Kaylo Saito is fermenting and preserving to create flavour

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“For me, sustainability and minimal waste is an everyday practice,” says Kayla Saito, “it's not just paying lip service.” She is one of the most committed and talented bartenders I’ve come across when it comes to proper sustainability in the bar, and so I was happy to pick her brain on a sunny Saturday at Molli in Abbotsford.

Kayla has been working at the Mulberry Group for a year and a half now, and is bar manager at Molli as well as bar operations for Lilac, and generally helps out with the drink programs through the group’s other venues where needed. She was initially drawn to the group because as a company, they align with her values.

“What drew me towards it is our not-for-profit. We have venues, restaurants and cafés, but 10 percent of all revenue from all of the businesses goes towards the Common Ground project, which is our farm. The farm has a not-for-profit called Staying Grounded, and they do everything from job integration, training and placements to community education (like bringing children in and teaching them farming techniques), to regenerative farming.”

This also provides an opportunity for integration with the venues, where at least once a year all the staff get to go out to the farm and pitch in for the day, and they can do collaborations and pop-ups in the city with farm produce, or vice versa in the country. “I just did a pop up on the farm using their rhubarb,” says Kayla. “I made a kombucha and Spritzes and Saint Felix sponsored – there were almost 2,000 people!” Luckily she brought her dog to run cute interference while she served everyone.

Kayla carries this wholesome ethos into her bar program. As we sit at Molli she points out an open bottle of wine sitting on the bar, pausing our chat to jump up and pour me a taste of the vermouths she makes from leftover wines and kitchen and bar waste. One is a carrot top vermouth, using the tops and peels from carrots used in the kitchen, and another is a yuzu one which came about when Mountain Yuzu had surplus at the end of last year and she ended up with a box, processing it in many different ways such as tinctures, syrups and infusions. 

“I use wine waste, citrus waste, even tea leaves once the tea has been brewed,” she says. And the vermouths certainly don’t taste rubbish; in fact they rival many market leaders in terms of flavour and balance.

Molli focusses on seasonality in both the kitchen and bar, which is something many venues do, but their secret weapon is their pantry. Kayla plans ahead, reaching out to the farm and other suppliers to see what is coming into season and basing drinks off that. She’ll then take a bulk order of a single ingredient, and process it as she did the yuzu, breaking it down and using every single part in multiple different ways before pasteurising and storing in the pantry for use in future menus.

“Before we opened I did lots of this: I made apple butter and dried the skins and made a powder. I did tons of wines, rice wines and fruit wines, and then repurposed the solids from those. I just built up the pantry and then we had lots of yummy things to use when we opened.

“On the current menu, pineapple is used twice because it's in season and really yummy. For the Barracuda Spritz, we make a pineapple wine, and then we take the solids and infuse that into our yuzu vermouth. The Upside Down Milk Punch has the pineapple skins, we char those and make a syrup. We juice the insides of the pineapple and infuse the solids into the rum, and we cut out garnishes from it. So every single part is used.” 

This also works really well for their non-alcoholic offering, which is almost as large as the alcoholic cocktail list and just as exciting. 

Kayla does acknowledge how hard it can be to change the mindset around waste in hospitality, but her mission has rubbed off on her co-workers as well, especially in the kitchen. “It’s a slow process, and it’s a habit we need to form. So when we first opened, I feel like there was a tremendous amount of waste as we were just trying to get the ball rolling. The more that you ask how can we re-use that, how can we repurpose that, the more the habit gets ingrained in the team. So now literally everything, the chefs will ask me if I want to use it.

“It kind of happens everywhere I work – eventually the team will be like, oh, it’s trash? Give it to Kayla.”

As she points out, it's also just cost effective. “There’s all these missed opportunities, just look around for them – there’s flavours everywhere and if you learn how to use them, how to preserve or infuse or extract, it's basically free money. The internet is a great tool, Instagram, TikTok, everyone has great ideas for how to harness these flavours.” For books, she also recommends Sandor Katz’s books on koji, such as The Art of Fermentation and Fermentation as Metaphor (for some philosophy alongside your fermentation), and Wild Drinks by Sharon Flynn, who started The Fermentary.

As far as garbage disposals go, Kayla has to be one of the smartest around.

Around the Bars

• This was my first visit to Molli, and it didn’t disappoint. A light and airy neighbourhood joint, and the Barracuda Spritz paired perfectly with a snapper tartare. The Upside Down Milk Punch can be had in serves of one, two or six, which I love – sometimes I think we’ve forgotten that Punches are meant to be group serves. They also have a deli next door, Little Molli, where fermentation legend Caitlin Koether has just started a residency – she’s taking over the menu and will also be selling preserves to take home.
• One of Melbourne’s favourite breweries, Molly Rose, are celebrating their first dabble into distillation at their brewpub with an Apéritif v Aperitivo Arvo menu from 4pm to 6pm Wednesday to Friday. Their brewpub in Collingwood is the perfect place to hang out on a sunny afternoon, and you can try their new spirits range for $8 alongside half price oysters.
• The artist formerly known as Bimbo’s, then Kewpie, on Brunswick Street has returned to its roots as a neighbourhood pub and live music venue called the Punters Club. Owned by the same folks as Near & Far across the road, it has great beer, good pub grub, and fun local bands. How good’s the pub?