High Steaks: Celebrity chef Matt Moran reveals he’d like to cook a steak for Donald Trump

Celebrity chef Matt Moran has cooked for the likes of Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, but one of his proudest achievements is ownership of a pub in a town with a population of just 200. Here’s why.

There is a belief that because chefs cook for work, come home time all they want to serve up is eggs on toast.

Esteemed chef and restaurateur Matt Moran is the opposite. After spending 40 years in a commercial kitchen, Moran is now happiest cooking at home. Particularly if it’s on his 1000 acre working farm in the NSW Central Tablelands, which has been in his family for four-generations.

But now with his children, Harry and Amelia, grown up and living interstate, there are less people to cook for. Which is why, the family tradition of spending holidays, like Easter, together at the farm (which produces ethically raised grass-fed beef, lamb, and free-range pork) is so important for Moran.

“I miss the noise. I miss not cooking for numbers. On a Saturday or Sunday morning, I’d be cooking five of Mim’s friends’ breakfast. Or I’ll find something in the butchers and over order and I say to Harry invite your mates around,” starts Moran, as we sit down at his restaurant Chiswick.

“They are coming back at Easter. I miss them like crazy. One thing that I’m very proud of is I’m very, very close to my kids. ”

Matt Moran at Chiswick Woollahra. Picture: Justin Lloyd

You get a sense of what a Moran family gathering is like during our High Steaks interview. Moran orders our steak, a 800g rib eye, straight from the kitchen before he sits down. He insists we add some prawns for entree and makes sure his staff and our videographer join us for lunch.

The 55-year-old jokes that his many restaurants, of which he opened his first at 22, are his babies with harbourside fine-dining restaurant Aria, which marked 25 years in business in 2024, as his “first born”.

Matt Moran on his family farm in the Central Tablelands of NSW. Picture: Supplied

Matt Moran. Picture: Supplied

Aria changed the trajectory of Moran’s career, and led to him releasing cookbooks and cooking for the likes of former US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“All those politicians came to the Opera House one year, and we did the catering. Putin walked past me with his bodyguards, and I thought, ‘If I look at one of those bodyguards, I’m going to drop dead!’ They’re so scary,” he says.

The one person he’d like to cook a steak for now?

“You’d have to say Donald Trump, wouldn’t you? Just to see the man in real life. Different politics, but I’m fascinated by it.”

Aria Restaurant.

But while he’s cooked for the world’s elite, something Moran is particularly proud of, is the humble pub he owns in the country town of Rockley NSW, population 200.

In 2021 Moran bought The Rockley Pub to save it. It was the only business in town and wasn’t doing much turnover. With his farm nearby, he knew the importance of the pub to the local community.

“Farming is something that I started young, and I missed a big gap because I was committed to (my career in Sydney). But it’s something I’ve come back to. The farming community is something I’m very passionate about,” he says.

Simon Borghesi, Matt Moran and Stephen Manley at The Rockley Pub in Rockley NSW. Picture: Steven Woodburn

But at first, the locals weren’t as passionate about him.

“They hated my guts,” he laughs. It’s because many thought he was going to completely change the pub. Or thought that this chef from the big smoke knew nothing about farm life. But Moran, who is often in the pub pulling beers and running orders, jokes the only changes he’s made are spending over $300k upgrading the sewerage system, so in summer it doesn’t smell. And now, some of his biggest critics at the start are the ones working in the pub or running two-up on Anzac Day.

Moran says the reason he’s been in the restaurant game so long, is because he’s got a thick skin.

“I’ve been told by people very close to me that one of my great assets in life is that I don’t give a f--k what people think. It’s actually a blessing. It’s not arrogance,” he says.

“Everyone has an opinion. Everyone will judge me but it’s the people who know me who’s critiques I care most about.”

Matt Moran with his dad Jim at the Moran family farm. Picture: Supplied

Matt Moran with his wife Sarah Hopkins and their daughter Amelia Moran. Picture: Robin Amadio

And when it comes to his plans for the pub, he lets us in on a secret: “I’m going to put a restaurant there one day, like a proper Matt Moran restaurant. But I want to keep the pub and I want to keep that culture of the pub being for locals and community.”

Moran also passionate advocates for farmers and wishes politicians would do something to address the dwindling number of farmers.

“We had 25,000 dairy farms in 1980 and we’ve only got 5000 now. No young kids are coming into it because there’s no succession and it’s too hard,” he says.

“It scares me that in 20 years time we could be buying milk from New Zealand.”

If Moran’s farm life seems like a season of the hit television series, Jeremy Clarkson’s Farm, it’s because Moran jokes “He copied me!”

Chefs Scott Pickett, Matt Moran, Gordon Ramsay and Janine Allis on the set of Gordon Ramsay's Food Stars.

Matt Moran and Pia Miranda in SBS food show Memory Bites.

Matt Moran and Gordon Ramsay at Aria Restaurant. Picture: Jonathan Ng

A Brit he is best friends with is celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay. The two met when Moran was 25, on his first trip overseas. For the past eight years, the two go fishing in Iceland, with Moran wearing a hat that is a memento of that trip to our lunch.

“He’s a true friend … I’ve known him for 30 years. I knew him when he was just driving around in a Volkswagen. He’s done incredibly well. We’ve all done well, I suppose,” he says. “And what’s great is our kids have become friends. Which is even sweeter.”

Both show no signs of stopping. Moran has just released a new TV series, Memory Bites, and a new line of supermarket stocked products starting with My Perfect Stock by Matt Moran. He jokes his younger self would never have thought he would end up releasing a stock line, considering for an apprenticeship interview at La Belle Helene Restaurant in Roseville when he was asked to strain a game stock he kept the bones, not the liquid.

“Part of my success, there’s no question, has been surrounding myself with strong women that say no,” he reflects. Most of his television shows have been produced by women, who have happily said, “Moran, that’s shit, do it again.”

Matt Moran (far right) at 17.

He admits when he was younger his “ego was out there” but kids have mellowed him. And now, mentoring a younger generation of food talent is something he enjoys.

Six months ago a young chef came to him for some honest advice. Now that chef, Sam Rozsnyoi, is running Chiswick.

His advice? “Humility and generosity. Never f--king forget where you come from. I came from nothing,” he says.

“And be kind. Leave the world in a better place than what you found. Be kind to people as much as you possibly can. And generosity is not about just throwing money at people. It’s about time.”

While he has no plans to retire, for him, the only plans in his future is spending more time on the family farm.

MATT’S EASTER LAMB SHANKS RECIPE

Ingredients:

1L My Perfect Beef Stock

2 tsb olive oil

2 lamb shanks (300g each)

1 brown onion, peeled & diced

2 garlic cloves, sliced

2 carrots, diced

2 celery sticks, diced

250g /1 punnet cherry tomatoes

150mL dry white wine

400g crushed tomatoes

¼ bunch oregano

400g fresh pappardelle pasta

40g shaved parmesan

Method:

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 160°C. Heat olive oil in a braising pan over a medium-high heat. Season the lamb shanks with salt and pepper. Place into the pan to sear on all sides until golden brown, then remove from the pan and set aside.

Step 2: In the same pan, reduce heat to medium and place the diced onion, sliced garlic and vegetables to sauté for 5-6 minutes until tender. Add in cherry tomatoes and cook for a further 5 mins until they start to burst.

Step 3: Deglaze the pan with the white wine and tin tomatoes, simmer and reduce by half, then place the seared lamb shanks back into the pot and pour in the My Perfect Beef Stock to cover the shanks.

Step 4: Add in the oregano, bring to a gentle boil, cover the pan with a lid and place into the pre heated oven for 1.5-2hrs. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 20 mins before removing the shanks and oregano stalks from the pan, shred the meat from the bone, and set aside.

Step 5: Place the pan with the braising liquid back on the stove over medium to high heat to reduce the liquid by half, then add the meat back to the pan and stir through, season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook pasta as per instructions and stir through the lamb ragu. Serve with shaved parmesan.