The Chef's Specials Series

It’s lunchtime and Orazio, of the eponymous Da Orazio, sits in a corner of his Bondi restaurant, a dozen staff in whites whirling around him during a bustling afternoon prep. He proudly directs me to the two jewels of his kitchen: an entire eighteen-kilo Berkshire pig revolving on a spit, and a pizza oven he shipped ten thousand miles from his hometown of Naples.

Paul seems like a man who does his research. We sit in a quiet corner of his restaurant Aalia, under the cover of its flowing timber interior, looking out at the rain pounding on Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD, and he’s, well, reading his notes. It’s unsurprising from a chef whose menu design process consisted of studying cookery manuscripts dating way back to the 10th century.

"Look, the moral of the story is that Sydney's fucked. Honestly there's too much good food." Jean-Paul has a restless energy when he talks about the city's food scene. The self-appointed "Director of Flavour" at Marrickville's Baba's Place verges on melancholic in the knowledge that while there's always more food to taste in Sydney, there isn't nearly enough time to try it all.

“Do you remember when we had curfews?” she says. “You’d go out and grab a coffee in your one-hour time slot. There were a lot of people not remotely plant-based or vegan but would rave about oat milk lattes. All of a sudden I began to think about oat cheese.”