Hats off to Matt Moran and his 40 years in hospitality
When he was just 15, Matt Moran asked his parents if he could leave school to become a chef. This year marks 40 years of thriving in the sometimes brutal industry.
Sydney Weekend
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Five famous Aussie chefs walk into a kitchen … who cooks the eggs? Well that’s easy, laughs Matt Moran – his kitchen, his rules.
That’s not easy for guests like French born Guillaume Brahimi, Rockpool’s Neil Perry, Melbourne mates Shannon Bennett and Andrew McConnell – but for their annual boy’s weekend away at the Moran family 400ha farm in the Central Tablelands of NSW, they’re happy to peek over the frypan for a change.
“I organised a little trip down to the farm not last year the year before, and now we continue it, and invited people like Shannon Bennett and Andrew McConnell who are great mates, and Guillaume and Neil … a couple of us went up to Shannon’s place at Byron Bay … we are all mates,” he says.
“We are all competitive with each other, but we all understand how hard the industry is and working as a body is much better than working alone. It’s great having mates that are chefs because they can cook for you.
“It’s quite funny, I’m in the kitchen at my farm and I’ve got people like Shannon Bennett and Andrew McConnell and some other friends, and me telling them what to do in the kitchen – but when you’re at my house, you do it my way,” he laughs.
This month Moran marks 40 years in hospitality. He was 15 when he asked his parents if he could leave school to become a chef – not because he particularly yearned to cook – he was raised on his grandmother’s overcooked brussels sprouts and soggy cauliflower, after all – but because he would have done anything to leave school. Four decades later it’s the best thing he ever did.
“I was only five when I started all right,” the 55-year-old laughs of his 40 year legacy.
“But I think it was a big shock for my father,” he admits of that time.
“All I wanted to do was leave school and I would’ve done anything to leave school – I was lucky that there was some interest in food, but I don’t have that beautiful romantic story, or all these great stories about your mum and dad and grandparents cooking food – it was very basic for me.
“But after 20 interviews when I went to La Belle (Helene Restaurant, in Roseville) and bluffed my way into it because I’d just been rejected from so many places and I lied … and said if you employ me I promise I’ll work hard and you’ll never regret it.
“And obviously becoming the head chef there by the time I was 18 was just bizarre – having 35-year-olds working under me … but also going in there and seeing food and seeing things that I’d never seen before – I remember coming home to Dad, who used to pick me up every night at midnight because I was only 15 and saying to him, ‘Dad, they whip up egg whites and they make this thing called a souffle and they slice strawberries and make them into a fan’ – I had just never seen that before, so I became fascinated.
“And because I’m a little bit obsessive compulsive, it was just the right thing for me. I got obsessed with it and would work seven days a week.
“When I was a third year apprentice I only had four days off in the year, I worked somewhere else on a Sunday.
“I just wanted to learn.”
“But after 20 interviews when I went to La Belle (Helene Restaurant, in Roseville) and bluffed my way into it because I’d just been rejected from so many places and I lied … and said if you employ me I promise I’ll work hard and you’ll never regret it.
“And obviously becoming the head chef there by the time I was 18 was just bizarre – having 35-year-olds working under me … but also going in there and seeing food and seeing things that I’d never seen before – I remember coming home to Dad, who used to pick me up every night at midnight because I was only 15 and saying to him, ‘Dad, they whip up egg whites and they make this thing called a souffle and they slice strawberries and make them into a fan’ – I had just never seen that before, so I became fascinated.
“And because I’m a little bit obsessive compulsive, it was just the right thing for me. I got obsessed with it and would work seven days a week.
“When I was a third year apprentice I only had four days off in the year, I worked somewhere else on a Sunday.
“I just wanted to learn.”
Learn he did, and Moran, unlike so many, has thrived in an industry never more brutal than the last few years. So what’s his secret?
“It’s always been a hard industry – from day dot,” he says.
“I remember when I opened my first restaurant in 1991, we nearly went broke.
“It’s an industry that you get into for the one reason – and that is because you love it.
“You have to love it – it’s too bloody hard to do if you don’t.
“It’s a hard industry but I don’t know how to do anything else. And then it’s being smart about it too and diversifying and evolving.
“A restaurant has to always evolve otherwise it gets left behind.
“I’ve got one girl working at Chiswick, Di, who has been working for me off and on for 30 years, Terry started when we opened Aria 25 years ago; Laura, my right hand has been with me 18 years … it’s the staff that made it,” he says of 25 years of famed CBD Circular Quay institution, Aria.
“You can’t do what you do unless you have the right people and loyal people and you look after them – and that was a real defining moment, thinking about all those people.”
The day they celebrated Aria’s quarter of a century, it wasn’t media and celebrities Moran wanted in the room – it was staff.
“There were people in the room who had gone on to have restaurant empires, and even three Michelin stars,” he says proudly.
“A lot of those guys in that room that day are a lot better cooks than I am.
“I remember that moment when I was 19, working at the restaurant Manfredi – and Neil Perry coming in and me thinking, ‘Oh my god, he is a God’ – he’d just opened Rockpool.
“And he came up and introduced himself – I was 19 – and he doesn’t remember this but I tell him all the time – and saying to me that it was the best meal he’d had at Manfredi – that was a defining moment.
“And then opening my first restaurant when I was 22, Paddington Inn, and one of my biggest supporters, whether he realises it or not, was Neil Perry. When he won restaurant of the year, he celebrated at Paddington Inn.
“I had a deal with him – I used to eat at Rockpool for $20 and he used to eat at Paddington Inn for $20. I abused that a lot more than he did,” Moran laughs.
“And now, all these years later, I’m one of the old guys and obviously Neil is a very close friend. It takes a lot to be in an industry for this long.”
It’s success he doesn’t stop to think about often. But Moran pegs longevity on more than just passion and drive – he’s diversified. From the 13 restaurants he runs, including of course North Bondi Fish, Riverbar & Kitchen in Brisbane, The Rockley Pub in NSW and Compa in Canberra – to the dozen TV shows like Paddock to Plate, MasterChef Australia and The Great Australian Bake Off (his new SBS series Memory Bites is about to launch), five bestselling cookbooks and farming. He hasn’t put all his eggs in one basket – or hat, he laughs.
“Actually I have a horrible story – yesterday I was coming home from the farm and I didn’t have any egg cartons, so I had my hat snug on the back seat surrounded by some clothes,” he says. “I was nearly home, I was in Bronte and going up Evans St and I’m in this LandCruiser truck and this guy pulled out in a tiny little car right in front of me and then just stopped,” he exclaims. “He was staring at me – and I have nowhere to go.
“So I slammed on the brakes of this three tonne truck as hard as I possibly can and I see him – he grabs both his hands and covers his face like he’s just about to get hit … and I missed him by about two feet when I slammed on the brakes. But I had f--king eggs everywhere.
“They just catapulted everywhere, rolling down on the floor and broken. The whole car was full of broken eggs,” he laughs.
People automatically think that because he owns restaurants, and quite a few of them, that he enjoys fine dining every day. The truth is, Moran loves nothing more than a casual lunch, and for dinner, simplicity will always win.
“I like entertaining for lunch so when it comes to dinner time it’s not uncommon for me have something really simple – and a boiled egg on toast is something that I love,” he says.
“I’m lucky enough to have fresh farm eggs every week because I go to the farm all the time and always load up with eggs.”
Memory Bites with Matt Moran will flood our screens this month, with Looking For Alibrandi star Pia Miranda first in the hot seat, Moran recreating Miranda’s Sicilian Nonna’s family favourites – stuffed artichokes and cannelloni bean soup among them. Other guests include Richard Roxburgh, Danielle Cormack, Christine Anu, Courtney Act, and Ross Noble.
It’s a lot of pressure cooking family recipes because the emotional connection is so strong – that’s what Moran loves most – not that he’s watched it back.
“I haven’t watched one episode – one because I don’t watch myself on TV and two, I know what happens anyway,” he jokes. “But I had so much fun making it with different people in different cultures and just learning a lot about them. It was a great show to make and it’s one of my favourite TV shows that I’ve ever been part of and there’s been a few – about 12 of them.”
For his guests, for himself, food is the ultimate memory maker. Certain dishes, smells, tastes – even utensils – can bring memories flooding back, even decades later.
“I think about my grandmother and Sunday lunches and having roast lamb and being lamb farmers and three vegetables on the side of it and overcooked brussels sprouts – she’d put the cauliflower on on a Saturday for a Sunday lunch – the brussels sprouts she’d put on the boil on a Friday, it was so overcooked, with a bit of white sauce over the cauliflower,” he laughs.
“But it takes you back in time.
“I remember the table, I remember the fork that she used to use with a green handle that she’d stab into the lamb while they carved it.
“I remember the house and where she lived and her vegie garden – it just brings back all these other memories which is just so beautiful.”
Moran lives in Sydney’s east with wife and lawyer Sarah Hopkins, getting to the farm most weeks if he can. Daughter Amelia works in hospitality with her dad, and son Harry, who has a year and a half of training left before he’s a doctor, both live in Melbourne, so now their food memories are often sent by text message.
“My kids are older now, they’re grown up I suppose – but I still call them my babies, but for me, cooking at home and cooking for family and friends is one of the most important things that I have in my life,” he says.
“Unfortunately both my kids don’t live at home anymore … and that’s been quite tragic for me but at the same time it’s taught my son how to cook a little bit because he has to, to survive.
“It’s funny, he was never interested in food until now – but the one thing I love about it is he sends me photos of everything that he cooks to show me how good he’s getting – and that becomes a food memory.
“My daughter lives in Melbourne too, but she comes home, works for me in hospo and is a real foodie, she loves food and she worked out a couple of years ago that she could go to all the other restaurants and not have to pay so she’s often in my venues and then coming back and telling me about food and telling me about what’s going on, which is a nice thing to have.
“I have this incredible career and I love to cook, but cooking for people and family and friends, whether it’s at the farm or whether it’s at home, is a real joy.”
Another joy is bringing friends to the farm. But could he ever retire there, full time?
Not a chance.
“I started farming, and then obviously not living on the farm for a period of time and then doing hospitality – and hospitality is my true love, there’s no question,” he continues.
“I’m a cook, I’ll always be a cook and I will never stop cooking. I still have that love of food and that passion for produce and what a lot of people probably didn’t understand when I did Paddock to Plate – was it was all about showcasing farmers and producers.
“I know how hard that is.
“I’ve seen family struggles when I was young – and to be able to come back and now own the farm myself, there’s a real connection there.
“Even though I’ve owned the farm for 20 odd years, I only went there once or twice a year because my father was there and I was busy doing hospo.
“Now I’m lucky enough to be able to spend a bit more time there, which I am most weeks if I can – there’s a real connection.
“I love my animals. I love my cows. I love growing, I’ve got a garden, I’ve got an orchard, I’ve got pigs and sheep – it’s my happy place, I suppose.
“Could I live in on the farm forever?
“No. Could I one day spend 50-50 there?
“Yes I could.
“I go through that front gate of the farm and a lot of people think that I’m a different person.”
The farm is run by manager Brendan – an ex ag physics teacher and an incredible man and incredible farmer, Moran says – but a big question was coming from the rest of the property's contractors.
“We’ve got shearers that come back every year and you’ve got people like contractors that work on the farm – and I don’t know how it started, but I suspect they’ve said ‘you know, can he really cook?’,” Moran laughs. “And Brendan’s like ‘Can he cook? Yeah, he cooks for me all the time.’”
But he had to prove it. So in December – his busiest month of the year, he quips – he put on a barbecue in the pine forest. He’d do a steak sandwich, he told Brendan.
“You could see Brendan’s face going ‘oh shit, I’ve kind of talked you up’ – but I knew what I was doing,” he says. “So I got a marble score nine plus sirloin off one of my butchers, which is like a $700 sirloin – I’ve cut these extra think wagyu steaks with marbling all the way through – and then I pickled all my own beetroot and I caramelised my onions – I made all these sauces and I got Baker Bleu bread on the way up.
“I put it on one of the utes and laid it all out – I got theGreen Egg barbecue and we put it in the little pine tree forest so it was nice and cool.
“I mean he invited my diesel mechanic, my lamb buyer, beef buyer – 15 of these guys – and they were the best steak sandwiches you’ve ever seen in the world.
“I just remember seeing Brendan eating a bit of a steak and eating it looking at me going – thanks chef – thank god you saved my arse because they’ve been hassling me.”
They don’t hassle anymore. But the experience was another food memory. And even after 40 years of making them, he’s determined to keep cooking up as many as possible.
“There’s always something happening and unfortunately there’s a lot of things I can’t say … but I’m keen to do things and experiment with different things and things that I haven’t done before,” he says of the year ahead.
“I’m not one to ever sit still – never have been and never will be.
“I still want to do more things out in the country, I’m going to do a few things to the pub out there and I’m redoing the farmhouse and building a beautiful home up there, and in Sydney there’s a couple of things that we’re looking at restaurant-wise, but I’m having fun and I still love it every day.
“Some days are hard but I’m very, very lucky – and I say that to my kids – do something in life that makes you happy and if it doesn’t go f--king do something else because life is short and you wanna have fun. I’m cooking dinner tonight for some friends so, you know what? I’m lucky – do what you love in life and you never have to work another day.”
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