Behind the scenes with event-makers Out in the Paddock
Ray Dahdah and Ally Aoukar are the creative couple behind event company Out in the Paddock. They have helped redefine Adelaide’s party scene, creating some of our state’s most opulent, decadent events, and tonight’s intimate dinner for eight is no different.
On the cold nights over the Adelaide winter just gone, the Soho Supper Club transformed the Festival Plaza, creating a space for diners to escape the city’s chill and immerse themselves in a red and pink wonderland of cascading florals, fine food and smooth tunes.
Tonight though, the pop-up venue is closed to the public; a red velvet rope stationed across the door.
But inside, there’s activity in the kitchen. Co-founder of events company Out in the Paddock, Ray Dahdah, is running around, prepping for a dinner he’s hosting alongside his partner in life and business, Ally Aoukar.
Out in the Paddock’s co-founders Ally Aoukar and Ray Dahdah.
“I gave the kitchen staff the night off – they’ve been working really hard this week,” Ray says.
One moment, he’s in casual clothes, ducking in and out of the kitchen and perfecting table settings. The next, he calmly glides out from the kitchen, suave in a blazer and loafers. He is transformed into host and entertainer.
Ally arrives shortly after, resplendent in red – a colour that has become Out in the Paddock’s unofficial – but signature – hue.
As they await their guests, SALIFE remarks: “I don’t know how you do it all”. Ray replies with a laugh: “I’m not sure either”.
Out in the Paddock hosted a dinner party at Soho Supper Club, with feature acrylic pieces in signature red and a pop of blue.
Most weekends the duo are styling and setting up for events – birthdays, weddings and corporate occasions – then came Bottega, their popular pop-up cafe in Burnside Village, and now Soho. In fact, counting all the styling, catering and floral jobs, there are upwards of 600 events a year that Out in the Paddock touches.
Least of all, there’s the spectacular Christmas party they throw each year that transforms often unlikely spaces into opulent festive utopias.
But if you’ve spent any time with the pair, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that this industry is exactly where they’re meant to be, putting in the long – and very creative – hours to do it.
From the beginning, hospitality has been in Ally’s blood. Her parents own pizza institution Marcellina and she grew up
in a kitchen and serving customers.
Her father, Brian Aoukar, is 75 and he’s still doing those very things. “He’s really the driving force of my life because I worked hands-on with him,” Ally says.
When Ally met Ray at the Soda Room nightclub in 2003, he was studying biomolecular chemistry and she was relieved not to have found someone beholden to the unpredictable hours of hospitality as she was.
“But he kind of hopped on to the Marcellina train,” she says. “My dad said, ‘If you want to work in hospitality, we always need staff, but if you tell me you want to work, I will give you every hour possible’.”
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Brian took Ray under his wing and Ray spent the next decade learning everything he could about the food industry; Ally and Ray even bought their own Marcellina franchise at Glenunga after they married.
Soon, it became apparent Ray was ready for more. He was naturally gifted at hosting and welcoming customers, and he wanted to combine that with this creative flair he’d always fostered.
The tablescapes at Marcellina started becoming more imaginative and the seed of an idea about event hosting started to germinate.
The guests – Jade Robran, Sarah Abbott, David and Vanessa Humble and Damien Cappello.
First, he introduced children’s pizza-making parties at Marcellina (sometimes up to 120 students a day for school groups), then wine and cooking classes for adults, and finally, the idea that they could host an event in a producer’s paddock to showcase the farm-to-table experience. Even then, Ray was envisioning a grand piano in the middle of a field of vegetables.
Ally remembers waking up one morning with all these notifications on social media that had come through at 3am. Ray had returned home after his shift at Marcellina and started a business called Out in the Paddock.
“I was not on the train then,” Ally says. “I said to him, ‘Can you please not ruin our lives?’.”
Ally wasn’t joking: at home they also had children Grace, then seven, and Andy, who was two. The first planned event was canned because they felt such a huge outdoor event was a little too ambitious.
The very on-theme Gallery Gimlet cocktail.
“The minute we pulled the pin, we got all these calls from people wanting to buy 10 tickets or 20 tickets,” Ally recalls.
“People were excited and engaged from day dot, but they didn’t really know what it was and there was nothing to show for it.”
That event never went ahead, but the burgeoning company started taking on little events here and there.
“Ray would go over the top and make it beautiful and floral and amazing,” Ally says. “He’s the most generous person you’ll ever meet in your life. He’s highly creative and a perfectionist. It’s natural for him to want to make people happy and welcome them and have them feel part of his world.”
Penny Michael.
Word quickly spread and Ray found himself inundated with events, while still juggling Marcellina. He loved the pizza bar, but he wasn’t able to explore his creativity, so when the pair received an offer on their franchise after 14 years, they took it and jumped into Out in the Paddock full time.
In August, they celebrated 10 years since OITP’s inception and it’s been a decade full of larger-than-life moments, and the long hours that go hand-in-hand with them.
Today, Out in the Paddock has a core styling team of four, and an overall team of 15.
Along with Ray and Ally, sitting in on the wild brainstorming meetings are head florist Rita Dahdah (Ray’s sister, whose floristry business he also used to work in) and stylist and creative genius Penny Michael.
Standing in the kitchen at Soho, the four are talking about their creative process, each one deflecting the credit away from themselves and onto one another.
Casarecce a la vodka.
A classic prawn cocktail evokes nostalgia.
The truth is, it’s the sum of these four parts that have guests walking into all of their events, heads craned and mouths agape, staring in wonder at the fantastical setting in front of them.
Rita says working with her brother is wonderful and challenging all at the same time.
“We work well – balance each other out – but yes, we’ve had screaming matches,” Rita laughs. “He’ll come up to me when I’m still creating and tell me it’s not enough.”
Ray interjects: “She’ll pull me back in line.”
Their success lies in the work they’re all willing to put in – nobody is too precious or proud to pull their weight. One particularly busy night at Soho, Ally pulled up the sleeves of her Camilla dress and pulled on the rubber gloves, standing in her heels, scrubbing plates and doing dishes because even with a full team, the 360 plates they’d cleared weren’t being cleaned quickly enough.
One look at Penny and you can see where much of OITP’s aesthetics come from. Red stockings peek out from an oversized white dress, buttoned up around the neck with a detachable black collar. Her lips pop with the same tone of red.
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Penny’s greatest passion in life is food and so much of that was shaped as child, eating at a different restaurant every week and going to see a film.
The rest of the team is in awe of Penny’s flashes of inspiration.
“Penny will tell us about some random movie and she’ll Google it until she finds a little section of this 1940s film, pointing out what someone is wearing in the background,” Ally says. “It’s so blurry and nobody else would notice but it becomes her inspiration. She forecasts trends before they arrive.”
Penny’s father owned a fish shop in Warradale when she was young and she remembers, even then, thinking about how to best display things.
Steak frites.
A touch of Lebanese cuisine with the rice stuffed vine leaves.
Penny says she loves injecting a little nostalgia into what she does, reviving that feeling of going to restaurants as a kid.
“It’s about theatre – that’s what people want,” Penny says.
Over the past decade, the team has brought plenty of theatre to their events. There was a bridal shower in the caves at Port Willunga. A pinch-me moment hosting an event at Melbourne’s Crown Casino.
Ally spent her school years on excursions to Carrick Hill, so hosting a Christmas event there was a highlight. Another magic moment was a series of private dinners in McLaren showrooms around Australia.
When they plan an event, they use a few key words among the team that encapsulate their inspiration – you won’t find those words on any marketing or invitations.
But every single time, guests will mention those words to Ray and Ally when talking about the vibe of the event they’ve created – that might be New York loft party or Tuscan soiree.
The Out in the Paddock dream team – Penny Michael, Rita Dahdah, Ally Aoukar and Ray Dahdah.
To them, that’s the greatest compliment and the marker by which they know they’ve achieved what they set out to.
Tonight, there’s theatre in the booths surrounded by cascading red tassels, and the moody red florals on tables. It’s an opulent setting for their intimate dinner party.
Guests begin to arrive, including Vanessa and David Humble who have been friends with Ally and Ray for years, their children, now in Year 11, starting in an ELC together.
FIVEAA radio presenter Jade Robran and Ally met at one of OITP’s events and immediately clicked, with Jade saying there’s something special about an Out in the Paddock event.
“There’s love in every event they have – love for each other, the food and for bringing people together,” Jade says.
Also here tonight is Penny’s husband, Damien Cappello, as well as publicist Sarah Abbott from Sassafras PR.
Sarah says what she most admires about Ray and Ally is their ability to go out on a limb. “I love the fact that they take a risk, but because of who they are as good business people and as kind and generous hosts, they pull it off,” Sarah says. “The whole of Adelaide and South Australia can enjoy these beautiful pop-up spaces and be totally transported.”
Tonight, Ray and Ally’s Lebanese culture has inspired a couple of the dishes.
First, there are the warak arish – rice stuffed vine leaves, and the lemon infused lamb with hummus, served with pomegranates and pita bread.
Ally says her memories growing up all centre around food. “Every Sunday, you’d go to church in the morning and the minute you get back, it was all hands on deck with the grandmothers making a beautiful spread and having the family over,” Ally says.
While her family are all Lebanese, Ally had one grandparent born in Cuba and another in Mexico, so there are splashes of other cultures in her family’s cooking.
Ray was born in Adelaide, but moved to Lebanon at one year old, returning to Sydney when he was nine, and then back to Adelaide when his mother passed away when Ray was 13.
That time in Lebanon was invaluable to his food memories and he and Ally share favourite cultural dishes.
Tonight’s menu branches further than that though, with a prawn cocktail as part of that nostalgia they love to inject.
There’s also a decadent egg gribiche and caviar sandwich and some classics, elevated and executed perfectly. For main, there’s a beautiful pasta dish with vodka sauce, pangrattato and shaved pecorino, as well as steak frites with café de Paris sauce.
On the side is an iceberg wedge with buttermilk dressing and burrata with peperonata, roasted tomato and crispy basil.
Ray and Ally, along with their team, have done a lot here in Adelaide and around Australia, including recently opening a permanent space at Burnside Village following the success of Bottega. The aptly-named Ray’s opened last month and serves coffee and sweet and savoury treats.
“Sometimes I think, do we just sell up and go to Dubai?” Ally says. “Not now,” Ray thinks. “Maybe later. But there’s still so much we can do here. For me, Adelaide’s always home.”
This article first appeared in the October 2024 issue of SALIFE magazine.
