Vegetables are emerging from the sides to star in their own right.

Lennox Hastie is celebrated as one of the world’s greatest meat chefs but talk to him about the humble onion and he becomes truly animated. “We have an incredible onion dish on at the moment,” says the maestro of Firedoor in Sydney’s Surry Hills. “We cook the onions whole over fire so they soften in the middle. Then we break them open, char them on the inside, cook them until they’re soft and unctuous and serve them in the skin with four-year-old goat’s cheese and a blackened onion purée. It’s absolutely delicious.”

Hastie’s menu has traditionally featured world-class beef, pork, lamb and fish licked by flame – everything is cooked over charcoal and wood at Firedoor – but he has dedicated a place in his five course chef’s menu to a seasonal vegetable plate.

“Australia is a very protein-rich country with a lot of meat and fish so I think people have quite low expectations when it comes to vegetable dishes,” he says. “When I was young, vegetables were boiled or just had moisture added to them. But vegetables are about 80 per cent water anyway so what we try to do is put a crunchy texture on the outside and leave them juicy in the middle. People are often surprised at how delicious they are.”

Demand is driving chefs to focus more on vegetable dishes and vegetarian menus, says chef Brent Savage, who runs a string of restaurants across Sydney. At Bentley Restaurant & Bar, his fine diner in the CBD, about 20 per cent of customers routinely opt for the vegetarian or vegan dégustation. And six years after Savage transformed Yellow, his bistro in inner-city Potts Point, into
a vegetarian eatery, the venue has become exclusively vegan.

“We’re working with all the same techniques we would usually use on proteins but applying them to vegetables,” he says of Yellow’s fully plant-based pivot. He points to dishes such as hemp-seed ricotta with snow peas and golden kelp or smoked yellow beetroot with a saffron glaze, peach mustard and fermented red cabbage.

Savage says he enjoys cooking plant-focused food across all his venues. “We’re doing a lot of fermenting, pickling, smoking and making curd. At Bentley, I have made two of our vegetable dishes part of the regular dégustation menu because they are such standouts.” The dishes, he adds, are not just there to sate demand; they’re there because they’re delicious. Three Blue Ducks co-owner Darren Robertson agrees. “Chefs are starting to make meat the accompaniment to the vegetables, rather than vegetables the accompaniment to the meat. There really has been a change in attitude. Vegetables are increasingly being seen as an untapped resource. A lot of chefs are doing really interesting things with them.”

Robertson, who has five restaurants in three states, considers vegetable dishes a new frontier for culinary creativity. “We do a lot of whole pumpkins, cabbages, cauliflowers,” he says. “We put them through the pizza oven or the coal pit. You can have a whole cabbage with savoury butter, citrus, seaweed dashi. It’s cool.”

Try it…

Sydney

Bentley Restaurant & Bar

Brent Savage’s Yellow is lauded for its brilliant $105 vegan dégustation but the chef’s CBD diner, Bentley Restaurant & Bar, also offers a beguiling journey through the plant world. On weekdays, Bentley has a $150 menu of snacks plus three courses, including vegetable selections such as Jerusalem artichoke with buttermilk, charred onion and macadamia or heirloom pumpkin with white peas, sunrise lime and lemon myrtle. But you can also order a more comprehensive seven-course vegan dégustation that features Savage’s current favourite: celtuce with pickles, green tomato broth and kiwi fruit. “The kiwi sounds unusual,” he says, “but it works.”

Sydney

Firedoor

Great vegetarian dishes at a restaurant famous for meat? That’s what you can expect at this broody hot spot in Sydney’s Surry Hills. Lennox Hastie’s tender approach towards everything from alliums to marrows results in vegetable dishes of exquisite flavour and texture. The five-course $155 chef’s menu always has one vegetable star course or diners can opt for a vegetarian chef’s menu that offers sensational eating, including mushrooms with green garlic and smoked and cured egg yolk, the meaty ’shrooms cooked over fire until charred yet succulent.

Brisbane, Melbourne, Byron Bay, Sydney and Killimicat

Three Blue Ducks

With a breezy, salad-focused sensibility, these trend-forward diners are a natural fit for vegetable fare. At breakfast, feast on dishes such as avocado and herb tahini with greens, smoked corn, pickled chilli, herbs, dukkah and preserved lemon or roasted portobello mushrooms with pesto pepita cream, poached eggs, leaves and pickles. Dinner options might include a roast beetroot and witlof salad or slow-roasted spiced pumpkin with cos lettuce, apple cider lentils, pepitas, herbs and pickled currants.

Adelaide

Restaurant Botanic

This charming venue in Adelaide’s Botanic Garden brings a little of the outside in. Chef Justin James has a, well, botanical approach to his list across courses that are light on meat and heavy on vegetables (and seafood). Go for his $220 tasting menu that features seasonal dishes such as paperbark parsnip pie, shiitake fudge or sour beets with marigold and wild strawberry.

Melbourne

Smith & Daughters

Recently relocated from Fitzroy to an expansive new space in Collingwood, Shannon Martinez’s temple of veganism is a vibrant song of praise to all fruits of the earth. Martinez specialises in classic dishes served minus the meat. So expect offerings like chicken parmigiana without the chicken. On paper, it sounds improbable but in reality, the dishes deliver on flavour and technique.

Melbourne and Sydney

Nomad

Given its emphasis on big, earthy flavours – garlic, preserved lemon, tahini, tabouli, hommus – Middle Eastern cuisine naturally brings out the best in veg. At executive chef Jacqui Challinor’s two venues, in Sydney’s Surry Hills and Melbourne’s CBD, you’ll find a deliciously vegetable-forward menu. Go for wood-roasted eggplant with pine nut and olive seed tarator and flatbread or smoked beetroot with spiced grains, labneh and potato crisps. Challinor’s cooking amps up the flavour while remaining balanced and soulful.

Sydney

Ester

Mat Lindsay was one of the first Australian chefs to revel in “ugly” vegetables, turning big, bulky roots and shoots into plates of beauty and sophistication. At his cult eatery in the inner-city suburb of Chippendale, Lindsay’s whole roasted cauliflower with almond sauce has long been celebrated for putting the sexy into cruciferous. It’s only an occasional star on the menu these days but current plant gems include woodfired hasselback potatoes with whey sauce and pickled cucumber with macadamia and braised kombu.