Mindy Woods

Byron Bay

The proud Bundjalung woman promoting First Nations cuisine

Mindy Woods is many things: a chef, a cookbook author, a campaigner and an educator. But at the heart at everything she does is a singular mission, to advocate for Indigenous Australian food culture, specifically that of Bundjalung Country, a vast region spanning New South Wales and Queensland.

Through her restaurant, Karkalla on Country, Woods takes diners on a journey through Bundjalung ingredients and culture in a rural setting just outside Byron Bay. Under the sun and the stars, customers kick off their shoes to connect with the land, experiencing a traditional smoking ceremony with Aboriginal elders, before sitting down to a meal of paperbark-smoked native rock oysters with lemon myrtle, or kangaroo massaman pie. With Indigenous art and music, it’s a full cultural immersion that offers Australians a taste of a long-suppressed aspect of their country’s heritage.

Complementing the restaurant is Karkalla at Home: Native foods & everyday recipes for connecting to Country, a colourful cookbook that introduces native produce like lilly pilly, a strawberry-like superfood, and finger lime, whose pearls are known as citrus caviar. Karkalla itself is an edible and medicinal succulent found in the sand dunes and was the first plant that Woods picked as a child with her late grandmother.

After working as a physiotherapist, Woods made the move into restaurants at the age of 30, training as a chef and eventually running a restaurant group in Sydney. At the end of her thirties, she moved home to Bundjalung Country, opening the first Karkalla in Byron Bay. Five years later, she closed the bricks-and-mortar restaurant and transformed it into the much more immersive Karkalla on Country, which operates over two weekends each month.

In addition to her restaurant and cookbook, Woods serves on the board of Black Duck Foods, an Aboriginal enterprise advocating for native agricultural practices and food sovereignty. She also educates teenage schoolgirls in bush foods with The Returning, an Indigenous non-profit that re-empowers women in a way that their mothers and grandmothers were denied.

Whether educating her social media followers about First Nations ingredients or proudly speaking on Bundjalung culture, Woods’ work all serves to revive and promote the Indigenous history that has been suppressed for generations. She hopes that by banging the drum for Bundjalung Country, she’ll elevate undervalued and underrepresented native foods across Australia, helping Aboriginal communities to benefit from a burgeoning Native food industry. It is this tireless work that makes her a true Champion of Change.

Read more about Mindy Woods

The Champions of Change Award recognises and celebrates unsung heroes of the hospitality sector who are driving positive action in their communities and creating blueprints for a more inclusive society. It is among a number of special accolades announced in the lead-up to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, which will be revealed on Thursday 19 June from Turin.

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