Rockpool Sydney restaurant named the best in Australia…

Rockpool Sydney restaurant named the best in Australia by Gourmet Traveller

The team from Rockpool celebrating their win. Photograph: Gourmet Traveller

Sydney’s Rockpool has been named best restaurant in the country in the Gourmet Traveller awards.

Head judge Pat Nourse praised the flagship restaurant run by veteran chef Neil Perry. “You hear people telling you that fine dining is dead with the same predictable frequency that you hear the novel is dead, but just as people writing great books, people keep producing great restaurants. It’s a grown up restaurant, it’s an exciting restaurant. It doesn’t insult insult your intelligence.”

Rockpool’s mains are around the $40-$50 mark and chefs work with local produce, giving it an Asian twist (for instance – roasted blue swimmer crab with fried garlic and fragrant udon noodles). A tasting menu of nine courses is $185.

Nourse, who spent seven months (with a team of 60 reviewers) trying restaurants and bars around the country, praised Rockpool’s sommeliers and the “elegant, incredible dining room”.

“The staff have a command of their material. Restaurant-craft for them is something innate – it’s in their bones. It’s not hospitality that’s been cribbed from the internet and practised in front of the mirror: you know as soon you walk through the door that it’s the real deal. You get the sense that everything will be taken care of.”

Although there are Rockpool franchises in Melbourne and Perth, the Sydney original is the gold standard, says Nourse.

“Rockpool has always been Neil Perry’s baby. There is the clear sense that this is his flagship. It’s the creative engine that powers all his businesses – and a real creative engine for modern Australian dining, as a whole. You have this dialogue between Neil Perry, a veteran who still picks up the knives, and the head chef, a young gun called Phil Wood who knows how to push the boat out.”

Australia’s Bar of the Year is Brisbane’s heritage listed space, The Gresham, while Regional Restaurant of the Year is Byron Bay newcomer Three Blue Ducks – who also operate a cafe in Bronte.

Nourse said Melbourne had fewer “dynamic restaurant openings than Sydney this year” but Victoria scored gongs with Vanessa Crichton of Rosetta taking out Maître d’ of the Year, and Raffaele Mastrovincenzo from Kappo winning Sommelier of the Year. Dan Hunter, of Brae in country Victoria, took out the top spot in the peer-voted Chef of the Year award.

New Restaurant of the Year award went to the newly refurbished Bennelong, at the Opera House. Billy Kwong, also in Sydney, won Wine List of the Year.

Lennox Hastie, a chef who cooks only with fire at his Surry Hills restaurant, Firedoor, was named Best New Talent.

“We’ve stretched the definition of ‘new’ a bit in Best New Talent; he’s been cooking for 15 years professionally, and has worked with some of the most famous chefs in Europe before finally opening a restaurant of his own here in Australia. The way these guys cook is like nothing else. It’s not big flavours, it’s not what this guy does. He uses smoke and fire with precision and delicacy. He’s cooking with pans made of mesh. He’s cooking over coals in what looks like a strainer.”