Food News – Cooking With Fire

Barely open a month, Lennox Hastie’s new spot Firedoor is already being touted as Sydney’s hit restaurant of 2015. As a nice counter to all the ‘paleo’ rubbish people seem to be lapping up, this restaurant celebrates the relationship between food and fire.  “Fire can be very addictive; it’s a very primal element that’s instinctively human,” explains Hastie. And what could be more honest than cooking with wood, the very thing that allowed mankind to begin consuming lentils and legumes? Now before you think it’ll be a temple of meat, Hastie has largely turned his attention to more delicate ingredients: marron, mulloway, pearl perch and cauliflower all feature on one daily menu. Hastie pairs different ingredients with different woods to enhance their flavours, using techniques he honed in the Spanish Basque mountains at a restaurant called Etxebarri. You’ll find his new restaurant on the back streets of Surry Hills; housed in a 1911 heritage building that celebrates the natural beauty of exposed timber beams, railway sleepers and other pieces of salvage sourced and artfully arranged by designer and architect Matt Darwon. As it’s already on the radar, make your reservation quickly, and watch this space for my upcoming review.
www.firedoor.com.au