CHEF OF THE YEAR

TAKING SYDNEY TO NEW CULINARY HEIGHTS

BILLY KWONG

Kylie Kwong is no ordinary chef. Having closed her seminal restaurant on Crown Street, she opened up the new Billy Kwong in Potts Point, a venue over double the size of its predecessor. Every Saturday you’ll find her at Eveleigh Market, running a makeshift kitchen serving up some of the best food on site. No one could accuse this chef of shirking hard work. This is the woman who heard Noma’s René Redzepi talk about using local, foraged, indigenous ingredients at the Opera House back in 2010 and changed her culinary philosophy as a result. Today she is known as our greatest advocate for using native Australian produce, pairing it with Chinese flavours with such seamlessness that you find yourself wondering why no one did it sooner. She is helping to define our Australian cuisine. It’s in the saltbush cakes: four little crescents of crisp, flaky pastry stuffed with native saltbush leaves. It’s in the red-braised wallaby tail: sticky, nubbly, on-the-bone meat dressed with a gingery, not-too-sweet black bean and chilli sauce. The stir fry of native greens – saltbush, bower spinach, ice plant and succulent – sings with flavour, with some plants being grown by local schoolkids down the hill at St Vincent’s College. The steamed mini pork buns are enhanced by meat marinated in local honey from the Wayside Chapel’s rooftop beehives. Kwong has worked with winemakers across the country to develop ‘Project Wines’: made especially for her, often natural and/or biodynamic, thus creating one of the most challenging and exciting lists in town. It’s not just that she runs a great restaurant; it’s her personal mission to create somewhere that truly exhibits a sense of place that makes Kylie Kwong our Chef of the Year. 1/28 Macleay St, Elizabeth Bay 2011. 02 9332 3300. www.billykwong.com.au. Mon-Thu 5.30-10pm; Fri, Sat 5.30-11pm; Sun 5.30-9pm.

KYLIE KWONG