The Australian restaurant scene is currently a ballet of Parisian bistro staples: you can’t swing a steak frites without hitting a crêpe Suzette. Porcine, in Sydney’s Paddington, is very much a French restaurant but it’s one that presents French cuisine with a bit more elan, a bit more savoir faire than the bistro basics. And that is all thanks to the imagination, the creativity and the attention to detail of its chef-owner, Nicholas “Nik” Hill.
Hill shaped his craft in the kitchen of The Ledbury in London. In Australia, he slammed the pans at Sepia and The Old Fitzroy. He opened Porcine in 2021, as the truest expression of the way he likes to cook and eat. “We lean into the golden eras of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s when the nouvelle cuisine movement really excelled,” says Hill, adding that Porcine’s food draws inspiration not just from the many distinctive regions of France, but also from French enclaves globally, such as Montreal.
The focus is, as the name suggests, pork, and no collection of revered Sydney dishes would be complete without including Hill’s signature rich pork creton and lentils, a Québécois dish that resembles a heart-stopping pâté. Still, many of Porcine’s best moments happen beyond the hog, in dishes like Provençal-style lamb saddle and wild mushroom vol-au-vents. The pre-order canard à la presse, too, is a dish of deep sophistication and elegance, presenting tableside with every trimming.
It’s not only Sydneysiders who recognise Hill’s kitchen excellence. This award, it should be noted, is peer-voted by chefs around Australia. What’s more, this year, Hill won the prestigious Golden Knife at the Bocuse d’Or Australia. His winning dishes were intricate, flamboyant and dripping with technique: a warm galantine of duck with pork farce, Madeira, black truffles and foie gras and an extravagant lamb platter. They were, as Hill noted, “very classic flavours with a modern approach to detail.” It’s a description that also fits the food coming out of the kitchen at Porcine. This is Hill’s superpower.
In today’s tough culinary landscape, it’s likely that the most cost-effective and business-smart thing the chef could do would be to churn out French bistro classics on repeat. But Hill is not someone who could ever let his imagination and creativity slip into hibernation. Every dish, every detail at Porcine pushes that little bit beyond the ordinary. And Sydney’s dining scene is a better place because of it.
See the full list of winners in this year’s Gourmet Traveller Annual Restaurant Awards, head over here.
Past winners of Gourmet Traveller’s Chef of the Year Award
- 2024: Pasi Petänen, NSW
- 2023: Hugh Allen, VIC
- 2022: Thi Le, VIC
- 2021: Daniel Puskas, NSW
- 2020: Due to COVID-19, a Hospitality Honours List was introduced in lieu of our Restaurant Awards
- 2019: Paul Carmichael, NSW
- 2018: Josh Niland, NSW
- 2017: Mat Lindsay, NSW
- 2016: Ben Shewry, VIC
- 2015: Dan Hunter, VIC
- 2014: Martin Benn, NSW
- 2013: Andrew McConnell, VIC
- 2012: Ben Shewry, VIC
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