The first thing you notice is their absence. The warm-lit granite hall of Uccello is buzzing with half-conversations and attentive wait-staff and the usual lounge lizards soaking up the sun’s farewell by the rooftop poolside, but the chefs themselves are nowhere to be seen. Then out of the corner of your eye, you spot a blur of white, hear a sharp voice spike above the hubbub for a second then melt back into the haute-couture milieu. Your gaze meanders past the cool stone edges of the bar and through the gap in the wall to the business end of the night. It’s a small gap, barely enough for two to fit abreast, and throughout the evening you’ll see wait-staff and line cooks jostle to squeeze past one another, often balancing a loaded plate or three in the process. A small feat of agility, to be sure, but nothing compared to what’s going on behind the scenes.

Uccello is designed specifically to keep things invisible. Understandably so: nothing distracts a dinner party from clinking glasses and talking market volatility than a bustling kitchen punctuated with the odd expletive or dropped plate. But tonight, that’s what people want to see. They’ve come expecting a show: of drama, passion, palate-defying acts which the world has nevertheless seen before in countless magazines and TV screens. But when the six contestants do emerge to plate up and garnish each course, there’s none of the tension and competitiveness which their audience might well expect. They work quietly, with quick but calm movements. Although three will fall tonight, the six seem to put this fate aside and blur together as a single purposeful organism, focused and attentive and completely entirely professional to its white-clad core.

“It’s like Masterchef,” I hear several times during the course of the evening’s competition. But if anything, it’s the other way around: these six and their unsung brethren are the real masters. Reality TV has no time for 90-hour working weeks and half-of-minimum wages. And as a result, its inhabitants rarely realise that although competition is only a matter of perspective, collaboration in this frying-pan of a world is the only way to survive.

For the most part, apprentices like these six are defined by our absence. In a food culture dominated by personality cults and passing fads, they’re forgotten, ignored, taken for granted as the means by which culinary marvels are produced. Except they’re not means, they’re people. Quite extraordinary ones.

The Time Out Taste Test 2012 finals will be held at Uccello Restaurant this Monday, 2 April.

The Ninja attended Heat 2 of the competition.

 Riley Kamsler, Arras

Zac Inwald, Rockpool Bar & Grill

John Javier, Quay

Jessica Chan, Etch

Jay Richardson, est

Sam Polgar, Marque

Clap and cheer, for Chiswick’s here, the East-side’s newest treasure:

Here, crisp fresh-plucked produce is the norm, and it’s a pleasure. We’re

In before Durack’s old paw can give this place his usual score

So we can be the first to lend it our poetic measure:

White-fresh scallops, pink-salt tuna, lamb so tender that you’ll swoon,

It’s simple, unpretentious dining in a verdant plot;

Chicken fried, desserts divine (Matt’s Moran-gue is rather fine) -

Kingly master-chefs can still make food that hits the spot.

Photos by the Moonfairy

Char-grilled scallops, artichokes, burnt butter, tarragon

Crisp buttermilk chicken, cabbage, harissa, mayonnaise

Salt-cured tuna, cucumber, coriander, seaweed, sesame (on Himalayan pink salt)

Wood-roasted Moran family lamb; garden-grown chickpeas, hommus, mint and salad

Poached beurre bosc pear, toasted rice ice cream

White chocolate pannacotta, crushed berries, jelly

Baked meringue, yuzu, Granny Smith apple

Chiswick

Location: 65 Ocean St, Woollahra NSW 2065

Taste-type: Organic Australian

Price: Starters $20; Share dishes $50-58; Desserts $15

How to get there: Train to Edgecliff station or bus up New South Head Rd. Ample side-street parking.

Contact: 02-8388-8688

Halmagyi’s knife skills are fast, like a ninja’s.

Even through the Web you get a sense that Ed Halmagyi never slows down. Best known for whipping up quick yet stylish home-style meals on Channel Seven’s Better Homes and Gardens, Ed’s also an ambassador for Taste of Harmony, a non-profit initiative which aims to promote cultural diversity through a week of workplace lunch events. We fired off some questions in an email at the former law student/proud father/culinary enigma that is Fast Ed and got some characteristically speedy replies:

As a guy who gets paid to go on TV and cook, you have a job which many people would kill for. How did you end up in such an enviable position?

Pure dumb luck, mostly. I was working in a waterside restaurant when Channel 7’s ‘Sydney Weekender’ show came in to do a restaurant review. I was just being myself (acting like a clown) in the back of shot, and the next thing you know I found myself doing a screen test. I reckon it’s about right place, right time and right attitude. You have to be open to the opportunities the world throws your way when they come along.

Who (or what) would you say has had the most influence on your development as a chef?

Customers. I cook because I like taking care of people – for me, it’s the ‘hospitality’ part of this industry that I love best of all. I take great note of what people like and don’t like, then try to adapt my cooking style to suit.

What motivated you to get involved with A Taste of Harmony? And what has that involvement entailed?

I was delighted to be asked to be involved, it’s such a great and simple concept. For my part, it involves hosting a Harmony event myself, and also being an ambassador for the concept, talking about it in all sorts of media, and promoting the idea to others to help get them involved too.

You’ve had a pretty illustrious career as a chef in your own right, but most of Australia knows you for your work on TV. What’s the most important thing for you when you come up with new dishes?

Reliability. You see, it’s one thing to create great meals in well-stocked and well-equipped kitchens, but what happens when you’re cooking in a squalid bedsit with a single electric coil to work with? I try to ensure that the things I write are open to everyone. It’s about the three A’s: Affordable, Accessible and Achievable.

TV fame obviously brings with it a whole range of new opportunities and challenges. Apart from being interviewed by wannabe-famous bloggers, how has becoming a “celebrity chef” impacted on your professional and personal life?

I try to draw a solid boundary between my work and home lives. While I love my job, I don’ really take it too seriously. I was doing other things before, and I’ll end up doing others things when it ends – and it always ends. I focus on trying to be a good Dad, a good husband and a good neighbor, and leave work at the front door.

The Internet told me you intended to pursue a legal career before choosing to join the culinary world. Any advice for your younger self (or others in a similar situation)?

(It was a) great decision: embracing what I really loved was possibly the best thing I ever did. You don’t get multiple shots at living, so why waste your time in a career that’s not what you want it to be? I love to cook, I love to take care of others. While I loved the intellectual side of the law, it would never have really fulfilled me.

One of the key messages of A Taste of Harmony is that diversity is tasty. If you could spend a year as a chef abroad, where would you go and why?

It’s not inventive, but Italy, preferably around Tuscany. I really dig the core Italian ethos about food. You see, here French food is mostly about the capacity and skill of the chef, (while) Italian food celebrates their ingredients in the way they are found. It’s ‘nature over man’ and that really echoes with me.

Why do you think food is a great way to break down cultural barriers in the workplace?

We don’t all share language, faith, politics or philosophy, but a delicious stew is a delicious stew, regardless where you come from. Love at first bite.

When someone asks you what “Australian” cuisine is, what do you tell them?

Australian food is an idea, not a style. It’s a belief that there are no unbreakable rules when it comes to technique or style. It’s a belief that great ingredients are the place to start – and to finish. And it’s an understanding that there are myriad flavours and cuisines from which to choose, and these are best enjoyed when blended.

Pirates or ninjas?

Astronauts with laser-blasters…..it’s the new millennium, man!

Taste of Harmony runs from 19-25 March, coinciding with National Harmony Day on 21 March. To register your workplace or find out more, visit http://www.tasteofharmony.org.au/ or get following on Twitter.

I am waiting for a man who is fated not to show. People come and go as I wait. Their murmur overflows and swirls up and against the walls, forming mesas and deltas around the tables, eddying around the floor-staff who wend their way to each plate-stacked island, pooling at my feet. I am used to waiting. It has a strategy to it, like a recreational sport but without the movement.

I watch the chef as I wait. His hands do not move like a pianist’s, more like those of a seamstress. Their motions are fluid and light, but only because this is the fastest way. They pluck slabs of fish-flesh from the ice, roll rice-balls in a flick of the wrist, pat down each roll into regularity before sending it out into the world. In their grasp, the knife becomes just another digit, like a second pinky but longer and somewhat more lethal. Chef’s moustache – a toothbrush, somehow stripped of its Fascist leanings – rustles as his knife-pinky scores the fish-flesh. Once, twice, thrice, bringing the flavour to the surface.

The murmur doesn’t touch him. It surrounds him, brushes him with its everyday-ness of the 9-to-5 and familial dysfunctionality and all the other things which ordinary people live with, but he just cuts away, face unmoved, alone and yet content.

The knife-pinky unbuttons the fish-flesh from its skin and he sloughs it off into the garbage. The fish moults some trimmings too, slivers and freckles which chef deems unsavoury for his masters’ palates. He divides it into uniform slices, slides them off into a horizontal stack. A finger (not the pinky) goes into the wasabi, swipes across the rice like it’s a biometric scanner. At times his hip kinks out as he chops away, then swerves back in like a drunk subway driver faced with too many forking paths. It’s a feeling not unfamiliar to me, but for him it’s a question of aerodynamics rather than existentialism.

He hands me a plate over the short faux-tatami wall which separates us, and I ask him his name.

“I am Kōji,” he says. “I am very sorry you had to wait so long.”

It turns out his boss – the proprietor and the man I was fated not to meet – is ill with a fever and will not be joining me.

“Thank you, Kōji-san,” I say as I hand the plate back, this time empty.

Theoretically, this is a wasted afternoon. But as I step out into the sun, I feel like I’ve seen something not many others bother seeing. I feel alone and yet content. As one who practises waiting, it’s a feeling I could get used to.

The rains, they’re a-falling, a-drenching our spirits,

And putting our stainless-steel swords to good use;

But inclement weather does have a few merits -

To start off, it’s good for declaring a truce

And giving the minions a couple days joy-leave;

Or bunkering down with a mind to reduce

The piles of detritus and mind-clogging refuse

Which are (for this ninja) a terrible peeve.

Let’s sort out these memories, decaying to history,

Elided by arrows and teardrops of time -

Why, yesterday’s happenings feel like a mystery

(but I’m pretty sure they weren’t set out to rhyme).

We toss out the humdrum, like house-chores and shoot-outs,

And focus on polishing relics sublime -

To write off the past is quite surely a hate-crime

A fact of which good ninjas never have doubt.

So back to the Hunter we go, to Verandah,

Where fine Aussie tapas don’t need politesse:

Just sip, clink and burp while you gossip and gander,

And don’t fear your napkin sustaining a mess!

Because if you do, you’ll not taste the flavours

Pressed fresh into triple-hit combos (the best)

Like ‘Shrooms Goat-Cheese Pumpkin requiring bedrest

To fathom the taste-symphony which one savours

When joining three disparate shards in this Trinity.

Or maybe a zesty slap from Blue Crab Fingers?

You’ll feel like you’re tumbling into infinity

Lullabied by sour crustacean singers

With prawn-tails for noses. Now Saffron Potato,

Quite redolent with crispy sweetness that lingers,

Brings lightness of being (like two black-clad harbingers

Who once popped a hostile skull like a tomato).

The wine sloshes round in the brain, swilling synapses

Full with the scent of Slow-Roast Lamb and Jus -

The combo’s enough to elicit fine lapses

Of judgement in knowing what’s false and what’s true.

Is it that this beef really tastes so delicious?

Or am I being suckered by alcohol too?

It doesn’t quite matter; what does is the loo -

My bladder’s a torrent of curses quite vicious.

The rains, they’re a-falling, a-drenching  us fast,

But good food and wine lasting stories do make.

Don’t ever forget that the storm-clouds will pass -

A single fine memory’s all it should take.

Mushrooms, Goats’ Cheese and Pumpkin

Blue Spanner Crab, Vinaigrette, Salad

Potato, Pesto, Saffron

Lamb Shoulder, Kipfler Potatoes

—

The Verandah Restaurant

Location: Palmers Lane, Rothbury New South Wales 2320

Taste-type: Australian-style tapas

Price: Plates (4-servings) $14-36 (2-serving plates available)

How to get there: Don’t walk.

Contact: 02-49987231

The festive season’s come and gone again,

And now’s the time we really need some grog:

The contracts flooding in – but we’ve few men

To hunt down foes in tower, street and bog.

We need some wine! To keep our spirits up

And slake our thirsts with vessels fillable.

We draw good cheer and warmth from each mulled cup

As we accrue our hours billable.

A quick selection from a nifty shop

Doth get us back in business rather quick -

Delivered fast, expending not a drop

Afore our Semtex timers start to tick:

The wine helps to our memories reset:

We literally fire and forget.

Been in the desert till your vision’s gone

And you can feel your life-force start to drain?

Just pop and chug some Jackson’s Semillon - 

You’ll dehydrate, but you won’t feel the pain;

A little tart, but goes quite well with fish,

Fruit salad types, and cyanide in the throat.

Perhaps you pine for something more delish

Which also helps assist a corpse to float.

Then Peterson’s fine Sparkling White may do:

It’s sweet with piquant notes to fit your lunch

And liven up your dull shorthanded crew;

The bubbles also pack a ditzy kind of punch.

But all in all, one cannot whine ’bout wine:

The substance does make us feel divine…

Wines generously provided by Keep Left PR on behalf of Wine Selectors.

Jackson’s Hill Semillon 2011

Peterson’s Sparkling White NV

Dashing through the trees with an army in pursuit,

And all I want’s some peace – I’d better stash this loot;

Dump amongst the vines, send some decoys out,

Pause to dine on meals fine that’s what the season’s about -

Jingle bells, jingle bells,

But ninjas make no noise;

This bistro serves up French repas

With great élan and poise and

Lots of wine, lots of wine

Winos everywhere

Drink one drop and you won’t stop

When chugging Hunter fare

Duck pate’s a dream of lushly layered love,

Choux cheese strong on cream but well-crisped by the stove;

Juicy fruits de mer ensconced in Scallop shells,

Don’t you wish that you were there amongst the muscatels -

Now here comes, now here comes

The canard à l’orange 

Tender, sun-kissed, citrus-soaked

Un beau merveil qu’on mange;

Goat Tagine‘s pretty mean

Though Veal‘s a tad well-done;

Sit back and relax and let your

Palate have some fun.

Cap off with dessert: take a glassy crème brûlée

Which snaps when you insert your spoon into its tray;

It sings with soft-sweet verve, a master’s symphony

To savour – for there’s no love back in the cacaphony of

Christmas time, Christmas time,

Red in tooth and claw,

Birthday boy will find no joy

In retail pimps and whores; So

Hide your children hide your wife

And hide your stash of beer,

And patience misanthropic ninjas -

We’ll take revenge next year. Hey.

Famously famous duck pate

Gruyere cheese in choux pastry

Scallops with cheese and green stuff

Best duck ever (canard a l’orange) with bacon bits and peas and a view

Goat Tagine with rice and crispy bread things and a nice plate

Veal escallopes with more bacon bits

Creme Brulee

—

Bistro Molines

Location: 749 Mount View Road, Mount View (Hunter Valley) NSW 2325

Taste-type: Contemporary French/Algerian

Price: Entrées $20-30; Mains $38-40; Desserts $15-17 (menu changes daily per seasonal produce)

How to get there: Main road, sealed road, dirt road.

Contact: 02-49909553

Queue up for the hype?

Fresh pasta, decent prices -

Pretty pukka stuff.

Breads with herb pesto, balsamic vinaigrette and metal box

Balls LOLOLOL Smoky scamorza arancini

Crispy squid with “garlicky” mayo

Berludy Badass Buffalo Ricotta Ravioli

Awkward-sounding Bucatini Carbonara

“Give the bone a spoon” Risotto Milanese

Insert pun here

Note: When the bucatini carbonara turned out to be undercooked-on-arrival, we spent the next 15 minutes trying to get the attention of our waitstaff. When we did get their attention, however, they immediately returned the dish to the kitchen, delivered Bucatini Redux some 20 minutes later, and offered us each a complimentary dessert “so you don’t have to sit around waiting”. Some would be offended. I was impressed. The service-time is an issue, but hopefully it straightens out as the restaurant finds its jubbly-legs over the next few months.

—

Jamie’s Italian

Location: 107 Pitt St, Sydney NSW 2010

Taste-type: Oliverian Italian

Price: Decent – around $10 for starters and $20 for pastas.

How to get there: Walk down Hunter St from the George St exit at Wynyard Station, then take a right onto Pitt. Look for rustic wooden interiors, high ceilings, and queues.

Contact: 02-82409000 (no reservations, as far as I know)

I once went running over Sepia’s roof.

I didn’t know it at the time, of course,

Or I might well have dropped in for a bite

And drink or two. It’s quite a tour de force

Of haute couture and class, to tell the truth

(The roof I mean). The restaurant’s also quite

Enjoyable despite the dearth of light

Which I’m fond of but bloggers sob about:

“What horrid planning! Made me bring my flash…”

But all in all, it’s not like other joints

Where anyone who looks a tad slapdash

Is slain on sight. Jeans and a t-shirt flout

The rigmarole that fine dining’s main point

Is dressing up. And Sepia’s got some clout

When dealing in fine restaurant stakes (and steaks).

To dine in constant rapture for four hours

Is not something you’d do just every day.

But while your wallet wets its hide and cowers

In your pocket, take stock of what makes

This ten-course degustation just so fey.

Too lazy? Let me help you out, I pray:

The Amuse Bouche‘s a uni-lover’s dream,

Despite not bearing union-led discounts;

Take nori, add some monstrous Scallops and

You get a dish upon which food-snobs pounce;

The Tuna Tartare quickly wins esteem

With tuna raw and egg-yolk which demand

Attention like a naked marching-band;

To cap the entrées comes a Crab Risotto

Which foams with rabid glee at its success;

Some Hiramasa Kingfish topped with Scampi

Begins the mains with tantalising zest

Which, even if you were completely blotto,

Would lace your drunken haze with dreams of scampi.

Why did I choose to end that line with scampi?

The Beef with mushroom foam and paste disproves

The theory that “meat and two veg” be dull;

The Venison is just a little weird -

One really could the cocoa powder cull

For when it comes to meat, nothing behooves

It more than simply “medium, rare or seared?”;

Perhaps it’s meant as segue to revered

Dessert-time! Not a second steak this time,

Instead, this Jelly Thing to freshen up

With tart gelato and a drop of red;

And then upon Spring Forests we do sup

Redolent with choc twigs and fingerlime,

Topped with fresh sorbet royally-born and bred

To cool the jaded diner’s sleepy head.

I traversed Sepia’s roof in quite a hurry

For I was racing ninja wannabes

To show them that I was a force to fear.

If I had known of Sepia under me,

My focus would have surely gone a-flurry

With thoughts of good food, good friends and good beer.

I’m glad I finally made it back here.

 Amuse Bouche (Sea-urchin, wooden spoon, other cool stuff)

‘Scallop Sushi’ – nori-rolled scallop, pickled ginger, puffed sushi rice, avocado cream

Tartare of yellowfin tuna, poached egg-yolk, soy & wasabi sprouting caviar lentils (!!!!!! seriously!!!!) , amaranth grain

QLD spanner crab and buckwheat risotto, mustard butter, shellfish essence

Spiced roasted poetically-awkward scampi tails, roasted Hiramasa kingfish, scampi cream, baby fennel lemon, saffron + shiso + shellfish jus

Char-grilled pasture-fed completely-bossing Angus beef tenderloin marinated in Hatcho miso shiitake  (magic without a capital M) mushroom custard, nameko (??), miso mustard, barley miso

Cocoa and sansho-seared Mandagery creek venison, baby beetroots (not the band), rhubarb chocolate (?!?!), beetroot and boudin noir crumb

Pre-dessert (cucumber gingersomething sorbet somethingsomething jelly etc etc) (thanks, Moonfairy)

‘Spring Chocolate Forest’ – Soft chocolate, chestnut, native fingerlime honey cream, blackberry sorbet, blackberry candy, green tea, (very subtle) licorice, chocolate twigs, berries, crystallised fennel fronds (thanks, Moonfairy)

Sepia Restaurant and Wine Bar

Location: 201 Sussex Street, Sydney NSW 2000

Taste-type: Contemporary Australian

Price: $150 for ten course degustation

How to get there: Train to Town Hall or bus to QVB, then walk down to Sussex Street. Sepia is just next to Darling Park (PriceWaterhouseCoopers office).

Contact: 02-92831990

Although he came from further South,

They called him North, and in his wake

He left a swathe of longing ache

In many a grasping paw and mouth.

This North, he looked to carve his name

Into the cheek of restaurant fame.

He opened shop and whipped up funky

Things for diners with some nous;

The Ocean Trout was pride of house,

And one could tell there was no monkey-

Business round back kitchen-side,

Such was this dish’s verve and pride

In colour, spark and allergens.

For those not fruits-de-mer inclined,

A slash of glazed Pork Belly rind

Might well suffice to make amends

(As long as one’s cholesterol

Could manage to ingest it all);

To ease one’s guilt? Lasagne armed with

Soft, wet, gold, irrupting yolk.

“It may be meat-free,” say some folk,

“But call it healthy? That‘s some myth

To rival that apocrypha

About the Ninja’s skirt and bra…”

But that’s a tale for adult ears:

This review must stay innocent!

Much like ninjas when they’ve bent

Too many people round their spears

Whilst fighting for the last Date Tart

Or Cheesecake broken down to parts

Of gooey, crispy, old-school soma

Much like reality TV

Upon whose stage you’ll often see

Our head chef North, whose screen persona

Quite resembles Fruity Jubes -

Refreshing, tangy, comes in tubes,

Goes well with wine or Matt Moran.

Although the bittersweet blood-orange

Offends the uncouth palates of my minions as much as I’m offended by the lack of words rhyming with orange,

We leave with tastes more sated than

A zombie in a crowded mall.

And so we might say, all in all,

That North did etch his name quite well

Into this band of brothers’ hearts

With little pomp, with no false starts

Which otherwise might oversell

his fame. There’s really nought to whinge a-

bout for this reviewer-ninja.

SCORECARD (scores out of 10 unless otherwise stated)

Service: Effusive

Hen-themed props: 9.5

Minutes spent waiting for guests to arrive without any remarks from staff: 55

Confit Petona ocean trout, smoked scallop, radish, wasabi

Caramelised pork belly, crispy prawns, pickled Granny Smith, cider vinaigrette

Burnt spinach lasagne, local asparagus, slow-cooked egg, parmesan flakey things

Fried potatoes and prosciutto, the Ninja’s pick for Cardiac WInfarction

Caramel date tart, Early Grey tea syrup, burnt-butter ice-cream

Brilliat Savarin cheesecake, Champagne, mandarin sorbet

Market fruits (blood-orange and pineapple): jubes, gels, sorbets

Etch

Location: Intercontinental Sydney, 62 Bridge St Sydney NSW 2000

Taste-type: Contemporary Aussie

Price: Entrées $20-25; Mains $34-36; Desserts $16

How to get there: Train or bus to Circular Quay, then loop around to the East and walk up the hill towards the Museum of Sydney. Hotel Intercontinental is on the Eastern side of the road, towards the Conservatorium.

Contact: 02-9247-4777