After finalising Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking (which goes on sale November 7, with a special preview appearing in the November issue of delicious.) the ex-Fred’s chef dove into her next challenge – this time, as Culinary Director of the Sydney Opera House event venues.

“If you’re given the opportunity to do something at the Opera House, you just say yes,” Alvarez says. 

And it’s no small job. Alvarez developed a range of tailored menus – consisting of around 60 produce-driven dishes in total – to cater for all events hosted in the Yallamundi Rooms, the Utzon Room and the Northern Foyers. Think events like weddings, gala dinners, corporate events and cocktail parties.

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“I’ve had to think about constructing this menu differently than I would in a restaurant setting,” the chef said. “There are a lot more logistic considerations when you’re doing big events. But at the same time, it just comes back to doing things simply. It’s all about starting with good produce and I wanted to be sure that I could champion as many small producers as possible.” 

So what type of produce will we be seeing on the menus?

“Lots of vegetables and lots of seafood, because you’re sitting in these breathtaking rooms and looking out over the ocean,” Alvarez says. 

“I am also really trying to inject a bit more native Australian produce into the menu, because I think that’s a really important connection. There’s an octopus dish with macadamia and saltbush, and I’m also doing Sydney Rock oysters with passionfruit and finger lime. And then a really lovely simple snapper tartare with just local line-caught snapper diced up and tossed with like local olive oil and finger lime.”

Alvarez will kick off her appointment with her own book launch on November 10 (you can find tickets here) with a special Q&A between herself and co-author Libby Travers, hosted by food writer Joanna Savill. 

“We’re going to talk about the writing of the book and how we came up with the recipes, and then we’ll be serving food from the book, too. It should be really great.

Doing anything at the Opera House is a dream. Someone asked me if this was a bucket list thing and honestly, no! I didn’t even realise that it could be a possibility for me. So that feels surreal.”

Related review: Danielle Alvarez leaves Fred’s and its magic in safe hands