Swill Magazine, Issue Six

Edited by Myffy Rigby (ex-editor of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide) and featuring a roll-call of award-winning writers and photographers, irreverent reverence is the order of the day.

A quarterly publication, Swill is a collection of stories bedded in restaurant culture and all those soft places in between.

A celebration of beauty, told with intelligence and wit. The backbone of human culture, food and drink permeates every aspect of modern life in all kinds of ways. Swill gives voice to the strange, smart, beloved and unloved.

In this issue:

“YOU KNOW WHAT THIS ISSUE NEEDS, I THOUGHT TO MYSELF, MORE PAGANISM.”

In a very happy turn of events, chef Ella Mittas had just spent some time at an artist retreat in Georgia. While she was there, she attended a festival in a tiny mountain village called Parma where animals were sacrificed in a devotion to the sun. In the same corner of the world, found Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani’s paintings were so arresting they caught Picasso’s eye. But, as Richard Cooke writes, the artist “spent the few remaining years of his life drinking, shunted between damp rooms, until he finally crept into a frigid cellar he knew to be empty, and found himself unable to move.” Back on this side of the equator, we revisit the work of groundbreaking graphic designer Les Mason, who created Australia’s first niche food magazine, Epicurean. Perhaps my favourite piece (if I’m allowed to have one) is a raw, honest and intimate interview over a bowl of pudding between Londonbased artist and restaurateur, Jonny Gent, and his close friend, casting director Des Hamilton. Massive snaps, too, for writer Max Veenhuyzen who set his alarm for 2am to interview New York hospitality titan, Daniel Boulud. Max told me Boulud sat happily eating his lunchtime sandwich, totally oblivious to the time difference, which is kind of perfect. Elsewhere in this issue, we rifle through chef Skye Gyngell’s cookbook collection, and photograph The New York Times book critic Dwight Garner in one of his favourite New York diners. We get a glimpse of farm life in the French Alps, hippy life in the early 60s in California, and the day in the life of a napkin from crisp folded glory to its soiled descent into madness. And if you want something slightly less chewy but just as sweet, there’s an interview with Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi. To fit all that in, we’ve bumped this issue up a couple of sizes for even more thoughts, feelings and explosions. Speaking of which, a luxury pooch ran off with a baguette on our photoshoot the other day. It was like something from an old film, except for the owner attempting to give the chewed, soiled, sandy, damp loaf of bread back, in the most marvellous display of passive aggression I’ve ever seen. I should have heeded that old saying, “never work with animals or man-children.”

– Myffy Rigby, Editor