The people at the Romertopf factory in Germany laughed at Ross Lusted when he ordered 50 terracotta cookpots. “They couldn’t believe we wanted them to send 50 pots all the way to Australia,” he says. “They kept saying, ‘Are you sure you don’t mean Austria?’”

After years spent running luxury Aman resorts and tending to their two-hatted restaurant, The Bridge Room in Sydney, Ross and Sunny Lusted wanted to do something new. Ironically, Woodcut, their 280-seat restaurant opening at Crown Barangaroo in mid-December, will draw on the oldest cooking methods in the world.