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If you want to taste the best chicken satay in the whole of Australia, there’s one place you have to visit: Darwin.
Darwin-style chicken satay (or sartee as it’s often referred to) characteristically fuses Asian influences with the flavours of the top end to create a mighty meat skewer that you can’t find elsewhere in the country.
To many locals, Darwin-style chicken satay has come to represent the spirit of the Northern Territory and the true essence of Australian multiculturalism.
By far, Darwin has the best chicken satay in the country.
Michelle Connolly, a proud Indigenous Yanuwa woman and Darwin resident, tells SBS there’s no argument about the superiority of the city’s chicken satay. “I’ve travelled around Australia and have eaten a lot of Asian food, including satays,” says Connolly. “By far, Darwin has the best chicken satay in the country.
"Eating satay is a part of Darwin life. It feels like the dish has just always been here”.
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Darwin-style chicken
The chicken satay that Darwin is famous for today is the product of past migration patterns. Due to its northern location, the capital city has historically been a melting pot of Asian cultures from Thai to Chinese and Indonesian.
“In Darwin, you’ve got satays that are very hot and use a lot of chilli, you’ve got satays that have a strong peanut flavour and everything in between. Everyone has a different recipe that varies according to where they come from.”
Chinese immigrants in Darwin have heavily influenced the local satay scene. As we learn in , it’s believed the Chinese first came to Darwin in the 1880s.
At the time, they were not readily accepted into the general community. So they created their own community and the was born. Today, Chung Wah Society is considered to be one of the oldest surviving Chinese societies in the world.
In episode two of the series, Liaw visits Chung Wah Society to taste their version of the Darwin speciality – sartee (a popular term coined by Cantonese migrants in Darwin).
The society is famed for marinating their chicken for two weeks in a secret sauce before cooking it for customers. The recipe is estimated to be around 100 years old.
“To me, this is Australian cuisine,” Liaw tells viewers during Adam and Poh’s Great Australian Bites. “Although rooted in Cantonese traditions, sartees have become a Darwin favourite, found nowhere else in the world.”
Eating Darwin-style chicken satay at as the sun goes down over the water at has also become a food tradition for many locals over the last few decades.
The Darwin institution, is a family-owned Indonesian restaurant that runs a charcoal satay stall at the markets.
“Our chicken satay is a combination of our Indonesian and Australian cultures,” says Nabila Majid, family spokesperson for Sari Rasa.
“Technically, our chicken satay is not authentically Indonesian as traditionally, Indonesian chicken satay is smaller and it doesn’t come with a peanut sauce.
“However, the recipe we use for the sauce is authentic to my Indonesian family. It’s one that has been passed down through the generations, created by my mum from a recipe from my grandma."
Majid insists that the charcoal flavour of her family’s chicken satay gives it an edge over competitors throughout Australia.
“Darwin is truly a melting pot of different cultures and that's displayed through the chicken satay you can eat here. In my experience, you definitely can’t experience the same fusion flavours anywhere else in Australia.”
