Cameron Kydd’s culinary journey has taken him from his home town of Kyabram to Melbourne and Bendigo, before becoming the head chef at the Junction Moama Bowling Club, where he has worked for the past five years.

“I came back and was sous chef for a few years at Junction, and for the last eight months I have been the head chef here,” Cameron said.

“It is a really good place to work; we have a good team, and I get lots of freedom with the menu and the food that we cook here.”

A recent career highlight saw Cameron and Junction pastry chef Vanessa Breja cooking at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Hotel for Australia Day, on behalf of Junction and the Moama Bowling Club.

“We sent menus over a couple of months in advance to the chefs, and they got half the prep organised for us,” he said.

“Then we went over, and Vanessa handled all the dessert side of everything.

“We had a live cooking station in front of the restaurant, so I was cooking Australian wagyu and iconic Junction meals there.”

The menu Cameron cooked in Singapore included dishes such as wattleseed damper with Vegemite or lamb fat butter, wild venison with gin botanicals, braised Loddon Valley lamb shoulder with a saltbush and river mint rub, lamb jus and a phoenix wagyu porterhouse with pepperberry jus.

From the pastry kitchen, Vanessa served dishes including pavlova with Davidson plum, wattleseed lamington and Tim Tam cheesecake.

The Singapore experience was an eye-opener for Cameron as to how lucky we are, in terms of fresh produce, in Echuca-Moama.

“Food-wise, obviously, everything, all the fruit and veg, meat, everything’s all imported to Singapore,” he said.

“It definitely makes you appreciate what you have here.”

A highlight of Cameron’s trip to Singapore was dinner at the three-Michelin-starred restaurant Odette.

Since Cameron’s return from Singapore, Junction guests may have noticed a dish inspired by his visit to Odette on Fridays and Saturdays: a rosemary-smoked organic egg paired with a potato espuma.

“We put potato purée in a foam gun and then made a brown butter foam, put that over the top of the egg and some dehydrated chorizo,” Cameron said.

“It was a bit hit and miss with some of the guests, they were a bit weirded out by the texture, because the egg was sous vide, so it was still very runny, but the majority of people liked it.”

At Junction, Cameron and his team regularly update their menu, offering innovative dishes alongside quality steaks.

“We try to be different,” he said.

“I like to try and be that point of difference and give guests something new to try.”

The restaurant offers à la carte dining, Thursday to Sunday, and a seven-course set menu on Friday and Saturday nights.

“We have something in every sort of price range, but always the best quality,” Cameron said of their steak selection.

“We love working with beef, especially because Australian beef is so good.”

The restaurant’s dry-ageing fridge, acquired last year, allows the team to age beef for at least three weeks and duck for up to seven days.

Junction will always have at least three cuts of steak on the menu with different marbling scores and price points.

As the cooler months approach, Cameron will add braising dishes to the menu, including a lamb shoulder that’s perfect for sharing among four.

“I always loved cooking when I was a kid and always helped Mum in the kitchen, and honestly, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” he said.

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