How Do You Brew? with Ben & Kylie Shewry

How do you start your morning?

Kylie: We always get up early, turn the coffee on, and then we sit here, read the news, check our emails and do some work.

Ben: Yeah, we’re up at six, six thirty and generally we start working here. The order is always coffee first and we prolong breakfast for as long as possible. We leave the house and try to be at the restaurant before 9am every day.

Kylie: And we can walk there, which is nice. It takes about 25 minutes.

What do you have for breakfast?

Ben: I have a piece of rye bread with a fried egg, which has got next to no oil on it, salt and pepper.

Kylie: I usually have a chia pudding – chia seeds with yoghurt, berries and nuts.

Ben: And I’m afraid our coffee always has milk in it…because we’re heathens.

Haha no, the best way to drink coffee is the way you love it!

Ben: Yeah. I totally agree. It’s like, if somebody wants a well-done steak, they don't benefit from me lecturing them about how it would be better medium rare. They know what they like, actually. I'm fine with that.

Kylie: They're not going to like you if they have it medium rare.

Ben: Yeah, and I don't even think a well-done steak is a bad thing. Heavily caramelised meat is delicious and when we eat a roast of lamb, most of the time that is well done. We have some funny principles around what the rules are. But really, the rules are what you like.

Now, businesses like Attica and Market Lane sometimes force their customers to confront their rules, but generally, you know, I'd rather that somebody was happy, rather than following some dogmatic approach that I might have.

What's your favourite spot in the world or home to enjoy a coffee?

Kylie: We have had coffee in some cool places. We went hiking in Wilsons Prom recently and had some pretty special coffee there.

Ben: Yeah, we have these really great friends, Colin and Sue. They’re really serious about coffee and they're also real outdoorsy people. And we went on this hike that was incredible. We hiked up a river to a place where few humans would have ever been. And it was the hardest, hardest thing, hiking in the water, in a river over rocks.

And Sue introduced us to this thing she calls ‘cowboy coffee’. Which is very finely ground coffee. You boil a billy can over the fire or on the stove and add the coffee and then you let it sink to the bottom. So, you don't filter it, it filters itself and then you just drink it. And because it's super fine, it's sort of palatable, but also because you're hiking in nature, you just feel appreciative for a coffee.

It was a really challenging trip. We all camped on the side of the river, and it was almost impossible to find a place just to throw up a hiking tent. We both cooked, and we had coffee the next morning. And it was amazing.

Can you describe your perfect Sunday or day off?

Kylie: Similar to other days, we get up, have coffee, catch up on news and emails and all of that together.

Ben: Yeah, we do work every single day.

Kylie: We don’t have a day off. But I guess what we really like to do is some work around the house, and I’m also studying Psychology so I’ll do that in the morning. Then we feel like we can relax in the afternoon because we’ve earned it.

Ben: Yeah, generally our perfect day is that Kylie would be studying, and I will be restoring or renovating the house in some way.

Kylie: We always go for a really long walk, which is nice.

Ben: This neighbourhood is amazing to walk around because there are a lot of other mid-century houses and we know where they all are. And quite often on a Saturday or Sunday, we’ll make an omelette.

What's in the omelette?

Ben: Normally, it’s just very simple. The best quality eggs that you can find. Organic, if possible, and for sure free-range. A small knob of butter, a small splash of olive oil to keep the butter from caramelising. Per person, probably two or three eggs whisked with a fork into a pan, a really high-quality pan. A non-stick pan is better – but not a Teflon pan – a ceramic pan that the surface won't come off of, at the right temperature. I like some sort of cheddar that melts nicely but isn’t too strong. I also like some parmesan, Kylie likes goat's cheese. I don't season the eggs when I whisk them. I season them after they're in the pan. Salt and pepper, and then I fold it over with a heat-proof rubber spatula. And then a piece of crusty bread, maybe with a green salad, so it's really French.

It's something that I learned how to make early in my career at trade school, and it's something I pride myself on still being able to make beautifully. No caramelisation on the omelette at all. A cigar-shaped omelette. That's pretty much it.

With the children, meals are really, really important to us because that’s the time that people relax – around food – so we’ll always have at least two formal meals a week. We'll do lunch where we all sit down, and my kids are really great at not having their phones on them. And then at dinner, we can sit and talk for an hour after the meal. So, the food that we eat is very important because that stimulates lots of conversation. Kylie does more of the cooking than me for the family and does an amazing job, and that really opens up the kids. The idea of something new and delicious that they haven't eaten before, it really sparks conversation, and then everybody will share about how they're going and what's happening at school.

What feeds your creativity and gets you inspired?

Ben: People, always. Humans are constantly inspiring, in both the positive and the negative – because I think seeing somebody's negative actions can inspire you to go the opposite way. I think it's incredibly important to surround yourself with people who are kind and empathetic, and who have an expansive view of the world. Because that opens you up to new things and different points of view. When you become successful, life can become an echo chamber. And you've got to be so careful to avoid that. You need people and friendships that challenge you and make you think. So, generally what inspires me is people, and nature –

Kylie: And problems.

Ben: Yeah, problems inspire me hugely. That's a good one. I love a good problem.

Kylie: And you were saying before that when you were writing your book, it was music.

Ben: Oh, music constantly. I can't write unless I have music going through headphones or on the stereo. And music with words. So many writers can only write to, like, Max Richter. And I love Max Richter. I can write to Max Richter. But I can write to Willie Nelson, Fugazi, Kendrick Lamar. It's pretty hard not to write to Kendrick Lamar, somebody that's such a great writer. But I will hear the emotion in Willie Nelson’s voice, and I relate to the time that he wrote that and what was going on in his life, and it'll make me reflect upon my own. And then I can get into a place, in writing or creating a dish at Attica. I need music to help me kind of get there.

Everything in the restaurant, everything at Attica is created for music. I joke that it has more stereos than any restaurant in the world. It's got a stereo in every kitchen. It's got one in the dining room. There's one in my office. We buy pretty high-end portable speakers for the staff, so they can always listen to music.

It's how we rally ourselves every day as well, both front of house and the kitchen. If you came to the restaurant in the last hour before the guests arrive, it's really crazy. The music is really loud. People are really pumped. I wrote that it's like a cross between a rapper's hype man, Shibuya crossing, and parents trying to placate a two-year-old. And then, of course, at six sharp, it stops, and then we pretend like we're calm. We're not calm at all – we're right there, right up to the edge of tension and anxiety to try to perform. Music's a great tool in that way.

Another thing that I find really inspiring is trying to observe lots of small things around us. Whatever it might be, it can literally be anything. But just trying to find some joy in the sense of whatever it is, and be grateful for it. I definitely try to make some moments every day just to do that, for a little bliss, in a simple way by myself.

What part did coffee play in your book-writing process?

Ben: I had a routine, which was that I would get up at 5.30am and write till 9.30am. I'd set the Moccamaster up the night before and in the morning, I'd flip the switch on. I'd sit down, I'd wait for the coffee, I'd start to write, or I'd try to write. It was never until I had my first cup that I would actually write. I did this every day for two years, seven days a week, three hours a day. There's a peak moment in those three hours of about 30, 40 minutes when you wake up and the coffee kind of hits you, and that's the moment that's the most valuable in every writing day.

I couldn't have written a book without coffee or music, or without the Moccamaster, for that matter. For a writer, the beauty of the Moccamaster is that you make a big batch and it sits there, and you actually don't really have to break your train of thought. I always have my cup of coffee, I have my laptop, I have my phone, the music's playing, and I'm thinking and I'm writing and I'm in a totally different place, I'm not even in this house, I'm just in a different world, imagining things.

Can you tell us more about the book?

Ben: I think writing deserves the truth and anything less than the truth is an insult to writing. So, I've tried to honour the truth with my book – to be honest, to take a risk. And I felt like a book was the only place I could do that, the only safe place for a writer. You can't do it online, you can't do it in an interview –it's either not long-form enough, or it gets taken out of context. Documentaries are too short, even podcasts are too short – nobody wants to listen to a 45-hour podcast. So, yeah, the book is the place where I kind of laid it on the line. And hopefully in a humorous way. I think it's the most powerful way of getting through to somebody and saying that you're not alone and none of this is perfect.

I think the world finds itself in the place that it's in because of a lack of imagination. Our most deeply entrenched problems are simply a lack of imagination. And so I wanted to write a book that uses creativity and imagination to solve problems. And that's really at the heart of it. If we could just see beyond ourselves a little more, and go, okay, so that's kind of happening to me, but there’s also something that's happening to society in a broader term. So, I actually do have some control over what's happening.’ Much more than that individual would think they do, you know. That's the book.

Kylie: It’s got a very special cover by Paul Kremer, who’s one of Ben’s favourite artists.

Ben: Yeah, the cover is a real work of art by one of America's greatest modern artists. I really, really wanted the cover to be this painting called ‘Glacier’ by Paul. It means a lot to me because there's a line in the book that says, ‘most climbers are killed on the descent’. And what that means is, when you put all your faith in fame and climbing the social ladder and gaining success, that has a lifespan. And when it goes, that's when people die. You know, they're broken by it. And they chase it perpetually forever. And they surround themselves with sycophants and people that invite that. And it's so tragic because that's not life. It's not real life, you know. And so that's the meaning of the cover.

But also, when you make things, you want them to be as generous as possible. And I couldn't think of anything more generous than a cover that has an actual work of art on it. And I'm particularly proud of that part of the book. There is a human side to the cover – it was made by somebody with their hand and their brush. That's a long-winded way of talking about the cover, but it matters.

Everything matters and I guess that’s the point –everything matters, everything's linked, and everything can complete the circle of thoughtfulness. If you decide to do it, you decide to do it and, in that, there's never anything that doesn't matter.