The drinks were plenty and the food was abundant last night when Australia’s leading chefs and restaurateurs gathered at Sydney’s Hubert to award the country’s best culinary talents at the annual Gourmet Traveller (GT) National Restaurant Awards.
The recently refurbished Quay took out the top honour – Australia’s Restaurant of the Year – which the magazine’s chief restaurant critic Pat Nourse says redefines luxury dining in Australia.
The Sydney fine diner closed earlier this year for a three-month, $4 million renovation, reopening with customised furniture, bespoke ingredients, a reinvented oyster and one of the country’s most creative menus.
The award was handed to a dapperly dressed John Fink, the creative director of the Fink Group (which owns Quay and a number of other venues including Sydney’s Bennelong, and Otto in Sydney and Brisbane) and an ecstatic Peter Gilmore. Just before the 32-year-old restaurant reopened, executive chef Gilmore told Broadsheet, “You must keep evolving; you can’t rest on your laurels. You’ve got to keep things interesting for yourself, your staff and your customers.”
A regional venue took out the coveted New Restaurant of the Year honour, Laura, on the Mornington Peninsula. The glam eatery, helmed by culinary director Phil Wood (ex Rockpool Sydney and Eleven Bridge), is set within the 50-acre Point Leo Estate that’s home to sculptures and a winery.
In fact, regional Australia is where you can find some of the country’s best eating according to the longest-standing national restaurant awards.
Ali Currey-Voumard, of the excellent Agrarian Kitchen Eatery in Tasmania’s New Norfolk, won the Best New Talent award, while Liberté in Albany, five hours from Perth, was the first bar outside of a major city to win the Best Bar category.
And the big one in the category, Regional Restaurant of the Year, was given to Brae. It’s another award piled on the laconic owner-chef Dan Hunter. His highly respected venue is set on a several acre garden 90 minutes west of Melbourne, near the small town of Birregurra.
The Outstanding Contribution to Hospitality prize went to the organisers behind the now-retired Rootstock, which was Australia’s largest natural-wine festival. Co-founders Giorgio De Maria, Mike Bennie, James Hird, Linda Wiss and Matt Young started “wine Christmas” (as it came to be known) in Sydney in 2013. Nourse says, “It showed the food and wine community that Australian drinkers are much more adventurous than they’d previously thought, and it reminded everyone that wine is, after all, supposed to be fun.”
Emma Farrelly of the State Buildings in Perth won Sommelier of the Year. She oversees the wine lists of four different venues, including Wildflower and Post.
It was, though, the peer-voted Chef of the Year category that garnered the biggest applause. Twenty-nine-year-old Josh Niland of Sydney’s game-changing seafood restaurant Saint Peter was the answer when chefs from last year’s Top 100 Restaurants were asked which chef working in Australia today they respect the most. The awards are coming fast for Niland; only 12 months ago he scored GT’s Best New Talent award.
“We’re incredibly fortunate at Gourmet Traveller to have such a wealth of exciting talent and great adventures to share with our readers,” says Nourse. “This country punches so far above its weight – it’s fantastic.”
The Gourmet Traveller National Restaurant Awards Winners
Restaurant of the Year
Quay, Sydney
Chef of the Year
Josh Niland – Saint Peter, Sydney, New South Wales
New Restaurant of the Year
Laura, Merricks, Victoria
Best New Talent
Ali Currey-Voumard – The Agrarian Kitchen Eatery, New Norfolk, Tasmania
Regional Restaurant of the Year
Brae, Birregurra, Victoria
Bar of the Year
Liberté, Albany, Western Australia
Maître d’ of the Year
The team from Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Melbourne
Wine List of the Year
Franklin, Hobart
Outstanding Contribution to Hospitality
Rootstock Wine Festival: Linda Wiss, Matt Young, Giorgio De Maria, James Hird And Mike Bennie
Sommelier of the Year
Emma Farrelly – State Buildings, Perth, Western Australia
All the winners are in the September issue of Gourmet Traveller, along with the Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide.
