This Actor-Turned-Attica-Chef Is Redefining Supper Clubs With Immersive Pop-Ups

When was the last time you felt immersed in a meal? Gathered with strangers and tried something unique? Heard the story of dishes created especially for you?

For actor-turned-Attica-chef Mollie Nelson-Williams, food and art are linked in how they touch, delight and connect us. Feeling a “uniqueness” missing from supper clubs, she founded Our Table, a series of collaborative popups and immersive events. “It’s incredibly creative,” she says. “There are very few experiences that are so diverse and unexpected.”

Image: Mollie Nelson-Williams / Our Table | Supplied

Nelson-Williams made a post-Covid switch from film and theatre to a culinary career. In two years at Attica, she’s worked her way up to Chef de Partie. But her love of cooking started with her first job as a kitchenhand, cheffing her way through drama school. 

She’s hosted around 20 Our Table events so far. “It’s like what I did at drama school,” she says. “Picking a stimulus and creating something unique.”

The upcoming Urban List x Our Table collab at Lupine Studio in Fitzroy North is wholly new, much like the season. “I really wanted to create a space for like-minded people to share a meal,” she says. “It’s based around springtime, a season chefs love most.”

Warm days have set everything blooming earlier, and she’s excited to see what local producers share. She’s fermenting cumquats, butter beans and cucumbers. Soon, she’ll forage wild garlic. Beyond that, who knows? “It’s spontaneous and creative, a direct reflection of what’s happening around us,” she says.

Table dressings draw from her collection of “found objects”, like ceramics and glassware that trigger curiosity or familiarity, alongside seasonal fruits, vegetables and florals. Seasonality is a passion she’s lucky to explore at Attica. “It’s about not trying to force food that isn’t at its prime,” she says. 

Image: Table Dressings / Our Table | Supplied

It’s not a one-woman show: Nelson-Williams collaborates with chefs and venues, like her event with Lumen “curated” around suppliers like Days Walk Farm and Dog Creek Growers.

“Generally, we spend a couple of weeks working with different microproducers: grown, foraged and found,” she says. “No two menus are the same.”

For the collab with Masses Bagels, Nelson-Williams entwined her love of foraging and native ingredients with Jack Muir-Rigby’s passion for fermented grains. Guests learned about processes of fermentation and baking with dishes like slow-fermented sprouted rye crumpet, comté custard and charred pepper relish.

Nelson-Williams brings dining into unusual spaces. Lupine Studio hosted one of her favourite conceptual pieces alongside an exhibition by Puerto Rican-American artist Zoe Milah DeJesus.

“It was amazing to gauge the themes and respond to that with food,” she says. Nelson-Williams reimagined one of her favourite desserts with ideas of grieving and bleeding: oranges bleeding in chocolate mousse (a clever trick of dehydrated blood orange and marbled melted chocolate). 

“The communication of quite heavy themes into something we can universally engage with brought everyone together,” she says. There’s vulnerability in a room of strangers, but after the “weirdness” and nerves, guests relax into being “comfortably uncomfortable”. “It’s a diverse range of people,” she says. “Everyone who’s looking to connect.”

If you’re keen to attend this one-of-a-kind event on Sunday, 28 September from 4pm, join Insiders here to go in the running. And for more of Our Table’s events, follow them on Instagram, and keep your eyes peeled for future collabs.