Jo BARRETT & Matt STONE

Creativity and collaboration shine through all projects from trail-blazing Australian chefs Jo Barrett and Matt Stone. Continuously fueling their pioneering projects is the duo’s extensive appetite for travel — from working in restaurants in Perth and the Yarra Valley, to learning from chefs in the modern food mecca of Copenhagen. Jo and Matt are keen observers of global food culture and bring this groundbreaking approach back to the Australian dining scene. For more than a decade now, they’ve also been working alongside environmentalist Joost Bakker, including for their latest venture called Future Food System. When Exceptional ALIEN spoke to the chefs, they were more than 200 days into living in a self-sustained, zero-waste house in downtown Melbourne. We chat to Jo and Matt about traveling the globe in pursuit of fresh flavors, the muscle of a global creative community, and their top food and culture gems in Copenhagen.