2015 GT Restaurant Awards winners

Restaurant of the Year: Attica, Melbourne

First there was Ben Shewry, the promising kid out in the suburbs. Then came Ben Shewry, a man on a mission and a chef on the ascendant. Today it’s Ben Shewry, spokesperson for Australian restaurants abroad. Never mind that it’s not a role of his choosing (and never mind that he’s a Kiwi), by dint of his particular interest and ambitions Shewry has fashioned a restaurant not quite like any other on this or any other continent. Along the way he has attracted a band of like-minded collaborators who are drawn to his vision of Attica as a place that’s engaged with the community, as committed to social responsibility as it is to feats of culinary daring. Maybe you went to Attica a couple of years ago and liked it. (That potato cooked in earth was really something, wasn’t it?) The Attica of today is a different restaurant. Bigger physically, yes, but it’s also greater and more substantial. It now has the gardens and test kitchen-trappings that are de rigueur for eateries on the global stage, but it has lost none of its heart. And yes, you’ll eat and drink here better than ever.

Chef of the Year: Martin Benn, Sepia, Sydney

This award is peer-voted: we ask chefs from the Top 100 restaurants in the previous edition of this guide to name the Australian chef they most respect. Last year, it was Andrew McConnell, chef and co-owner of Melbourne’s Cutler & Co, and the year before it was Ben Shewry, of Attica. This year we welcome our first Sydney chef to the hall of fame, and it’s none other than Martin Benn. Fittingly enough he’s a chef’s chef, a skilled technician who, thanks to having laboured under both Marco Pierre White in England and Tetsuya Wakuda here in his adopted home, is as proficient in the flavours of the East as he is well-versed in the traditions of the West. Benn has a humility that’s common to the previous winners of this award, and he also shares their apparent ability to look not just at what diners want now, but what they might expect tomorrow.

New Restaurant of the Year, Regional Restaurant of the Year: Brae, Birregurra

Nothing in restaurants is a fait accompli, of course, but if you were a betting person, the chances of Dan Hunter’s post-Royal Mail venture being something to talk about always looked pretty good, to put it mildly. But then Hunter was also playing against the expectations he’d created in what was undoubtedly the most widely acclaimed regional restaurant Australia had seen in a decade. At Brae, he found an established garden (planted by George Biron, when the property was Sunnybrae) but also the opportunity to build a room that matched the dynamism of his cuisine (something that never quite materialised at the Royal Mail) and staffed it with a newly energised, highly focused team. The establishment he created has been an instant smash, great straight out of the gate, but also rich with the promise of more to come. We’re up for the ride.

Best New Talent: Scott Huggins and Emma McCaskill, Penfolds Magill Estate, Adelaide

Yes, jointly they’ve got a great CV, having worked across the diverse likes of St John, Tetsuya’s, The Royal Mail and, perhaps most notably, RyuGin in Tokyo. But what distinguishes the work of Emma McCaskill and Scott Huggins at Magill Estate isn’t so much the pieces of their background as the seamless way they’ve put them together, creating a cuisine that’s making people sit up and take notice. Subtle, elegant and absolutely convincing, their cooking is a must for any committed diner.

Maître d’ of the Year: Christian McCabe, The Town Mouse, Melbourne

An eclectic background, including nightclubs, European restaurants and operating his own very successful bar in his native New Zealand, makes perfect sense when observing Christian McCabe work the floor. His style is modern-urbane, shot through with quiet humour, great knowledge and a clear and refreshing pride in his profession. It’s a great combination, one that makes you respect him just as he respects you.

Sommelier of the Year: Nick Hildebrandt, Bentley, Sydney

Nick Hildebrandt has won this prize before. Chances are he’ll win it again. Why? Despite the fact that he now looks after three outstanding lists and three outstanding teams (across Bentley, Monopole and Yellow), he hasn’t lost any of his personal touch, whether it’s in the writing of his lists, the meticulous maintenance of his cellars or simply in conveying his passion for the grape on the floor. Whoever you are, whatever you like to drink, and wherever you happen to encounter him, he can pull out a bottle that will surprise and delight you. And that’s what it’s all about.

Wine List of the Year: Print Hall, Perth

Somehow Daniel Wegener has made an already great list even greater. It now runs to around 130 pages, featuring everything from creative flights of all sorts of food-matched, themed drinks, to multiple vintages of European and local classics rubbing shoulders with the latest cutting-edge experiments from small winemakers. But it’s not just the scale, depth and richness of this list that impresses. It’s also the way it’s imbued with passion, knowledge and a unique curatorial tone – a personality that strikes just the right note between seriousness and barely contained glee.

Bar of the Year: Lefty’s Old Time Music Hall, Brisbane

There’s a place for chic, austere surroundings and precision-crafted cocktails. There’s also a place for letting your hair down and kicking your heels up to great music. That place is Lefty’s. With Brisbane restaurateur Jamie Webb and Jason Scott, co-founder of Sydney’s Shady Pines, Baxter Inn and Frankie’s, as its parents, this boisterous, friendly whiskey-fuelled honkytonk was always going to be fun. But even with that lineage, the resulting hootenanny has exceeded everyone’s expectations and brought new diversity to Brisbane after dark.

Outstanding Contribution to Hospitality: Alla Wolf-Tasker, chef-patron, Lake House, Daylesford

It might be difficult to picture it now, but when Alla Wolf-Tasker and her husband, Allan, bought the land on which Lake House now sits, way back in 1979, it was little more than a blasted paddock strewn with car wrecks. Unemployment in Daylesford was running at something in the vicinity of 20 per cent, and when she threw open the doors to the restaurant in 1984 it was Devonshire tea that local customers expected, not Castlemaine pigeon glazed with shiraz, or double-baked cheese soufflés. That the restaurant, 30 years later, is the centre of a thriving spa town is a testament to vision and perseverance both. The property, which now includes a spa of its own and a boutique hotel, employs more than 100 people, supports scores of producers, and has been a model for many a regional restaurant. Alla Wolf-Tasker calls it “a work in progress”. We call it one hell of an achievement.

2015 Australian Restaurant Guide

Pick up our bumper September issue, on sale now, for our 2015 Australian Restaurant Guide and more about our award winners.