Is third-culture cooking the new fusion? - Eat Out

by Krysia Bonkowski

Editorial Director, delicious.

Feb 26, 2025

Even if you haven’t heard of ‘third-culture cooking’, there’s every chance you’ve eaten it. A new generation of chefs is playing in the space where Aussie and migrant food meets and mingles.

At the last census, nearly half of all Australians had a parent born overseas. That’s about 13 million people with a foot planted in two or more cultures. As many first- and second-generation Australians can tell you, that’s not always the most stable ground. But a growing movement is embracing the borderlands.

The term ‘Third-culture kids’ was coined in the 1960s by a US sociologist, to describe children raised in a country that was not their parents’. In recent years, it’s found new life on social media and with next-gen chefs through third-culture cooking, which encourages people to express their personal heritage through food.

There’s fluffy potato cakes and shatteringly-crisp battered market fish at Edita’s in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Carlton, but this isn’t your typical fish and chippie. At this new Rathdowne Street eatery and takeaway shop, siblings Tima and Stan Tausinga draw on both their Tongan/Samoan origins and Aussie childhood to tell the story of their family, who left their Pacific nations for a new life in Australia in the 1970s.

Tima Tausinga at her Melbourne fish and chip shop Edita's. — Tima Tausinga at Edita’s.

Tima used to run Tongan pop-ups and a food van, popular with their own community, but along with her older brother Stan, saw an opportunity to reach a wider audience when the Carlton shopfront came up.

“It gave us the idea that if we broke out into your everyday Aussie meal — we grew up having fish and chips weekly — if we could do that really well, people will take to any other dishes that we were to bring out,” Tima says.

As well as the classics, there’s dim sims filled with Samoan chop suey, and a burger based on a Filet-O-Fish – their dad’s favourite Macca’s order after church every Sunday. In the coming month, Tima is planning to introduce more classic Pacific dishes such as oka, a Samoan dish with variations across the region featuring raw fish cured in lime and coconut milk.

The signature fish burger at Edita's Melbourne. — Edita’s signature burger, inspired by their dad’s favourite Macca’s order.

Edita’s – named for the family matriarch, who features on a full-wall mural by artist Danielle Weber – is a true family affair, with Tima and Stan’s parents often spotted in the kitchen and behind the counter, and extended family chipping in to help in the increasingly busy kitchens. A signature snack pack is named for their beloved late younger brother, Paku. “It’s definitely becoming a place for our family to grow into, and we do hope that we’re around for a very long time,” Tima says.

The bonds that unite migrant communities is one of the key inspirations behind Baba’s Place, in Marrickville, Sydney. Behind its roller-door entry in the suburban backstreets, the menu borrows influences from across western Sydney, encompassing everything from Lebanese toum to rolled Asian rice noodles.

The Baba’s Team kicked off a flurry of excitement when it was announced they were pairing up with fine diner Sixpenny to save beloved Randwick Hungarian haunt Corner 75.

There were many things that attracted them to the project, says Baba’s co-owner Alexander Kelly: “The history. The red walls, with far too many frames. And that corner spot, wow. But of course it has to be said… [it was also] our burgeoning friendship with Dan Puskas of Sixpenny and the desire to help him connect to his Hungarian roots, and to continue our journey into migrant representation and documentation in Sydney.”

The new owners of Sydney Hungarian restaurant Corner 75. — The new Corner 75 crew.

They are treading lightly in the space, says Kelly: “Preserving it as a culturally and socially significant place to gather, eat and enjoy oneself.” It’s Baba’s treatment of food as both an artefact, and living, evolving thing that embodies contemporary third-culture theory.

One of the original examples of third-culture food on home soil is Chinese-Australian; the result of more than 200 years of culinary play. The niche cuisine gets a chic update at new Brisbane restaurant The Fifty Six, on the top floor of Naldham House, which is named for the first 56 Chinese settlers to make a new life in Queensland, in 1848.

Plates at Brisbane restaurant The Fifty Six

Credit: Dexter Kim

The first taste its Singapore-born chef Gerald Ong had of Chinese-Aussie food was the Chiko Roll he hunted down at a servo one night, after seeing ads on repeat for the deep-fried snack. “I thought, finally, this is a great piece of Australian culture right here. I took a bite, and was like, ‘It’s just a spring roll!,” he laughs.

Gerald Ong, chef at The Fifty Six, Naldham House, Brisbane — Gerald Ong at The Fifty Six.

Coming from Singapore, where multiple cuisines coexist and flavour the food culture, Ong was not necessarily surprised to encounter this evolution in Australia. “I think the Chinese is one culture that is very migrant, and they evolve everywhere they go,” he says. “It’s kind of implicit in Chinese culture, that kind of ability to pick up other ingredients.”

His menu at The Fifty Six is much more subtle than a Chiko Roll, and at first glance will appear classically Cantonese. “We’re breaking a lot of rules in the kitchen, but to the customer, it looks traditional,” Ong says. “It is Chinese Cantonese food, but it pays respects to the first migration of Chinese into Queensland.”

The sticky sweet and sour coating on the premium cuts of Berkshire pork, the extensive appearance of Queensland seafood, and a sophisticated update on crispy lemon chicken speak of a cuisine all of its own, and completely Australian.