2015 Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide Awards finalists – Best New Talent

Victor Liong, Lee Ho Fook, Melbourne

Victor Liong’s impressive CV includes time at Marque and Mr Wong, and at Lee Ho Fook, his first gig as head chef, he shows what he’s learned and what he’s capable of – playful, sometimes complex dishes that riff on Chinese cooking, observing the rules but not bound by them.

Photography: Eve Wilson

Eun Hee An & Ben Sears, Moon Park, Sydney

This pair of talented young cooks have almost dual-handedly put contemporary Korean cooking on the map in Australia. Moon Park is a restaurant that’s grounded in its Redfern setting, and its cooking takes wing as much on the strength of Eun Hee An and Ben Sears’ experience at the likes of Claude’s, Cutler & Co. and Vue de Monde as their shared love of Korean culture.

Photography: John Laurie

Moon Park’s marinated beef ssäm

Photography: John Laurie

Alex Drobysz, Bar Nacional, Melbourne

Bar Nacional became lodged in the upper branches of Melbourne’s Spanish tree in a remarkably short time thanks to Alex Drobysz’s complete understanding of the genre. Big, well-balanced flavours and cooking that displays confidence and clarity have flagged a chef that’s one to watch.

Photography: Marcel Aucar

Bar Nacional’s crisp pig’s head with carrots and horseradish

Photography: Marcel Aucar

Mike Eggert & Jemma Whiteman, Pinbone, Sydney

Marked as much by humility as irreverence, as obsessed by wine as they are by food, as immersed in the fruits of their local environment as they are by the latest ideas from overseas, Pinboners Jemma Whiteman and Mike Eggert could be the poster-kids of where cooking is at in Sydney circa 2014, and yet their cooking remains personal, unpredictable and richly fulfilling.

Photography: Prue Ruscoe

Pinbone’s roast quail with garlic stems and broccolini

Photography: Andrew Finlayson

Scott Huggins & Emma Jade McCaskill, Magill Estate, Adelaide

With a combined curriculum vitae that takes in such diverse ports of call as St John and Sat Bains in the UK, Tokyo’s RyuGin, and The Royal Mail and Tetsuya’s back home in Australia, Emma McCaskill and Scott Huggins bring a worldly perspective to their work. At the helm of a state-of-the-art kitchen, at a restaurant designed by Pascale Gomes-McNabb in a Glenn Murcutt building on the historic site where Grange Hermitage was born, they’ve been tasked with creating a world-class eatery on the outskirts of Adelaide. We think they’re more than up to the job.

Photography: John Laurie

Mat Lindsay, Ester, Sydney

Not for Mat Lindsay the toys and trappings of the techno-emotional kitchen. This former Billy Kwong head chef is happiest when the coals are neatly banked and there’s smoke in the air. But, as with the likes of the mighty Etxebarri in Spain, this focus on the magic of the hearth is no surrendering of ambition; quite the opposite, if Ester’s delicious contemporary food is any guide.

Photography: Ben Dearnley

Pick up our August issue in print, or on your tablet from the Apple App Store or via GooglePlay, for the rest of our award nominations, including New Restaurant of the Year, Bar of the Year, Sommelier of the Year, and more. We’ll announce the winners in our September issue, which goes on sale on Thursday 21 August, and includes our 2015 Australian Restaurant Guide.