Cormac Bradfield, Gauge, Brisbane
Black garlic bread with brown butter and burnt vanilla garnered this 25-year-old Instagram fame. But it’s the elegant, cerebral food he continues to produce (chiefly at Gauge, but also at Sourced Grocer and Maker) that keeps us coming back. Aged beetroot is slow-cooked in beef juice so the flesh takes on the texture of rare steak. A translucent film of chestnut milk boosts the iodine hit of oysters – no citrus required. Kangaroo tartare bounds to levels our national emblem usually only dreams of achieving thanks to the addition of lightly pickled quandong, smoked hazelnut emulsion and mandarin oil. It’s thought for food, dialled to max.
IN SHORT Paint it black.>