Ralph So, chef at Etta, takes the pass in Brunswick East

Ralph So starts his Etta menu with scallop toast, tom yum butter, and green papaya, then puts blue swimmer crab rice noodles with burnt corn beside it. Ralph So is now executive chef of Etta and Daphne, Hannah Green’s two Brunswick East restaurants, with a limited new menu launching this week and a full rollout due over the next month.

The appointment puts So on one of Melbourne ’s closely watched benches. Etta opened on Lygon Street in autumn 2017 and has since worked as a launching pad for Charlie Snadden-Wilson, now at Clover; Rosheen Kaul, now at Little Rose; and Lorcan Kan, the Etta chef since 2024 who has left to pursue a career in food science. Kaul and Kan were Chef of the Year finalists at the recent Age Good Food Guide Awards. Green now hands the pass to a chef originally from Malaysia, with time at Ho Jiak in Melbourne, Supernormal on Flinders Lane, the now-closed Rosetta, and Chin Chin Sydney.

Why Ralph So Etta chef matters now

Etta has sent cooks into new roles, and Green has run the Lygon Street restaurant since autumn 2017. Kan’s 2024 menu included a chilli oil parfait that became one of Melbourne’s notable dishes that year.

Kan’s exit also gives the handover its shape. He balanced his work at Etta with university studies before leaving for food science. Green described the goodbye as bittersweet and said she was proud of what Kan had accomplished personally and professionally. Etta’s recent history has been built through chefs who use the room as a working station, then carry the discipline elsewhere.

So arrives with a different set of tools. Ho Jiak gives his CV a Malaysian reference point in Melbourne; Supernormal places him inside one of Flinders Lane’s high-volume, Asian-inflected dining rooms; Rosetta adds a now-closed Italian dining room to the record; Chin Chin Sydney adds another kitchen built around South-East Asian and East Asian cues in an Australian restaurant setting.

From Ho Jiak to Rosetta, the CV that built the hand

So has said he is excited to take his experience cooking other people’s versions of South-East and East Asian cuisines and put it into the context of Melbourne and Etta.

At Ho Jiak in Melbourne, the Malaysian connection sits closest to So’s origin. At Supernormal on Flinders Lane, the work belongs to a dining room where East Asian references move through a Melbourne service rhythm. At Rosetta, the now-closed restaurant named in his CV, the grammar changes again, toward pasta, sauce, and another lineage of the pass. At Chin Chin Sydney, So worked with South-East Asian and East Asian food in a city restaurant.

Etta and Daphne sit on the same block. The butchery program can feed both rooms if the kitchen keeps the cut list, cure schedule, smoking, and service use aligned. The carcass can move through two menus, two price points, and two levels of formality.

What changes when Lorcan Kan leaves for food science

Kan’s departure would matter in any kitchen with a following. At Etta, it lands harder because his chilli oil parfait became a dish people tracked across Melbourne in 2024. A parfait sits in pastry discipline; chilli oil moves through heat, aroma, and fat. The dish showed what Kan was willing to make the room hold at once.

Food science keeps him near food while changing the tools. Etta loses a chef who had been cooking in the room since 2024 and who had built a public dish with enough pull to sit in diners’ memory. The handover to So does not erase that. So is a new maker in a kitchen where the predecessor’s work is still recent.

Green’s role becomes visible in this kind of transition. She owns Etta and Daphne, and her restaurants have housed chefs at different points in their development. Charlie Snadden-Wilson is now at Clover. Rosheen Kaul is now at Little Rose. Kan leaves for food science after the year of the parfait.

For So, that pressure starts with a limited new menu this week, then a full menu over the next month. That staggered rollout gives the kitchen a narrow first pass before the larger program arrives. The change will happen in stages, with scallop toast and crab noodles first and more of the chef’s menu later.

Hannah Green’s Lygon Street bench

Etta sits at 60 Lygon Street in Brunswick East. The restaurant opened in autumn 2017, and Daphne, Green’s sister restaurant, operates on the same block. So takes responsibility for both, though his focus begins with Etta before he becomes more involved with Daphne next year.

The arrangement gives So Etta and Daphne to think through. Etta carries the hatted restaurant’s expectation and the recent memory of Kan’s menu. Daphne is described as the more casual neighbourhood spot, and So has said he wants to add a layer of cheekiness and fun there. He also wants to show that strong options, wine service, and hospitality exist outside the CBD. In Green’s Brunswick East setup, that argument is tested across two doors.

A chef running two restaurants has to design food that can share labour without flattening each room. If meats are cured and smoked in-house, the kitchen must decide where each item belongs, how much of it can be used, and what service pattern can carry it. If whole animal butchery arrives, the question sharpens. The loin, trim, fat, bones, offal, and cured pieces cannot all sit on one menu with the same demand curve. Two venues give So more ways to use the animal without forcing every cut into Etta’s frame.

So takes charge of Etta and Daphne now, with one full menu rollout already scheduled and another venue waiting for his deeper involvement next year. The pass is immediate. The program is longer.

The Malaysian-influenced creativity So brings to Brunswick East

So is originally from Malaysia, and his first named dishes at Etta do not hide the connection to South-East and East Asian flavour. Tom yum appears as butter rather than broth. Green papaya sits with scallop toast rather than in a salad described on its own. Rice noodles carry blue swimmer crab, and burnt corn shifts the dish away from a straight seafood noodle reading.

Restaurant cooking passes through employers, formats, predecessors, and dining rooms before it becomes a chef’s own language.

"I think in Melbourne we're really forming a new era of Australian food"¹

Ralph So, executive chef, The Sydney Morning Herald

Australian food, in So’s early Etta reading, can include tom yum butter without placing it in a side category. It can include blue swimmer crab rice noodles without asking the dish to explain itself as fusion. It can move through a Brunswick East hatted restaurant and a casual sister venue on the same block. The claim has to survive service at Etta and Daphne, plate by plate.

Scallop toast asks how a familiar format can carry tom yum. Crab rice noodles ask how a seafood dish can hold burnt corn. Cured and smoked meats ask how the kitchen will manage time, salt, smoke, and inventory. Whole animal butchery, if it launches, asks whether Etta and Daphne can share an animal with enough discipline to make the program sensible.

How Etta functions as a talent incubator

Etta’s recent chef list gives So both company and pressure. Charlie Snadden-Wilson moved on to Clover. Rosheen Kaul moved on to Little Rose. Lorcan Kan became associated with the 2024 chilli oil parfait and was named, with Kaul, among the Chef of the Year finalists at the recent Age Good Food Guide Awards.

A restaurant with a strong owner and rotating chef talent asks a different kind of attention from a restaurant fixed around one founding chef’s signature. The dish history changes. The hand changes. The room accumulates lineage through succession, and each successor inherits both a platform and a set of comparisons.

So’s arrival also clarifies Green’s long work at the venue. He has credited her with almost 10 years as the glue of the place. Etta opened in autumn 2017, and its run now contains several chef chapters without losing the Brunswick East address that holds them together. Daphne gives Green and So another room on the same block, which lets the next phase spread across a hatted restaurant and a neighbourhood venue.

Ho Jiak, Supernormal, Rosetta, and Chin Chin Sydney are all named in So’s path. Etta and Daphne are now the rooms where he has to turn that path into leadership. A program is built through the same decisions made through prep, service, staff correction, menu adjustment, and the next order.

What to watch as the menu rolls out

The limited menu launches this week. It makes Ralph So Etta chef a working reality. The scallop toast and blue swimmer crab rice noodles will carry the first round of attention because they name the direction plainly.

The full menu arrives over the next month. That is where the kitchen can show how far the opening ideas travel. A single dish can announce a flavour. A full menu has to manage pacing, repetition, contrast, and the number of times a table meets smoke, acid, seafood, pastry, noodle, and butter in one sitting.

Daphne sits beyond Etta. So becomes more involved there next year, and the casual neighbourhood room may reveal another side of his method. The same block will give Melbourne a close view of how Green and So divide one executive chef’s attention between two different rooms.

The butchery program remains to come. Whole animal work, if So launches it across Etta and Daphne, will make the two venues speak to each other through cuts, cures, smoked meats, and service planning. That is a longer test than a first-week dish. It asks whether a chef with Ho Jiak, Supernormal, Rosetta, and Chin Chin Sydney behind him can build a Brunswick East program that belongs to this bench, this owner, and this next chapter of the pass.