The Essential Ingredient

Gadgets galore and so much more!
We’ve been before (online), and we will be again! We stumbled on the physical location checking out another place (see upcoming review!) and were genuinely stoked.
There is a fantastic selection of high end, quality ingredients that «the fresh food people» & «down down prices are down» do NOT stock! Whether it’s a fresh organic cordial infusion or some dried tea infusions these guys will likely have it. Add that to pretty much every gizmo and gadget you could hope for and you’re in a foodies Walmart! Then you will keep exploring and find books, a coffee shop (which we didn’t try) among other random things like seeing a cooking class happening live haha!
Prices are well… Highish but I guess that’s the price for quality!

I love this place! They have so many gadgets and gizmos, easily could get lost looking at the many wonders this place has. Mainly selling gourmet food, kitchen appliances and baking tools, they have heaps of cool stuff you probably don’t need but want anyway. Just because it’s cool.

Wonderful storefront showcasing some fabulous foodie equipment and products. Very high end, and um, well somewhat expensive too, however, if you need a particular gourmet kitchen device then this is the place to come (Kichenaid, Cuisinart, etc).
On my last visit I discovered that they stock a small selection of frozen Australian wild foods — the sort of thing that I had only seen in premade pour-​over sauces in Coles, or in the dried herbs section of gourmet grocers. Again, very pricy, but «new» foods need to start somewhere.
And the cook book section… well, I could browse for hours :)

Finally a good cooking and foodie establishment has arrived in Darling Street Rozelle on the former site where The Barn used to be situated. That was a sad day in the community to see The Barn go due to council issues. For a period of time this site was derelict, and now The Essential Ingredient provides another social hole for coffee drinkers to unite and rejoice. Chic, cute, trendy and cosy for those of us who happen to have all the time in the world on any given occasion on a Saturday morning in particular.
Am a fan of their cooking equipment in particular, although my preferred choice would still be Victoria’s Basement in the city. Still a great effort, and a beautiful delicatessen and an array of tinned gourmet foods including the semi and sun dried tomatoes, and even the tinned jelly beans which will give Crabtree and Evelyn a good run for their money.
Its elegant, and it is great to see another quality food establishment with a café come here on this massive site again; although nothing can really replace the Barn in my books anyway, and yet my food standards are much higher than they used to be, although still not that high. Look out for their chocolate making classes, they are divine.

What a great place.
Calling of chefs in the local area. … Come to this place. It’s really good. Honest.
It really is though — it just has everything. I don’t know the first thing about cooking, but as soon as I came through the door I was learning. Isles and isles of various cooking equipments and foods. And theres a room in the back — you can watch through the glass — I think they have cooking classes in there.
It all looks very profesh. You can call ahead if you’re looking for somethign special; the staff are extra friendly. Or just come in for a browse if cookings your thing. Ima thinking that you’ll leave the place inspired and with some cool new ideas for the kitchen.
I think you’d be surprised as some of the stuff thats in here, innovative new ideas, and that sort of thing. I was just glad to be buying marzipan. Pure sugar! And we didn’t need to use all of it, so some was left over…

On my last visit to the Essential Ingredient they had just had a shipment of cookware delivered which meant I had to have a proper look — although I don’t need any cookware at the moment.
The time before that I looked at the couverture chocolate, I bought some. The time before that it was the cookbooks and the time before that it was meeting a friend in the coffee shop, where they have a range of salads such as pumpkin and cous cous.
I can find any number of reasons to visit, sometimes if I am in the area I just go and browse, I adore it.
Essential Ingredient has become a franchise business with several outlets inj Sydney (head office is in Melbourne) but I like the Rozelle store the best.
At the Rozelle store they have a cooking school where you can attend classes with well known chefs and others such as Ray Jarrat, who holds classes on food photography.
They run Paddock to Plate cooking tours where you go to the markets and buy the raw ingredients and then come back and cook them.
The also have a knife sharpening service for people with proper knives not the sort that you buy in K-​Mart or Target.
To any cook it really is The Essential Ingredient.