‘It means heaps’: win for Canberra’s hippest wine guru

Caitlin Baker remembers a time when a question from a young woman in a restaurant, especially about wine, would be, at best, ignored. It didn't stop her from developing a passion for wine that has seen her curate four wine programs over the past decade, and established a not-for-profit wine community. And now, the 29-year-old has just won the Good Food Guide's Sommelier of the Year across all of NSW and the ACT, without even the formal training to show for it, for her curation of the wine list at Such and Such, a restaurant she also manages. “I am actually not a certified sommelier – all of my knowledge has come from working with wine for the last 10 years,” she says. “It's never actually been a plan for me to get my diploma … Wine is my biggest passion, but I guess I'm not what you could actually call a sommelier.” Ms Baker took out the prize at this week's awards, which saw a large contingent of Canberra restaurants taking their place in the definitive guide, and several, including Such and Such, scoring a chef's hat. Good Food Guide editor Callan Boys said he was impressed with Ms Baker's support of independent producers, and commitment to accessibility, “plus she's a gun on the floor, always finding the precise pour for each guest”. Ms Baker said this came from those early experiences of not being taken seriously. “I think just from personal experience, especially when I was younger, of people not really giving you space or time to learn and grow,” she said. “So I think that's the fundamental thing for me – I never want people to feel alienated or like they can't drink good things just because they don't know about them.” The awards come at a particularly tough time for the restaurant industry, although for every high-profile closure in Canberra culinary scene – Miss Vans and Ondine for example – a smattering of innovative high-end eateries are taking their places in Canberra's undeniably hip scene. “I think it's been really cool, especially in the last five years, to see how much Canberra has evolved and changed,” Ms Baker says. “It's so different from when I was 18, and the only really good restaurants were Aubergine and 86, and now it's so, so diverse. “It's just fun to see young people that have cool ideas that want to put the work in, opening stuff. Canberra is making a name for itself. And that's becoming really evident as time goes on.” READ MORE: Such and Such, where she is general manager, is the best embodiment of this ethos – a low-key high-end restaurant with a vibe that values good food and good times over and above stuffy traditions. It hasn't been open for two years yet, but it's already made a solid name for itself. The team behind it, Dash Rumble, Ross McQuinn and Mal Hanslow, also run Pilot, Canberra's achingly cool and more high-end restaurant – the city's only to be awarded two hats. “I think what [co-owners] Dash [Rumble], Ross [McQuinn] and Mal [Hanslow] do is amazing … they're all in their early 30s as well,” she says. “It's so cool to work with business owners that really care about their staff. They want to do cool stuff, they want to educate and they want to push their staff to grow as much as they can. It's pretty amazing to work for them, because I think those three are the forefront of that in the city, for sure.” She says that while the industry was grappling with the effects of the cost-of-living crisis, the city's scene wasn't as competitive or hostile as people might assume. “I think people are spending less and going out less, but I think the best thing about the Canberra community is that we sort of all pull together, and help each other,” she says. “Everyone's feeling it, that's 100 per cent for sure, but it does also feel like there's a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel as well. “By building good relationships with regulars, and just making sure that every time somebody comes in, whether they're just coming in for the glass of wine or the full thing, that they're having the best possible experience – that builds trust with the consumer, and then they keep coming back.” Meanwhile, she says it's nice to be recognised for her long-time passion. “It means heaps, I think it's really cool to know that half of my job is something that people are noticing,” she says. “I also run the restaurant, so doing the wine list is like 50 per cent of what I actually do. So it's nice to know that people think it's good.”