The challenge is how to make a sprawling 1000sqm restaurant feel warm and intimate. Clever design sees the massive 260-seat dining room carved into smaller spaces where four theatre kitchens are ringed by front-row seats.

In the cold kitchen, Tathra rock oysters are shucked to order then plunged into ice alongside fresh Fraser Island spanner crab. Over at the steam station, native pipis and Portarlington mussels emerge plump and refreshed from a steam bath in a trio of custom-made kettles. The pipis arrive in the shell, along with an aromatic broth of vadouvan spices that is so rich and flavourful you’ll need a serve of sourdough to finish it off.

Fire is a focus, and it’s in the wood kitchen where the real magic happens. Seven cuts of steak are smouldered over ironbark on two parilla-style grills. Rump cap is served darkly charred on the outside and blood-red in the centre, cooked to perfection. Out of the embers also comes a Valrhona chocolate skillet cake, studded with crunchy cacao nibs and finished with even more chocolate sauce. 

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