Back to basics: Wood is firing the flavours of fine food

FORGET foams and other food fads, chefs are going back to fundamentals with fire and charcoal.

In fact Lennox Hastie does not even have a conventional oven at Firedoor, which opens this week.

Instead, the three-tonne, 2.5m-wide twin wood-fired ovens will burn a range of wood from eucalypt to olive and fruit woods and even old wine barrels to create different flavours.

“The wood does its own thing,” said Hastie, who worked at renowned Spanish restaurant Asador Etxebarri where everything is cooked over coals.

“We just build up the heat.

‘’The fire burns at different stages through the day and may not burn out until well after midnight — the oven may even still be warm the next day.

Chef Lennox Hastie with his woodburning stove in the new Fink Group restaurant, Firedoor in Surry Hills / Picture: John Fotiadis Source: News Limited

“You’ve got that high temperature for things like the bread, then you are slowing it down for slow-roasting, vegetables, then you can build a small fire if you want something for (restaurant) service that night.

“No wood is created equal. Fire offers an amazing spectrum of flavour, and new flavours to discover.”

Neighbouring Surry Hills restaurant Porteno uses a cooking pit to roast whole beasts over charcoal and an asador, an Argentinian-style barbecue, to cook meat cuts over wood.

Merivale group has a custom-made charcoal smoker at Coogee Pavilion and several charcoal-burning grills and smokers at Papi Chulo in Manly, while chef David Tsirekas will turn out Greek-inspired dishes on his 4m-long charcoal grill in The Vault later this year.

“Fire can be very addictive,” Hastie said. “It’s a very primal element that’s instinctively human.”

Source : NEWS.com.au   27th April 2015