It was a triumphant moment for the Three Blue Ducks team when they took to the stage on Monday night to accept their first major Good Food Guide award, 16 years after opening their modest cafe on MacPherson Street in Bronte.
“This is very special to us,” said co-owner Darren Robertson as he accepted New Restaurant of the Year for their most recent opening, Three Blue Ducks Burradoo.
Robertson was one of the seven team members on stage to accept the award in front a 500-strong crowd of leading New South Wales and Canberra hospitality figures that gathered at Carriageworks for the 42nd Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide awards.
“We decided to bring half of the group,” fellow co-owner Andy Allen said.
“A couple of us are gatecrashed,” replied Robertson, “and the entire restaurant is around the corner waiting for us at the pub.”
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Three Blue Ducks Burradoo, which opened at Easter in the Southern Highlands, was nominated for two Guide awards, Regional Restaurant of the Year and New Restaurant of the Year, presented by Aurum Poultry Co.
The $210 per person, 50-seat fine diner was built in a centuries-old farmhouse overlooking the grounds of Burradoo Park Farm, a 240-hectare agritourism destination just outside Bowral, created by billionaire philanthropist Annie Cannon-Brookes .
Good Food Guide co-editors Callan Boys and David Matthews called it one of the most exciting openings of the past 12 months, saying it marks an ambitious and beautifully mature evolution into regional destination dining.
“With the chef talent involved, I knew it would be good,” Boys said, “but I wasn’t expecting such a cohesive tasting menu of finely tuned dishes. It’s a long way from avocado toast and slow-cooked lamb shoulder.”
The Three Blue Ducks story began in 2010 at the now-closed Bronte cafe , but has grown to nine venues including a restaurant in Rosebery and several in northern NSW, including a spot in Bellingen and an elaborate farm venture in Byron Bay . There’s also a Ducks at Melbourne’s Urbnsurf .
Until this year, Three Blue Ducks had played in the casual dining space, starting with Bronte – first owned by surfer mates Sam Reid-Boquist and Chris Sorrell, and former Tetsuya’s chef Mark LaBrooy (who is no longer involved). By applying fancy cheffing techniques to cafe food, the helped redefine breakfast in Australia, so much so that Good Food named it Sydney’s “Best Breakfast” in 2012.
LaBrooy’s mate from Tetsuya’s, Darren Robertson, joined the team, and the Ducks grew its focus on sustainable farming, which helped make paddock-to-plate dining a more accessible, everyday concept. They introduced dinner service and Good Food awarded the eatery a chef’s hat.
By this stage Jeff Bennett had also joined, as well as Andy Allen following a work experience stint after his Masterchef win in 2016.
The now MasterChef judge told us in March, Burradoo builds on that “Three Blue Ducks magic”, but pushes it further. “The assumption is, the bigger you get, the more you take your eyes off the road … and we want the opposite,” he said.
They hired former co-head chef of Sydney’s now-closed three-hatted Quay, Troy Crisante, to lead the Burradoo kitchen. Allen said he wants the restaurant to bring the story of the farm to life, without compromising the wholesome simplicity at the core of the Ducks’ brand.
Boys reviewed it in September , giving it a score of 16.5 and two hats, making it the highest scoring restaurant of the year at that time. It retained those two hats last night.
The winners of the 42nd Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards were announced on Monday, October 26, presented by Oceania Cruises and T2 Tea. Pick up a free 56-page Good Food Guide liftout in the Herald on Tuesday, October 27.
The home of the Good Food Guide , the Good Food app is free for premium subscribers of the SMH and also available as a standalone subscription. You can download the app here.
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