BBQ - Lennox Hastie

[bunniefuu]

[Lennox] Cooking with fire, for me,
it's a little bit spiritual.

Once you start that ignition process...

it's something that has a life.

As soon as you light that fire,
you're committed.

You can't switch off.

You have to see it through
to the final flame.

[blowing]

But when you harness that power,

all of your senses are suddenly awoken.

You're on this edge of danger,

and it's a constant battle.

Because you're never fully in control.

The fire's in control.

You're trying to find a way
of working with it,

but the fire will do what the hell
it wants no matter what you do.

[Vivaldi's "Winter" playing]

[birds squawking]

[Pat] One of the things
outsiders think of

when they think of Australian food
is barbecuing.

That "shrimp on the barbie" thing.

Though it's a cliché,
it is part of how we live,

and it does reflect how we like to cook.

{\an }So, when you hear these words,

{\an }"Grill restaurant,

{\an }where the guy cooks over fire
a hundred percent of the time,"

you expect the person cooking that food
isn't wearing shoes.

They almost certainly
have a beer in their hand.

At Firedoor, it's completely different.

The kitchen doesn't look like any kitchen
you've ever seen.

There's two wood-fired ovens
that look like gates to hell.

Someone told me they burn
at a temperature hot enough to melt glass,

which is fun.

There's no gas,

there's no electricity.

The only way to cook the food,

the only way, is with fire.

No one does that.

That's crazy.

[echoes] Crazy.

[blowing]

[Myffy] Lennox Hastie
never compromises on anything.

{\an }His clinical psychopathy

when it comes to cooking,

sourcing ingredients,

and making his fires

is unlike anything I'd ever seen.

At the same time,
his cooking is gentle, it is subtle.

It's constant control
and constant attention.

He once told me
that when he sees a grill line

on a piece of meat,

it's a sign of horrible failure.

[Pat] We're talking about a guy
who uses fire to cook lettuce.

He uses fire to cook coconuts.

He uses fire to cook pastry.

He considers it to be a paint brush
rather than a hammer,

to very delicately,

very gently coax out

the absolute best
an ingredient has to offer.

When you're cooking with fire,

it's intense.

It's physically demanding.

It also requires a huge amount
of concentration.

This is high wire cooking.

There is no safety net here.

[fire crackling]

[Lennox] When most people cook with fire,
they see a barbecue

and think of it as
just a piece of equipment.

[blowing]

But the relationship
with humanity and fire

goes way beyond that.

As long as two million years ago,

people were cooking with fire.

I don't think there was anything else
that was a catalyst

to our advancement.

[blows]

Fire brought us all together.

[blowing]

We would gather round the fire,

it would heat us,

it would create a sense of community,

and then enabled us to develop further.

But despite all this rich history,

it's never been recognized
as a fine dining style of cooking.

I would just love to crush that.

People's preconceptions of fire,
it's always gonna be masculine,

strong,

big, intense.

It doesn't have to be that way.

It can also be soft...

delicate...

these subtle nuances of flavor.

When you take something so...

rugged, so primitive

to that fine dining level...

it's like nothing else.

That's why I tell the story
of this amazing form of cooking.

[birds chirping]

-[Lennox] How many head are here?
-[man] .

-So, there's cows, three calves.
-[Lennox] Oh, yeah?

-They look good.
-[man] Yeah.

[Lennox] They're nicely conditioned.

The grasses,
you've got some good grass here. Wow.

[Lennox] Beef is a huge thing
in Australia.

[cows lowing]

There's heaps of steak houses everywhere.

[cows lowing]

So, if I was gonna do a steak,

I was only gonna do one steak,

and it had to be the best one.

[electronic music playing]

What does it mean
to take something to the next level?

We start by hand selecting

the top two or three percent of the herd.

They're all freaks of nature.

[cow lows]

Beyond that, I wanted to push the limits

on where you can go with aging meat.

Beef is like wine.

Age it longer,

it becomes something
that's worth waiting for.

-Is that yours?
-Yep.

[man] That's yours, yeah.

[Lennox] The majority of meat is dry aged.

It's controlled decomposition.
So the meat's just left to hang,

just rotting.

There's only so far
you can take that meat.

-[man] There it is.
-[Lennox exhales]

-Nice marbling, look.
-[Lennox] Yeah, incredible.

[Lennox] We set about experimenting
hand painting it with fat.

Protecting the edges of this beef.

That fat then enables you
to take it further.

[Pat] Dry aging meat,

days is about the norm.

Some extremists take it to days.

Lennox takes his beef to days,

which is insane.

[Lennox] Through the aging,
the meat and the fat marry together.

And that fat allows it to glide

effortlessly across...

to temper

and melt on the grill.

It's already a great steak
cooked it in a pan,

but cooking it over a wood fire

is what it deserves.

It's what it should be.

You get this beautiful crust
with this jewel-like red interior.

I cook steak every single day
at the restaurant

and I still get chills down my spine.

[Pat] This will be like

no steak you've ever eaten
anywhere in the world.

You're not tasting char.

You're tasting the ingredient.

There's nothing else going on here
except meat,

salt,

and skill.

This is extraordinary meat.
It will change your life.

[people chattering]

[Lennox] I grew up
in the Southeast of England.

[blowing]

It's a beautiful part of the world.

[blowing]

We lived in a very old house,
so we had fireplaces in every room.

Growing up,
I was a bit unusual, I suppose.

A little bit of an oddball.

I didn't really fit in anywhere.

I wasn't at the high end of academia,

and I wasn't hugely into sports.

I was looking for more
than I was being offered, I suppose.

When I was ,

I started working in a Country House Hotel
near my parents.

Very traditional
French/English restaurant.

Had a Michelin Star.

My first kitchen I've ever been in.

I was fascinated by it.

The ingredients would come in
the back door,

and then go out the front door,
transformed into something amazing.

I immersed myself in that kitchen,

and it changed my life.

I knew I was supposed to be there.

I felt part of something.

{\an }[birds squawking]

-What have you got growing?
-[man] A lot of parsley.

Carrots and leeks over there,

and tomatoes.

Ah, you got some golden beets there.

It's beautiful.

[Lennox] People go to a grill restaurant,

and they're just expecting
a large temple of meat.

I wanna give them something different.

-Oh.
-[man] Yeah, you'll notice the sweetness.

It's a good beet.

-It will go well on a grill.
-Yeah.

What else you got?

These are tomatoes.
These are the black Russians.

So, these will be that color
when they're ripe and green in the center.

[Lennox] For years,
vegetables have been very much treated

as accompaniments and sides.

Oh, my God.

Mmm.

First of the season I've tasted.

-[Lennox laughs]
-That's beautiful.

[Lennox] I grew up
having steamed vegetables.

No wonder it's difficult
to get kids to eat vegetables,

because it all tastes the same.

[man] That smells incredible.

Oh.

[Lennox] To be able to treat
this vegetable as a piece of meat...

suddenly takes it to somewhere else.

[gentle string music plays]

You can throw a vegetable into the fire.

You can bake it slowly in the embers,

and they will take in a lot of the heat
and a lot of the flavor

whilst cooking very delicately as well.

Even the salad is touched by fire.

We grill all these beautiful lettuces

over super intense heat.

The sweet lettuces get sweeter,

the bitter lettuces caramelize.

It's almost what that lettuce
has been missing.

[Myffy] At Firedoor,

the meat's delicious,

but it's not the thing
that excites me the most,

'cause the challenge is vegetables.

Lennox extracts major flavor using fire,
and I find that really fascinating.

[Lennox] The expectation of a salad's
pretty low.

Like, how good can a salad be?

But actually, how great can a salad be
cooked over fire.

[both eating]

Mmm.

I'm glad you decided to go into farming.

-I know.
-[chuckling]

[chuckles] Many hours in the kitchen,
this is better.

You weren't a bad chef,
but you're a better farmer.

I hope so.

[people chatting]

[Lennox] Once I graduated
from culinary school,

I had to prove myself.

I got a job working at a very serious
French kitchen in the UK.

[whirring]

At that level, things are run
with m*llitary precision.

Sometimes you're being screamed at

or something thrown at you.

When I started there,

I was on the garnish. Guy on the meat
used to put his spoon on the stove

and burn my arm to get me to move faster.

But despite a bit of abuse,

I just always wanted to improve
and be better than I was.

Having trained in French restaurants,

the next step
was to go and work in France.

I got a job working
at a three Michelin Star restaurant.

That's the best of gastronomy.

So, my expectations were huge.

The restaurant was a machine
with this huge labor force.

There'd be six guys plating one dish.

The food required so many levels
of preparation,

from freezing to dehydrating,

different flavors on a plate.

By the time it got to its end result,
it looks amazing.

But then I tried it.

And it didn't do anything for me.

All this focus was on this technique,

and the ingredients
weren't in the limelight.

I felt completely disillusioned.

I got to that level
of working in a three star

and you think you're gonna find
what you dreamed of...

and it wasn't there.

I was left feeling pretty hopeless.

Where do I go now?

[sizzling]

I was helping out
in a pinchos bar in Spain,

enjoying a change of pace.

One evening, a couple of guys at the bar,

they mentioned this grill restaurant.

Something about,
I don't know what it was,

about... there's this guy.

He's in the mountains.

All he does is grill,
and just grills everything.

I had to go and see what it was about.

So, I asked the guys
what the name of the place was,

which was Asador Etxebarri.

Etxebarri's not located

centrally to anything.

It sort of sits on its own,
quite isolated.

Between the mountains,
there's this restaurant

just, like, there,

as if it was almost placed there by God.

I went into the downstairs bar.

I could see a man alone on the grill.

Giant pieces of wood
would go into the oven.

Hot embers would be coming out.

Ingredients would go on different grills.

Pulleys would go up and down.

The way in which Victor cooked
was effortless.

It was almost like a form of dance.

This man conversing and dancing with fire.

I wanted to learn how to do that.

Victor came out and looked at my CV,

asked about my experience.

The one thing he was quite keen about

was he wasn't interested
in Michelin Stars.

And it was so opposing for me
because that's what I had to offer.

Like, take away the Michelin restaurants,

I didn't have anything else,
I just had me, you know,

and all the hard work
I could throw at it.

He grunted a little bit,

and says, "Okay, you can start tomorrow."

When I started working with Victor,

it was...

bizarre.

He didn't speak English.

I didn't speak Spanish.

You could see there was
a lot going on there,

but he was never the kind of guy
who was gonna demonstrate something

or show you something.

So, I felt the best way to learn

was to work alongside him
in every capacity.

Victor would start early in the morning,

and however early Victor would start,
I would start.

[Lennox] I'm gonna try this idea of yours,
cooking these in the shell.

[man] Yeah, if you put more oil
in that one side...

-Here?
-[man] Yeah.

-Yeah.
-[man] Then...

-Sit 'em there?
-[man] Sit 'em in there.

[Lennox]
How good is that?

[Lennox] Watching Victor
was my greatest reference point.

Should be ready.

-[man] Just about.
-[Lennox] Yep.

[Lennox] Seeing how
you could manipulate fire...

all these ingredients dulled
by other methods of cooking...

are suddenly...

enlivened.

Beautiful clams.

Amazing lobsters.

Live prawns.

You think you know an ingredient,

but cooking over fire's
a whole new ballgame.

Just opens your eyes.

It suddenly gave me a new lease of life.

[man] Pretty good, yeah?

Incredible.

When we get crab in the restaurant,
we don't appreciate it until...

-You do the hard work getting it.
-All the work.

-Cooked over a fire is the best way.
-That's right.

[birds chirping]

[Lennox] In those early days,

we'd embarked on a mission
to set ourselves apart

and try and grill everything.

[fire crackling]

We would take an ingredient
and put it on a grill

and see what the reaction was.

How would the fire react?
How would the ingredient react?

Would there be a marriage?

One of us would say something,
you'd think, "Ridiculous."

Then you think, "Well, why not?

[sizzling]

Like, what if we grill

the most delicate ingredient
you can think of, subjecting it to fire?"

We didn't know if it would be any good.

There was a couple of people who were
disgusted by the idea of grilling caviar.

"Not respecting the caviar,
you don't know what you're doing."

In our early efforts, there was
too much heat being transmitted.

So, we got some beautiful, local seaweed.

Let's place the seaweed
in between the two,

and sit the caviar on top of the seaweed.

And that was a game changer.

It filters all the flavor of the sea,

but allows a certain amount
of moisture in the seaweed

to protect the caviar that sits above it.

And by the time
it's just warmed over the embers,

the flavor profile has completely changed.

It transformed into something else,
like, almost ethereal.

It took an entire year to perfect,

and during that period of time,
the two of us

intertwined.

We spent every waking moment together.

We were friends,

he was my boss, he was my brother,

my father, in other respects.

It was probably the most creative period
of my life.

[Lennox] Would you say prawning is easy

or something you're used to,
like breathing?

It's something
you can only learn on the job.

-Right.
-Uh...

And all fishermen would say it's...

the first ten years are the worst.

It takes you at least
to get some idea of what's going on.

If you pushed through years,
if you make it...

[man]
You have to be determined to survive.

[Lennox] Yeah.

If you're not, the industry
will soon sort that out for you.

Wow.

[Pat] The time that Lennox
was at Etxebarri

coincided with when it went from...

being sort of an interesting restaurant
that nerdy people,

uh, were talking about
and sort of whispering about,

to being in another level.

[Lennox] For a long time,
it was that word of mouth,

inner foodie sort of place to go to.

But as the restaurant progressed,

you get on lists,
and you climb up lists and...

people started seeking out the restaurant.

And then, as soon as it got on the radar

of Anthony Bourdain...

Absolutely one of the great meals
of my life.

Now I know why you stayed here.

[Lennox] ...the restaurant became
even more popular.

People would travel far and wide
because they'd seen this restaurant

and they'd gone,
"Damn, that looks incredible."

And then...

we got the Michelin Star.

For me, it was very rewarding.

All the hard work was being recognized.

[man] Want it, boy?
Want prawny, mate? Want prawny?

Good boy.

[Lennox] But Victor cried with disgust.

I've never seen a man so upset
about getting a Michelin Star.

Because he was quite happy
being what he was.

[crickets chirping]

My relationship with Victor
was everything...

but we became busier,
and it became harder.

I was trying to work out
what my future was.

I had gone for a year.

Five years later, I was still there.

I treated it
like it was my own restaurant,

but it wasn't.

One day, someone said that I'd made
the restaurant more sophisticated.

I felt embarrassed,

because I didn't want to take away
from what I fell in love with originally.

And I realized I had to carve a future
for myself.

I had to explain to Victor
that I couldn't stay.

[man] What was it like telling him?

Horrible.

I would have been happy

just with a gentleman's handshake

and someone to wish you well,
keep in touch.

But he gave me nothing.

I was taken aback at this.

I wanted some sort of closure.

And he just got quite angry.

He said, you know,
"How can you leave me with this sh*t?"

I said, "Are you serious?

This is probably the finest restaurant
I've ever been in.

One of the best restaurants
in the world.

You created this. We created this."

It felt like he was blaming me
for how busy we were.

I don't think he could understand
why I had to go.

And in typical Victor style,

he shut me out.

I wasn't prepared for that reaction.

I was torn apart.

Having worked for Victor

and gone to that limit,

I wanted to continue
my exploration of fire.

It was the only way I wanted to cook.

But I wanted to expand that
to the entire repertoire,

across the entire cuisine,

just to prove a point.

[chuckles]

I had to create a name for myself,

and the only way I could do that
was to move to a larger city.

I felt drawn to Australia.

[electronic music playing]

Australia's such a big country.

I started exploring the ingredients
they have over here.

And there's just so much going on.

From the rain forest...

to the ocean...

to the rivers...

there were ingredients I'd never seen.

It was a complete new world for me.

I had no idea
what this was going to become,

but I had this huge adrenaline rush.

I was energized.

The difficulty about the restaurant is
we're grilling the entire menu.

Obviously, we have steaks, vegetable,
we've got, like, larger style grills,

but it's to find something
to cook the more delicate items,

-pipis, school prawns...
-Yes.

...small vegetables, like peas.

I would want to suspend an ingredient
over the embers.

It would be more like this, but thinner,

while still being stronger,

because the temperature range
is between sort of ...

-[man] Yeah.
-...to centigrade.

So it has to be really strong.

[Lennox] When I arrived in Sydney,
there was a bit of fanfare.

It was announced in the press.

"Lennox Hastie arrives.
He's gonna open a restaurant.

Looking here, there, everywhere."

The expectation was huge.

I started looking at spaces around Sydney.

Unlike most kitchens,

this had to withstand
a high amount of heat.

It had to be built to not melt.

But space after space
just fell by the wayside.

[Myffy] When Lennox was moving to Sydney,

it took famously far longer
than anyone ever thought.

Like, years longer.

It became a running joke.

I don't think anyone had an idea

just how obsessive Lennox is.

I went through a process
of looking at sites.

I'd nothing to show for it.

I had wasted four years
trying to find a restaurant.

It was horrible.

I was trying to do something
that's never been done before.

But I was stuck in this no-man's-land

of not being able to find a restaurant
and not being able to cook,

and I was f*cking miserable.

It took me a long time.

But once I found the space,

I went from constructing the restaurant

to being in the kitchen literally
four days out of opening the doors.

Octopus in two, one salad in two.

To be out of the kitchen
for, like, six months is something.

To be out of the kitchen for four years,

you start to doubt you can go back.

People asked me, "What are you
cooking? What's on the menu?"

No idea what's on the bloody menu.

I'd been four years out of a kitchen
and I'm then thrown back into the fire.

One question was always asked
of me in Spain,

"Is there anything you don't grill?"

And the only thing we didn't grill
in Spain was the salad.

It was almost like it was sacred.

I'm not at Etxebarri anymore.

I'm forging my own path,
I'm going my own direction,

so I thought, "Why the hell not?"

Suddenly, it opened my mind.

What I love about cooking with fire
is freedom.

So, I chose to do things
I hadn't done before.

Because there's rules
that need to be broken.

I wanted to change what people believe
a grill restaurant is and should be.

I wanna give a different experience.

Please enjoy.

That sauce is a bit thin.
Can we adjust that sauce, please?

[Lennox] The opening day,
everyone just piles in

expecting this great grill restaurant.

I was excited.

All the hard work had meant something.

People ordered the steak,

but then they were sending it back
and going,

"Well, this needs more cooking."

I'm trying to find a point of perfection
about how a steak should be cooked,

and people are going,
"Oh, that's a bit rare, isn't it?"

In Australia,

they're so used to things
being a certain way.

They're so used to charred meat.

There was this ongoing battle
between what I wanted to cook...

and what people wanted me to cook.

So, you start questioning yourself.

Am I in the right place?

Was this the right choice?

But opening the restaurant
was everything that I wanted.

I had to see it through.

I had to change their perception.

It's going to be grill or nothing.

[Myffy] When I first went,

it was interesting and subtle.

But then every time I went back,

he had honed it just a little bit more.

Finally, I realized

what the result of his obsession is.

Perfection.

The winner of the Citi Chef of the Year,
Lennox Hastie from Firedoor.

[cheering and applause]

[Myffy] We named him Chef of the Year
because we'd found his cooking

to be a unique expression of self.

The best thing about tonight
is the palpable camaraderie

that's in this room tonight.

To mix with you, celebrate, to gather
together as you would round a fire.

[cheering]

[Myffy] For someone to recognize
everything that he's been working for

for four years, honing and creating,

it's like...

he was seen.

[Lennox] It's huge recognition
amongst your peers,

amongst those group of people
on a national basis.

What it feels like to be understood is...

amazing, like nothing else.

[upbeat music playing]

[Lennox] A few years after we opened,

strangely enough,

The World's Best comes to Australia.

During the award ceremony,

there's thousands of people...

when suddenly...

there's Victor.

We got a drink together.

Hearkened back to the old days
of the Basque Country.

I was happy to see him again.

Victor transformed the way
in which I look at food

and the way I cook.

He gave me so much more
than I could imagine.

I love Victor,

and there will always be a part of me
in the Basque Country.

But Australia feels like home now.

[Pat] In Australia,

there's no other restaurant like Firedoor.

The sophistication
is just growing and growing.

And I think that Lennox
is finding more fans.

-[boy] Do you need any help?
-Yeah.

[boy] What do you need help with?

Can you salt the chickens for me?
[gasps]

Good boy. High five.

I bet you can't do the other one.

There you go.

I want more people to do what I did.

I feel an obligation
to share what I know, share knowledge,

to share this form of cooking.

There's such a strong story
to tell with fire.

And I'm only just starting that journey.

[upbeat acoustic music playing]