. But Thomas has come out of the past three years with a renewed vigour. Catering events using seasonal produce he grows himself or sources from local farmers remains a central part of Spade to Blade. The addition of premium dinner packages – lavish three-course meals dropped off at holiday accommodation – is another string to the popular company’s bow.

“When you’ve got people who come to Daylesford or surrounds for a weekend and they don’t want to go out to a restaurant due to the cost, or the hassle of finding a taxi or a babysitter, it’s a great option to be able to have your dinner arrive hot and ready to eat,” he says. 

The idea was hatched during lockdowns and has proven a hit with visitors to the area. Menus are decided early each week after Gary calls his suppliers. Designed to share, with multiple dishes comprising each course, it might start with wallaby sausage rolls with saltbush, fermented jalapeno and cheese tartlets and cauliflower fritters made using besen (chickpea) flour. For mains, 16-hour slow-cooked lamb that falls apart at the merest hint of cutlery with roasted lemon and marjoram potatoes is always popular. “As for dessert, we can do sweet canapes like berry tarts, hazelnut brownies, little meringues and caramel pudding, but we recently did a great big tiramisu at the request of one booking.”

Home delivered dinners are quick and easy to those on the receiving end, but Spade to Blade is the embodiment of a slow food philosophy. 

Growing his own herbs and edible flowers in kitchen gardens at Daylesford’s Woodshed, Gary makes his own pickles, preserves and dried herbs (“freshly dried marjoram is a completely different beast to the things you might buy in a packet”). Late summer and autumn are busy times for making things like chutney with rhubarb, pumpkin, and drying his own marigold and bergamot flowers. 

Born and bred in Daylesford, he started cooking by chance when youthful wanderlust took him to Turkey Creek (now Warmun) in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, where the roadhouse quickly enlisted him in the kitchen. Eventually returning to Central Victoria, he ran the Cosy Corner Café in Hepburn Springs for 10 years before looking for a change. 

“My friend asked me to cater a 40th birthday party so I went out and caught a whole lot of brown trout and smoked them on watercress,” he says. “That turned out pretty well, so eventually it led to here. It’s been an interesting ride.”