She is the woman behind one of Australia’s most influential and beloved hospitality exports, but you’ve probably never heard her name.

For more than 25 years, Natalie Elliott was content to work behind the scenes, building an international empire of avocado toast, ricotta hotcakes and scrambled eggs with her business partner, husband and co-parent Bill Granger.

Now, in her first interview since Granger’s death on Christmas Day last year, Elliott is tentatively stepping into the sun, owning her role at the helm of their hospitality group, and rediscovering joy in continuing her husband’s legacy.

“I feel that it’s important for me to stand up and talk about myself and my work … no excuses and no self-deprecating jokes,” Elliott says.

“I wasn’t just supporting Bill, I was his business partner for 20 years. We worked together.”

The pair have collaborated since the late ’90s, when Elliott helped to produce his first cookbook, Sydney Food. The pair went on to publish 14 cookbooks, five television series and open 19 restaurants across Sydney, London, Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka and Seoul.

As Granger once said: “Nat’s name might not be above the door, but the door would never open without her.”

“He was creative, and I was the producer: we worked together, having ideas, realising those ideas and making them commercially viable,” says Elliott, who lives in Britain.

That role was not new to Elliott. She graduated from RMIT in Melbourne with a bachelor of media studies and had a successful career in film production.

In 1997 she was a line producer on Mao’s New Suit, an award-winning documentary (directed and produced by Sally Ingleton) that followed two women, Guo Pei and Sun Jian, as they pushed against the status quo to launch their first runway collections in Shanghai.

It is brave women such as these fashion designers, The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide’s inaugural Cultural Change Champions, Women and Revolution, and her own proudly feminist daughters, Edie, Ines and Bunny Elliott Granger, who have inspired Elliott to publicly acknowledge her role in the business – however uncomfortable that might make her feel.

“I think too often, as a woman, you can sit back and not necessarily push yourself forward,” Elliott says. “I’ve got to be confident in my own abilities and I need to draw everything from my person to do that.” Maybe, it could encourage other women to do the same.

On Monday, Elliott and her eldest daughter, Edie Elliott Granger, flew into Sydney to attend The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide awards ceremony at the Sydney Opera House, where Bill Granger was posthumously celebrated with the Vittoria Coffee Legend Award for his incredible contribution to the hospitality industry.

A crowd of more than 500 rose to their feet as Edie took the stage to accept the award on her father’s behalf.

“We wish Bill could be here to see this. His kindness, generosity and dedication were deeply evident both in the kind of person he was and the work that he did. He cared, so much,” Edie said.

“It is a joy to celebrate his legacy, though we desperately wish he was still here with us.”

Bill Granger was a self-taught cook who celebrated simplicity, beauty and provenance.

Avocado on toast may be the greatest example of his culinary legacy. Quartered and served on sourdough toast, then drizzled with a mixture of lime juice, salt, olive oil and coriander leaves, the exceptionally unfussy dish, first served at bills in Darlinghurst in 1993, has since been replicated on menus across the world.

“The reason Bill did what he did was to please other people … he was a very generous person. He always saw the best in people and he always had time for everyone.”

Natalie Elliott

The family has worked with the Good Food Guide to develop the new Bill Granger Trailblazer Award, given to a person, team or business that pushes Australian food forward and exhibits hospitality, warmth, integrity and entrepreneurial spirit like the award’s namesake.

The inaugural winner was Marrickville restaurant Baba’s Place.

“[Bill] was a trailblazer who did come at things in his own way,” Elliott says. “He wasn’t egocentric. He really understood what hospitality actually is.

“The reason he did what he did was to please other people … he was a very generous person. He always saw the best in people and he always had time for everyone.”

Food is what brought Elliott and Granger together. They fell in love over corn fritters at Granger’s first cafe, which he opened on a Darlinghurst corner in 1993, and she became a regular during business trips. “There was an instant connection,” she says.

They collaborated on their first cookbook at their Darling Point apartment, where they brainstormed how best to capture the bright vivacity of Bill’s cafes within static images.

As their family grew, food became the guiding force of a grand adventure, from the kitchen, where the children made salad dressings and, as toddlers, played with pots and pans, to culinary hotspots across the world, including London, where the family has found a second home.

“It was great fun, it was a great adventure. And it was like that from the beginning,” Elliott says.

Even as the business expanded into a 19-venue empire, gathering for family breakfast remained a “non-negotiable” morning ritual: “Breakfast with the kids was kind of everything, it was a touchstone. It was a way to show love and beauty, to give sustenance and comfort,” Elliott says.

But when Granger died, Elliott’s appetite went with him. She had been his primary carer as he battled cancer, and felt a loss of control as he passed away.

“I’ve never not felt hungry before,” she says. “Grief is exhausting. It’s something you can’t control. But you just have to start with the basics, do the simple things like eating and sleeping to get through, and gradually you can build on that foundation.

“It’s a bit like how we have breakfast every morning, to set us up for the day.”

Amid the grief, the business they created together provides excitement for the future. Granger’s culinary legacy will continue to guide the brand and its restaurants, but as Elliott finds her feet as a sole business owner and parent, there may be some changes behind the scenes.

There’s talk of using their buying power to improve sustainability throughout the supply chain, and of working with food to empower female refugees, but nothing is set in stone yet.

“I’ll miss him forever,” says Elliott. “He was extraordinarily talented, he was someone I absolutely adored spending time with, and someone I loved. But I’m grateful for my team. Many of them have been with us for more than 10 years.

“We’re using Bill’s legacy as the springboard but we won’t be limited by that, either … we will continue to innovate.

“A business that is still running after 30 years is quite something and I don’t take that for granted. And I’m really excited about the future.”