CHEF OF THE YEAR Mat Lindsay

Ester, Sydney

Mat Lindsay will not particularly enjoy winning this award. At least not the part where he has to get up and accept it and talk to people. Ester, the restaurant he opened in Sydney in 2013, is his preferred stage, and it’s here that he has won a loyal following of regulars.

The cooking at Ester could be said to reflect Lindsay’s personal humility in its more restrained moments (oysters warmed in the wood-fired oven just long enough to pop their tops, then dressed with horseradish; a dessert of young-coconut sorbet and sake that’s almost haiku-like in its concision), but it also shows exuberance and generosity, whether it’s in the smoked oil and egg butter that distinguish his beef tartare or the lush texture of the signature blood sausage “sanga”.

Lindsay works with a wood-fired oven and came to Ester, the first restaurant where the kitchen was his own, after many years working at Billy Kwong, yet while these influences are essential parts of his food, his style is all his own. At the end of this year he and his partners will open a spin-off eatery on Commonwealth Street in Surry Hills. The menu for the new restaurant, like the name, is still a work in progress, but you can rest assured that Lindsay’s laconic charm will be its defining quality.

Here is a chef very much content to let his work do the talking. Little wonder that he is considered such an inspiration by his fellow cooks, whose votes drive this award. And little wonder Ester plays to a packed house, day in, day out.

Ester, 46-52 Meagher St, Chippendale, NSW, (02) 8068 8279