It would be remiss not to touch on the current state of hospitality – are things as dire as the blaring headlines suggest?
It is pretty tough out there – economic pressures have really started to come through and from what you hear, and particularly during the winter months, it’s been really tough. Revenue is not so bad, but trying to make that margin is tougher.  

Not to suggest it’s easier, but having a diverse portfolio like you do would surely aid during such times?
Yes, I think we are lucky in ways, in that most of our venues are quite broad – from fine dining right through to casual and bars… And some are actually doing really well, probably better than last year,  and then some are pretty flat. 

If we can walk back a little – what was the original appeal of the kitchen and cheffing and how young were you when you started out?
I was 15 when I started at [Sydney restaurant] La Belle Helene. And I was very lucky in life as I found something that I fell in love with and it’s been a great love affair ever since. It’s that famous saying, do what you love in life and you never have to work another day’.  

All said and done it’s hard graft, it’s not easy – what keeps you in this game?
What keeps me in this industry is the fact I know nothing else… I know that sounds like I’d get out if I could, but I wouldn’t. I love this industry. I’m very passionate about the produce side of it and providence and seasonality and having a farming background and being a farmer I’m very passionate about that side of it too, because I know how hard they do it.  

Produce is something you’ve always loudly championed and you very much pioneered the ‘paddock-to-plate’ approach long before it was de rigueur and long before diners really engaged in provenance. This is an approach no doubt driven by your farming roots?
I think the whole produce side is about coming from the land and being a fourth-generation farmer. I saw my parents do it really tough when I was very young – basically losing the farm, you know, we moved off the farm when I was eight and I think it was lucky to get back into it. So the plight of the farm has always been very tough and I think as a chef and a restaurateur it plays such a massive part in what I do – there’s no question if it wasn’t for the producers and the farmers I wouldn’t be the restaurateur and the chef that I am today because it’s their produce we’re putting on the plate.  

Is the farm your happy place these days?
I split my love affair between restaurants in Sydney and the farm. I took over the farm a few years ago from my father and my uncle was involved too and I started spending more time out there during Covid – hence buying a pub [The Rockley] out there and doing some work on that, the design and then reopening it with some accommodation. And there’s no question I’m a different person when I drive through that gate – it’s a very different Matt Moran and people who come to the farm see that and it’s quite funny, because they’re actually quite shocked about how much farming knowledge I have.  

To walk you back into the kitchen – is perfectionism necessary to make-it, to achieve cut through as a chef?
I suppose the early days as a chef it’s your way or the highway and I think as a young chef I was probably much more temperamental, much more ego driven. But at the same time, you’re striving for excellence and want to make a name for yourself. You know, if someone comes into the restaurant and has a bad salad, they don’t go well, the apprentice made a bad salad, it comes back to your brand and your name. But I don’t regret those [early] days – those days were really tough, but they’re the days that shape you into the person you are. Things have changed in kitchens over the years, those long hours and that toughness and that aggression is not there anymore and that’s fair.  

The modern kitchen an arguably kinder environment?
A kitchen these days is a much kinder place, but knowledge takes time and so the more time you spend in a kitchen, the more knowledge you get. But those days of 80 or 100 hours a week in the kitchen are long gone. I love those days – I always saw those hours and that time as an education and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  

You opened and owned your first restaurant at 22 – you’ve touched on it a little, but what was Matt Moran like back then compared to the man who sits here today?
I was very different. I opened the Paddington Hotel with Peter Sullivan – he was a bit older, had a bit more knowledge about running a business but not a lot more. And we were very naive when we did it and I suppose I didn’t want to be told what to do, I wanted to do it for myself and I loved those days. We thrived on running our own business and not really knowing what we were doing… But me in the kitchen, I was an absolute beast. I just wanted to strive for excellence and work as many hours as I possibly could and get as many accolades as I possibly could. I was a lot younger then, and I do dare say that cooking in a kitchen is a young man’s sport.  

Is a lot of your time now spent mentoring staff across your various venues?
No question, time spent in venues with chefs and with food tastings. I also travel a lot more, so I see different things and I bring things back and talk to my teams about what I see and I’m always forwarding things I see on Instagram to [group executive chef] Laura [Baratto] who’s worked for me for 17 years – she’s my right hand in the kitchen. So it’s about being a figurehead, but still having that direct contact with the head chefs is really important.

As someone who regularly travels and was recently in Europe – any new discoveries or anyone that excited you?
I’ve just been away on two trips. I was in Sicily and I went up to Stockholm and had a bit of a look around and it’s quite funny actually, all these restaurants you hear about and which are getting all the accolades are about cooking over open fire. It’s bizarre how evolutions happen – the cave guys cooked on a fire and now it’s come back around again. Whenever I travel I try to draw inspiration from different restaurants and I was at a restaurant that I went to last year, but it’s evolved so much since – it’s called Oto and it’s a young Icelandic chef influenced by Japanese and Italian cooking and it’s quite bizarre but unbelievably good food and I do dare say it’ll receive a Michelin Star before too long. I also think English food has become a lot better – I was in London recently and had a phenomenal meal at Mountain where Tomos [Parry], a Welsh chef, is doing really simple food but really well cooked. I also went to this incredible pub called The Devonshire – it’s basically four levels of steakhouse and you also get that classic English roast on a Sunday with Yorkshire pudding and it was just phenomenal. They’re doing 500 covers a day and I haven’t seen a pub that busy for a long, long time.  

Switching then to Australian cuisine – how do you see our current standing on the international stage? Are we still held up, or, has Europe, specifically, caught up given its adoption of so many of the things we’ve been doing, and doing well, for a while now? 
On a general stance, Australian food is second to none. I really believe that. You can go to Italy for instance, and sure, you have these great spots but they’re doing the same thing – you’re getting a beef carpaccio or a vitello tonnato, it hasn’t really evolved that much. You can go to any sort of bistro or restaurant in Sydney and have much better quality – our produce is broader, I think, than some countries and the level of cooking that we have in Australia is second to none. We’ve exported all our chefs for many years and they’ve gone out and then they’ve come back with that knowledge. So, we are very lucky and I still think we’re definitely up there – I think the best in the world. But someone’s going to always argue that, aren’t they?  

You’ve recently pushed into Canberra with two new ventures – what excites you about the capital?  
We opened Compa, which is based on an Italian steakhouse, and Sando, which is a sandwich shop. The sandwich shop was a byproduct of the restaurant really – a little hole in the wall doing coffee and we thought we could achieve something a bit different, you know, this massive sort of thing is happening in Sydney with sandwiches. And the first five days we were selling close to 500 sandwiches a day – it’s obviously calmed down a bit now, but it’s still incredibly busy. And the steakhouse, it’s just a really simple, good New York steakhouse. I was there [recently] on a Wednesday night and it was absolutely packed – and not a lot of pollies, which I’m a bit disappointed about because I really want to take a lot of money off of the politicians. But it’s good to see a lot of locals really enjoying it. I call it the golden Triangle now – it’s three hours from Sydney to Canberra, three hours from Canberra to the Rockley Pub and then three hours from Rockley Pub back to Sydney – it’s a nice drive.  

To touch on design – how would you describe good hospitality design?
It’s something that’s functional, where the ebbs and the flows all work well together. It’s also very important that whoever you’re dealing with when it comes to design, that it’s a team process, because a chef’s going to know how the kitchens works and the front of house also. But then you’ve also got the architect that wants to design his vision and it all has to come together – it’s very important.  

Is design more important than ever to the diner?
Look, I think for the customer coming into a restaurant wants to see a beautiful design – I think it’s really important. But also the comfort too. I think you look back at restaurants 30 years ago and you might have a little restaurant and the interior was average, but the food was good and everyone went for the food – that was the only reason they went. Nowadays, people want everything – they want a good seat to sit on, they want good food, they want good wine, they want good service, but they also want good acoustics, a vista, they want it to be comfortable, they want everything. And that’s not a bad thing.  

You’ve worked with H&E for a while now – it’s a solid relationship.
It would be close to 15 years now I think and across multiple venues. And with these guys it’s not just about the prettiness of the design, it’s about the whole package. And being a company that specialises in hospitality makes it a lot easier – they understand it. I’m sure [co-director] Chris’s [Grinham] first design of a restaurant is very different to what it is now, I’m sure he’s learned a lot from chefs and from restaurateurs and vice versa. It’s a partnership and it’s a partnership that continues to this day.