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Few Sydney restaurants in recent memory have been greeted with as much anticipation as Kiln received in 2022. Slotted into the 18th floor of the ultra-hip Ace Hotel, it dispelled the myth that hotel restaurants had to colour inside the lines to be successful.

In Mitch Orr, they had one of the city’s most forward-thinking cooks. A chef prepared to load Jatz with anchovies as a tongue-in-cheek opener, to serve (shock, horror) rice with main courses instead of frites. Orr developed bespoke teas and grilled vegetables – instead of meat – over coals. His record of pumping his personal playlist in restaurants was simpatico with a venue that booked DJs and consistently pulled a young, creative crowd.

And it worked. Just a couple of months in, Kiln was named our New Restaurant of the Year for offering a perspective on Australian cooking as fresh as its views over the city.

All of which is to say that replacing Orr, as Kiln did in January, was a big deal. The answer, in their minds, was to throw a Hail Mary and sign Beau Clugston, one of the most lauded Australian chefs never to have run a restaurant in Australia, to write the next chapter.

If you ever wanted to know what it’d look like if someone from Noma Australia stuck around and continued the work, here’s the answer. 

Clugston is an inspired choice for a brand intent on its properties being tied closely to the place they inhabit: for years the chef was an integral part of the kitchen at Noma, and led research and development for its seismic Sydney pop-up in 2016, going deep with Elders, foragers and growers on the foods that have been in this country for millennia.

This thread is visible from the get-go at Kiln. Tartare is made with kangaroo piled on top of a sauce made from blue mussels. The citric burst of green ants and the sweet astringency of lemon aspen bring edges to a plate of heirloom tomatoes, strawberries and zucchinis strewn with raw prawns and underscored with creamed oysters.

Here, native ingredients aren’t for kicks, they’re essential. Same goes for the Skull Island prawns, grilled just past medium, dabbed with a sauce made with native greens, sprinkled with strawberry gum and skewered with a eucalyptus sprig that arrives smouldering. If you ever wanted to know what it’d look like if someone from Noma Australia stuck around and continued the work, here’s the answer.

Clugston’s return isn’t exactly a homecoming – the chef flies in every two months from Copenhagen, where he runs seafood-centric Iluka – but in some ways, it feels like a reset. If the late 2010s saw local chefs go ham on abalone schnitzel and finger limes, the 2020s have been about simpler, more accessible trends.

But if there’s an immediate success here, it’s the idea that using First Nations ingredients shouldn’t be subject to fashion. This is what Australia tastes like. It’s there in the leeks barbecued in paperbark, finger lime squeezed on top, even if the vegetable could be sweeter, softer. It’s in the mussel sauce accompanying charred pork neck laid over warrigal greens, seablite and karkalla.

Another thread is how bright Clugston’s food tastes. “Chef hates salt,” says one waiter, and it’s true, things taste of themselves: mussels and nori season the kangaroo, not flake salt. Then there are the tricks to keep things fresh: clean, clear gazpacho; spinning carrot juice into a dressing for an exceptional leaf salad.

High-grade? Yes. But this isn’t cerebral, tasting-menu fare. The kitchen – led day-to-day by former Oncore chef Brad Crowle – is drilled in the shared-plate, high-energy setup that Kiln excels at, in keeping with the clash of textures in the room, the Talk That Talk-era Rihanna on the speakers, the buzz of the tables, the personality of the waiters.

It’s fun. And it’s fun seeing Clugston’s food here, interacting with it: there’s chicken-liver cannoli to eat with your hands, bone marrow to scoop onto waffles (enjoyable, sure, but too rich to love).

You can’t get a ton of help with the drinks list, but it’s expanded to include more makers engaged with their terroir. Pick biodynamic Gut Oggau blend by the $23 glass and it’ll carry you through from an outstanding blackened calamari on lobster sauce through to blushing eye fillet (it’s still a hotel, remember).

Then pastry chef Andy “Bowdy” Bowden steps up. His caramel-rich sundae is peak indulgence, but his headliner cutely tracks Clugston’s place-based thing: a swirl of coconut cream, a puck of crispy rice, a quenelle of mango sorbet flavoured with makrut lime, all nodding to nearby Thai Town. Pray it returns next summer.

Is signing Clugston a coup? All evidence says yes, especially if he goes deeper. And it helps that Kiln was already in a very good place when he started. Keep stoking the fire, and lord knows how hot it could get.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.