Head chef and co-owner of Aria Restaurant, Matt Moran, is an Audi owner and an Ambassador for the brand. With an RS4 and A6 allroad quattro®, Matt is a true lover of Audi vehicles. After many years of cooking, Moran says he is lucky enough to own a restaurant which has not only one of the spectacular views in the world, but one which can also access the best food produce available prepared by a brigade of thirty dedicated and talented chefs, but there has been a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point.
Matt has been cooking for over 24 years and loving it as much now as he did as a 15 year old first year apprentice in his first kitchen at la Belle Helene restaurant on Sydney’s lower north shore. Under the guidance of the chef owner and mentor, Michael De Laurence, he became obsessed by food and the seemingly endless ways that it could be transformed into a progression of sublime flavours and textures.
Matt Moran opened his first restaurant in October 1991 with business and front of house partner, Peter Sullivan. The restaurant was the Paddington Inn Bistro in the Paddington Inn hotel on Oxford Street. In 1995 he opened Morans restaurant and café and was awarded two chefs hats and Best New Restaurant for 1995.
Four and half years later on December 17th 1999 Moran opened ARIA restaurant in East Circular Quay, never dreaming of the ongoing success of the restaurant and the exciting opportunities it would open up. He has worked with Singapore Airlines since 2003 alongside chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Alfred Portale and Georges Blanc, allowing him to search out and discover global food trends, high quality produce and novel cooking methods.
According to Moran, in Australia we are very fortunate to have access to produce that is the envy of chefs all over the world.
“Highly prized Wagyu beef is reared on our pristine pastures, Berkshire breeds of pig raised in Northern NSW such as Kurobuta are putting flavour and tenderness back into pork, which was sadly missing up until five years ago. Australia has some of the best fish and crustacean stocks in the world which is now bolstered by a thriving aquaculture industry which is concentrated in South Australia. Hiramasa kingfish and Suzuki jewfish is sourced from the Spencer Gulf region and Boston bay mussels are farmed at Port Lincoln. There are often several new and exciting products developed every year which inspire me and my kitchen brigade at ARIA to create dishes that diners will want just one more bite of,” Moran says.
The ARIA team is constantly thinking of new and fun ideas that can be introduced to clientele. With that mantra in mind, Moran recently purpose-built a unique room known as The Kitchen Table. This room is built in ARIA’s main kitchen featuring a plush leather banquette and retractable glass windows which allow guests to sample an eight course degustation menu and watch it being prepared as they eat it.
In many ways running a top class restaurant is similar to operating a top class car company. The success of Audi has been achieved through creativity, commitment and the ability to generate enthusiasm. The ultimate goal is to deliver above and far beyond the customer’s expectations. ARIA restaurant has that exact goal and Matthew Moran is at it’s forefront
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