On Sundays in Gascoyne Junction, the local pub's kitchen is a one-man show. 

Pots are simmering and the oven door creaks as Olashinde Omotosho scans trays of roasted vegetables. He swivels and swings a ladle in a series of controlled arcs.

Peas. Potatoes. Beef. Gravy.

An Aussie roast, he has learned the hard way to serve simply and straight up.

"You need to know what your community wants," Mr Omotosho said.

"When I first started, I used to do fancy food.

The cook's commitment to quality is uncompromising and remarkable for a tiny outback community 1,000 kilometres north-east of Perth.

Here, the pub moonlights as a roadhouse, general store, swimming pool and caravan park.

"Fresh veggies, no frozen nothing," Mr Omotosho said.

"This remote, you don't wait for one ingredient [for] a week, for two weeks. You need to know what you can put together.

"People started to say, 'oh wow, this food is not bad.'"

From Nigeria to Australia, via South Africa

All roads to Gascoyne Junction are long but Mr Omotosho has travelled a particularly far way.

Born in Nigeria, he migrated with his family to South Africa in 2013.

Training at culinary school by day, he worked in a fine-dining restaurant in Pretoria by night, winning national awards.

"It was a big challenge for me," he said.

"Within two years, when we win the award, I was sous chef … from griller to chef de partie, chef de partie to sous chef."

But Mr Omotosho eyed a move further afield.

"Life was tough. I was earning good money, but [there was] not enough time with my family, with my kids," he said.

He rolled the dice by answering an advertisement on Gumtree's digital marketplace in 2016.

A Perth restaurant needed a chef and with the job came an opportunity for visa sponsorship.

"I don't know how to express my feeling, my happiness," Mr Omotosho said.

"Australia is my dream country."

An outback town missing its 'focal point'

Leaving his family in South Africa, the newly-minted chef headed to Perth to get settled.

Within months, however, the restaurant shut its doors.

"The restaurant closed down before the visa was approved," Mr Omotosho said.

"But [the owner] had another restaurant.

Home to just 70 permanent residents, Gascoyne Junction had faced a tumultuous change of its own.

John McCleary has been Shire of Upper Gascoyne CEO for eight years.

When he took up the role, he said the remote town was struggling to regain its "focal point" after major flooding.

Sitting at the confluence of the Gascoyne and Lyons rivers, the region's worst flood on record had inundated the old pub in 2010.

Three years passed before the shire could raise enough funds from the state government to rebuild the watering hole at a new location.

"It was designed for that very purpose of community," Mr McCleary said.

"Somewhere to go to tell stories and whatever else you get up to in a tavern."

The arrival of Mr Omotosho, or Chef Omo as he has become affectionately known, was an unexpected salve.

"A community like this … particularly in the summer, it's extreme heat and a lot of dirty, dusty, hard type work," he said.

"To be able to come back to a place like the junction pub and have a gentle soul like Omo, it's really refreshing."

'Middle of nowhere'

Mr Omotosho's wife, Kenny, had reservations before joining her husband with their kids in 2018.

It was her first time in Australia, having flown from Johannesburg to Perth.

"We took a two-hour flight to Carnarvon. OK, I thought we were there," she said.

She didn't realise another two-hour journey in a car, dodging cattle along unfenced roads, lay ahead.

"I was in the middle of nowhere. I was like, are you sure there is a place here?"

Still, it didn't take long for her to embrace the new surroundings and take a job at the local school.

"It's been a long journey for us," she said.

Their family of five now hopes to gain Australian citizenship later this year.

One thing unlikely to change though is Chef Omo's feelings on the local cuisine.

"He's never been a traditional type, sausages and mash type of fella," Mr McCleary said.

"Always just a bit different to see what good ol' Omo will come up with."