The Idea that forms a Signature Dish

The beloved hero among Cheong’s repertoire of dishes is Four Dances of the Sea, voted by global food authors as one of the world’s best 100 dishes of the modern era.

It comprises several less-celebrated ocean delicacies elevated to triumphant heights: soused snook, octopus with aioli, raw cuttlefish with black ink noodles, and spiced prawn sushi.

The dish signalled Cheong’s intentions to produce more deeply considered, complex dishes when he started The Grange restaurant in 1995. After eight years spent out of the limelight (spent teaching apprentice chefs at TAFE Regency Hotel School) he felt his return to a high-profile restaurant needed to be explained on the plate. ‘It was an idea I had about telling the public who I am, and that I had reinvented myself.’