It was 2015 when Firedoor burst onto the scene as a dark, moody, fierce restaurant that cooked wholly over fire. It opened to acclaim with GT’s review noting: “At Firedoor, Lennox Hastie turns out food that surprises in its precision and subtlety.”
It certainly piqued Sydney diners’ curiosity. “Some people didn’t quite know what to make of it. No gas, no electricity – cooking over different woods. It sounded more like a gimmick,” says Hastie. “But then they’d taste a piece of fish grilled over apple wood, or a steak cooked over ironbark and grape vines, and something would click. I remember one guest tearing up over a piece of wood-fired bread and smoked butter. That has stayed with me – the power of simplicity, when it’s done right, it’s magic.”
Ten years on, the trailblazing restaurant is still burning strong — or, as Hastie quantifies time, “close to 36,000 hours” of flickering flames at the venue. Along the way, Hastie, his chefs and Firedoor have picked up a string of accolades and garnered global recognition. Perhaps most notably, it helped put Australia on a global stage, as one of the few local restaurants to be featured on the smash-hit Netflix series Chef’s Table.
It also has a legacy of alumni chefs who have gone on to tackle their own big achievements elsewhere. “Watching people come through Firedoor and then go on to do great things is something I am incredibly proud of,” says Hastie.
This includes Ahana Dutt, who spent more than six years with Firedoor, and has since launched Kolkata Social in Sydney; while Charlie Carrington opened Atlas Dining in Melbourne. Former head chef Jason White is now head chef at Brae in Victoria, and Brin Cross is at Michelin-starred Evett in Seoul. “The fire teaches patience and respect for ingredients, and I can see that in the way they cook now,” says Hastie.
Some of Hastie’s favourite items to grace the menu include the much-loved pipis dish, which sees the bivalves popped open over embers. Grilled lettuce “was a game-changer and signalled my breaking away from Basque tradition,” he says. And the whole marron is “a dish that’s natural simplicity at its best; split to order and grilled over fruit wood”.
While Firedoor originally opened in partnership with Fink – a family restaurant group best known for its shiny outposts on Australia’s most famed waterfronts – Hastie is amicably moving the restaurant wholly into his own stable, along with Gildas, his petite high-end pintxos bar in Surry Hills.
For the next decade, he’s excited to learn more as an owner-operator. “The deeper I go into it, the more I realise how much I still have to learn from fire and how much I have to teach to others. The aim now is to work sustainably and to share my knowledge so that we can all keep the fire burning.”
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