Cooking with fire may be a primal act, but it took chef Lennox Hastie to show the Sydney crowd how thrillingly nuanced it has become. At his Surry Hills restaurant Firedoor, Hastie has blazed a new trail for flame-cooked food.

A simple piece of sourdough bread sets the scene. The heat of the woodfired oven creates a crisp, dark crust and caramel-coloured centre. It’s served with a smoked butter so impossibly creamy you can dip the bread straight in. The bread is all crunch, smoke and texture, and the essential companion for a strong dirty martini spiked with pink-hued olive brine.

Blush-coloured tuna belly is gently seared and topped with thin slices of pickled kohlrabi, radish and splashes of smoked buttermilk. The subtle wood flavour enhances the clean, ocean taste of the fish without overpowering it. While native marron is grilled over peach wood, the silky flesh seasoned with charred finger lime and native herbs. The dish is sublime in its simplicity, the oils from the lime lingering long after the dish has been cleared.

Pasture-raised rosé veal – a sign of ethically raised calves – is expertly roasted on the bone and served with a generous pile of crispy smoked potatoes and grilled lemon. A dish as epic in flavour as size, so share it between two.

The finale is a reanimated apple crumble, with the fruit cooked down in Calvados, wrapped in a salty nest of kataifi pastry and drizzled with sweet caramel and sour buffalo milk yoghurt.

Service is professional, swift and well-informed; staff can speak to the wood varieties, and the provenance of the produce. Firedoor, you are still smoking hot.

Must eat dish: marron with finger lime and native herbs
Instagram: @firedoor_surryhills