Ryan Dunn

It’s nice to meet you, Ryan, and to come all the way up to the 25th floor and the elevator with you. And I was just saying, to my shame, I haven’t been up to Langlands before in the Hyatt Centric, and it’s so beautiful.

It might be too much of a hidden secret. That might be one of our sticking points that we’ve noticed before and after renovation, but I don’t know, we like to say we’re in the Bronx, right? Coming off [unclear] Lane, we’re at the wrong end, near Southern Cross, but there’s a lot of gentrification here. It is up and coming. It’s definitely still very much hidden.

How long has it been here?

Just going over four years. I think it was a soft opening after COVID. I was in Hong Kong at that time. I did the opening of the first Hyatt Centric in Greater China, which was in Hong Kong. Came from Thailand to Hong Kong. And then wanted to come home, had a kid, came back here. I think they’d been open for a year and a half, but very softly post COVID. Nothing the way they wanted to open. And there was a bit of a shift in the F&B team, and then I slid straight into it. Now it’s been three years.

There has been a bit of a zhuzh, a relaunch. Is that what we’re calling it? Or a reinvigoration?

I think we just wanted to, number one, we wanted to make the space more inviting. It felt separated by the walls. We wanted to open up the space. We are on the 25th floor. We’ve got very high, floor-to-ceiling windows, and there is a kind of New York lofty brick and glass element here, with a warm, kind of masculine vibe, I would say, that we wanted to tap into a little bit more. So, I think it was about opening the space. The owners were always a little bit apprehensive about the first look, I think. They wanted to showcase more of the view, and we wanted to make it more inviting, warm, welcoming, kind of feeling.

The view is quite unique here. I feel like it is just in that little pocket, or that angle of the city, where I was just saying to you, I can see through to my apartment building in Port Melbourne, but I can also see through to the Dandenongs and out to sea, and the Macedon Ranges. You can see the Eureka.

Not many people see the top of Southern Cross. I’s kind of like the swell line. It looks like swell lines rolling in. We’ve looked at a lot from this room, because this is often where we have an F&B kind of catch up, and we kind of catch up on a few things, but you do have an open path from where the trains come into the city, looking back toward the Dandenong Ranges. But it’s cool. I’ve never lived in Melbourne, so I wasn’t even familiar with this location when we came here. We just love to visit here. But we always like the vibe. We always liked the food. We thought it felt a bit more euro than maybe Sydney, even though that’s where I had lived before and studied before travelling. But, no, the location, like I said, it’s up and coming. If you want to say that in Melbourne, maybe we’re at the wrong end of Flinders, but I think the views are great. In the evening, you can see a bit of the Yarra, you can see a bit of the top of Southern Cross. You can see the buildings behind. So you’ve almost got a 270-degree outlook. And you can also peek in the people’s apartments, if that’s your favourite.

I love seeing other people’s lives. Rear Window, all over. I feel like things are moving down this way, though, because you’ve got The Waterside Hotel that reopened and that’s got a lot more life into that area. A different kind of life, perhaps, from what it originally had. What about the food? You’re cooking over fire. Is that what the menu is based around?

To be honest, on this floor, on the 25th floor, there’s a health and safety issue around electricity and open fire. So originally, I think when they designed this kitchen, it’s all electric. But electric, in general, is kind of soulless cooking. Fire is flavour: fat hitting smoke, grease, all that kind of stuff. So, in the beginning, we added one, hibachi, to get this kind of sear and char element, and then later, we added a second into a very small kitchen. It’s more about adding a flavour or a story that you can talk about other than ingredients. And often, with food it is the way you cook. If the way you cook is fully electric, that’s kind of sterile. Richard Abella, from the Philippines and myself, we love to cook over fire. And fire is flavour. So if you think about smoke, all these elements of fire, they add flavour. So, for us, it’s more just about, how do we create a bit more in a fully electric kitchen? We already do this kind of protein grill concept, but we were still kind of saying it’s contemporary or modern Australian, because we cook a lot of things that we like to eat. We don’t necessarily put it inside a box, but we wanted to define it more, because we wanted people to be able to say, Oh, what is it? And if you ask anyone not from Australia and you say it’s modern or contemporary Australian, the first question is, what’s that? A clearer concept gives us clarity inside and out, that we can think about the menu based on the hibachi, and the guests can look at it and relate and say, okay, so if it’s a grill, it’s going to be some delicious proteins, most likely, multiple sides, super-yummy style. They can picture it. We just think everything off the grill tastes better. We use a mixture of lump and binchotan. Binchotan has that high intensity heat and lump has that flavour. So when you have the right lump hardwood, Australian hardwoods are all good for lump charcoal. The bamboo charcoal creates intensity. When you mix them together, you get a very nice heat and kind of flavour combination. That’s the main reason.

I didn’t realise that binchotan charcoal was bamboo.

There are many different forms. Bamboo is just the one that we use. We looked around at different ones and tested them. You can get a bunch of them.

Is the bamboo from here? Apparently, it’s a weed in Japan. I just got back from Japan. I just wanted to crowbar that in, didn’t I? I was over there, and they were saying that they’re having a real problem with bamboo, so maybe they’re trying to ship it off to other people to use for cooking.

The funny thing is that the Japanese are having problems to make the Konro grill, which is the hibachi grill that we use, because it’s a traditional one, made from clay. But it’s highly skilled labour, and the labour force is now old, and there was actually a shortage a while ago, so we went into panic mode and bought four. Because they have a life cycle of about a year. They do eventually erode because they’re natural stone. But the porous natural stone creates the high heat. It’s like a natural insulation. It’s like a ceramic grill, in a sense. But that labour force is disappearing. And now you’re seeing all these cool, metal-insulated ones with only the middle being the clay. Which increases the longevity and is easier to reproduce. But I don’t know.

Is the metal one as good for flavour, or does it just lack that artisanal quality?

I don’t know. It might just be a romantic thing. It might be just as good. We just like the original one. We like the idea of it. I like the way it feels and looks. I can’t really comment on that. I’ve looked at them, they look good, but it’s the actual clay, and the way that it’s prepared, and the way that it’s treated, or in the kiln, and stuff that makes these special, It holds so much heat with minimal fuel. You don’t need to burn a big fire. Once your coal is settled, you can cook for a long time, a few hours off that, because it just holds the heat really nicely.

That’s really interesting. And you mentioned that you like to cook the food you like to eat. So what would we expect on the menu? What do you love to eat?

Me and Richard. It’s a lot of spicy stuff there. Not spicy, spicy, but definitely there’s an element of chilli there. My training was European, French, Bistro Moncur, Damien Pignolet, Woollahra Hotel, and then in Norway and Sweden, all European, and then in Russia, European, then I had an epiphany that I was bored of it. I had just joined Hyatt, coming from Norway to London, didn’t want to stay in London. Joined a hotel to travel, and ended up going to Russia. But then, after a period there, went to Asia, and that’s where I think I learned the difference between technique and flavour. Not that there’s no technique in Asian food, but Asian food generally, it’s just layers and layers of umami, with very minimal la-di-da on the plate, per se. It comes from a wok, it comes from something, and it’s more about taste than anything else, whereas the Western approach is still very tasty, but there’s a lot of technique, there’s a lot of plating, there’s a lot more structure to the kitchen. It definitely doesn’t come straight out of the wok onto the plate. The way we plate it is a little bit more intentional, right? It’s not fusion. We’re not mixing, wasabi with spaghetti or something. It’s a little bit more intentional, but the flavours are definitely bold. They’re strong, they really pop.

We’re not subtle. We’re not trying to convince someone about the last piece of butter from the last cow that was churned on the last mountain with a drop of spring water from the Alps, which we macerated in. None of this la-di-da. I think it’s very honest. It’s the kind of stuff that, hopefully, you want to eat a few times a week. You know what I mean? And you could afford to. I think it’s those bold flavours, a few things on the plate, usually never more than three. For the proteins, it’s pretty much protein in the sauce, and the sides are made to work with different things. The bites and the starters are definitely the most flavourful.

Then I would say it relaxes a bit for the main course because you can’t eat a big bowl of something that’s so intense, you also want to slow down a little bit, you know? When we say food we like to eat, for me and Richard, it’s that kicking, popping, sour, spicy, umami balance. It goes a bit in, there’s a bit of Thai influence there from where I’ve been. There’s a little bit of his heritage there, which is Philippines and other locations. Does that explain it?

If I was to come in here for a date tonight or with some friends, what would be the best way for me to get an idea of the menu? I’d start off with some smaller snacks. What are they? What are your favourite things on the menu at the moment?

Favourite things right now. I think, from the bites, it’s definitely the pincho. We call it a pincho, it’s just a fancy word for skewer, we just don’t like the word skewer. So we’re thinking: what can we call a skewer without calling it a skewer? We call it a pincho, the Spanish tapas word for something on a skewer, right? That’s with the trim from our 150-day grain-fed sirloin. So the trim of that, we put onto the skewer. We glaze it in tamarind and finish with nam jim jaew.

Nam jim jaew has that tamarind base, but then lime, shallots, roasted rice, chilli, coriander, and we kind of, after we’ve glazed it, we dip it in there, it’s still warm, and we spoon more over the top. So you’re getting sour, sweet, crunchy, many different textures with the beef. And it’s another way to use the trim. The other one is probably the scallop. The scallop comes with green mango. It’s served in its own shell, but we make a burnt butter, so like a beurre noisette. So we brown the butter, almost French style. We stop the cooking with lime juice, so then it’s sour and it emulsifies. We have a homemade sambal that we then emulsify into that. And we finish with a little bit of nuoc cham. The nuoc cham gives it that umami balance. It’s sour and buttery with the scallop. I love scallops, but it’s a textural thing. So then all the flavours come in from that sambal and green mango. I think those two are really standouts. But then we don’t go all the way Asian. There is also a very beautiful baguette, like a very crispy piece of baguette, where we do our own tomato relish, stracciatella, Ortiz, anchovy, and basil. And again, it’s this balance of umami from the tomato. So it’s dried, it’s diced, it’s mounted with olive oil, a little bit of citrus, lemon zest, sits on the bottom, stracciatella on top, one big, beautiful Ortiz anchovy, and then basil.

My mouth is watering.

In a sense, the principles of that one are the same as the other ones. Not that we don’t like sour flavours, but if we have a choice, we want you to eat it and be like, Oh, wow, there’s a lot in my mouth, but not really searching. We don’t want you to search too far to find what you’re looking for, right? So I think that, and I just love Ortiz anchovies. I love anchovies in general. I put them on everything.

And the baguette, is that made in house?

This one’s from Cobb Lane. We just put olive oil in the pan, crisp up one side a little bit, and then we build everything on that side. I think you’ll get to try this. Try this on Thursday.

I hope so. It sounds amazing.

It’s very moreish. With a glass of wine, you could easily eat several of them.

I read that and, obviously, all chefs would say this, that produce and suppliers are really important. It sounds like you’re using local produce, including local bakers and so on. Because you’re not from Melbourne, where do you go to start sourcing those good suppliers?

Honestly, I probably don’t meet as much people as I want to. We definitely don’t say we’re farm to table or anything. But there’s a few simple reasons why we want this. Number one, we don’t want high food miles. We don’t want our food to travel. Don’t want to be frozen somewhere, then shipped and all this stuff. When I got here, I connected with the other chefs. I have still chef friends, even from Sydney, 20 years ago, that are here, and then the Hyatt community, so Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt. These guys help me out. When I got here, they connected me with different ones, gamekeepers, flinders, clams, all these different suppliers, right? Then you can connect with the producers: Golden Plains, Western Plains Pork, Sher Wagyu. These producers, we’ve met them. We’ve had them here, we talk with them. So I guess it’s through the Hyatt community that I originally met them. I introduced it in the very beginning, and then Richard’s kind of taken over more of that from here because he’s day to day. He’s meeting suppliers far more often than myself, but I think it is about participating in the community and being part of where you are, but I think Australia does this in general. When we’re abroad, we try to talk about in Hong Kong, we try to talk about how local we are. In Hong Kong, everything comes from England and China. But it sounds good, right? Whereas I think Australians don’t need to do that, and when you look at the menu here, if it’s coming from somewhere else, it’s more of a question. I was like, why aren’t you getting it here? So I think we’re actually really easy to kind of do it in that sense. And then there’s so many small goods, bakers, things like that in Melbourne, you’re blessed with it. I think you could, you know, it’s at your fingertips. But it’s about supporting the community whenever we can. It’s about low food miles. It’s about participating in the community, like having stuff for people, when they read the menu that’s recognisable, from Gippsland, if it’s southern ranges, if it’s golden plains, our kingfish comes from South Australia. We dabble in Tasmania, I went there and just fell in love with it and was ready to move there. We did have Cape Grim on the menu for a while. We had oysters from Tasmania for a while. Now we get oysters from around Merimbula, because that’s where I’m from. And I know them. And now they’re fancy, and I just think it’s hilarious. But we would buy them in a bag at the side of the road with a goodwill thing, right? And, so it’s interesting, but I think some is what I know. Some is what I use abroad and then came back and we’re like, oh, wow, now they’re right here. Yes. But he was like, I’m not importing anything anymore. And then there is Richard and the ingredients, but it’s just about the community.

Your role is Culinary director?

Food and Beverage Director. It’s a bit of a hotel role. I am a chef. I’ve been a chef for a long time, but to grow within that, I think this role suited me. I started looking more at concepts and assisting with openings, so it evolved into that. My heart is very much there. I wouldn’t say my passion is on the floor, but I know what I want, so I can articulate the direction of restaurants and concepts from experience. My passion is still food. It’s easier for me to relate to that than maybe what I do now, because at the core, that’s what it is.

It’s a sustainable pathway, though, isn’t it?

You can’t cook forever. I’m aware of that, and conscious that I need to grow beyond it, which I am now. I made that decision after about 13 years with Hyatt. When I got closer to 40, I started thinking about it. I feel good, but now I’m 43, and I know you don’t want to do that forever. It’s a young man’s game, to a certain extent. You can still be creative and involved, but I think that’s where it is now.

Where did it all start for you? Because I did read that you did dream of being a professional skateboarder or a rock star. How did that morph into the kitchen?

It’s interesting. I think you’ve been reading that very old blog, which I should probably take down. It was by chance. I’m from a very small place near Narooma, near Batemans Bay on the south coast of New South Wales. I was 16 and thought I’d do work experience. A friend four years older than me, a friend of my brother’s, was at Bistro Moncur in Sydney. I knew nothing about it: cooking French food, la, la, la. I thought, let’s go there for work experience. I went for two weeks and they offered me a job out of the blue. I hadn’t wanted a job. I just wanted to go to Sydney. I thought it would be fun: go skateboarding, go to Bondi Beach, because I came from a small country town. When they offered me the job, I went back and talked to my mum. She said, ‘You’re too young. You’ve just turned 16. Do you know anything about Sydney? Where are you going to live?’ Looking back, it must have been traumatic for her. I was probably so rude and adamant about going that she had no choice. I ended up moving to Sydney, living with random people at first, then connecting with friends who had also moved up for apprenticeships. We lived together in Bondi, where I wanted to be for the skateboarding and surfing. I worked nearly three years at Bistro Moncur, doing most of my apprenticeship there. Everyone did an apprenticeship back then. In the last year, before I started travelling, I worked at a local cafe with a good friend in Bronte. I was a fourth-year apprentice, almost like a sous chef. It was a fun role compared with the very serious place I’d been.

Then I fell in love with a Norwegian backpacker, as you do in Bondi, and travelled back and forth between Scandinavia and Sydney for three or four years. Eventually I moved to Trondheim in Norway, but it didn’t work out. I went to London, joined Hyatt, and the rest is history. It was completely by chance: work experience, a job offer, and then realising, ‘Hey, I can actually do this.’ They told me I was good at it. It was a realisation that this might be something to look at, even though everyone said not to do it. Back then it was different. You had to learn recipes; you couldn’t Google them. It was a bit rougher. People said, ‘Stay away. They’re all alcoholics. Terrible hours, terrible money.’ But I liked that brigade, pirate energy. I had a lot of energy back then. That’s how I got into it.

Know the difference between good and bad from the beginning, and where you want to go. It’ll help you find the path. Be sure you want to be a chef. It’s all-consuming, and you’ve got to love it. Crazy enough, I still do. What I love most is not the administration and management, but the creative moments when you try something new and remember what it was about. If you love it, those moments come back and lift you up. Keep the joy. What’s that Marie Kondo thing? If it doesn’t bring you joy, get rid of it. That’s what you’ve got to remember. If it’s not bringing you joy, get rid of it.

Ryann Dunn, Langlands Hyatt Centric Melbourne

It seems that once you got into hotels, you stayed with them. Is there a level of protection in a hotel, with a bigger organisation and money behind it?

There are so many stories about my first experience in a hotel that we can’t talk about on this podcast. We’d have to turn it off and do the unfiltered version. Before that, I’d worked in freestanding, creative, chef-driven places in Trondheim and on [island unclear]. Then I spent a few months at Park Hyatt Moscow before going to the opening of Hyatt Regency in Yekaterinburg, central Russia: the first five-star hotel in the city. I was chef de cuisine of the restaurant, Cucina. I made so many mistakes because I had no idea how to interact with people on that scale. The person in my position now would come and tell me something, and I’d tell her to F off. I’d think, ‘Who are you? Get out of here.’ Then I’d be called into the office the next day: ‘What did you say to the director?’ I was so green. I went head first into it. But I had great, patient mentors who believed in me as a cook and could see there was more in me. I try to do that too. They believed in someone a bit rough, professionally speaking.

I was very much a chef’s chef: kitchen, food. I didn’t yet see the bigger team, other departments, and the interaction that makes a hotel run. I learnt that quickly because I had to. After that I went to Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok, with its huge events capacity: three ballrooms, sometimes a thousand people at events over a weekend. I became executive sous chef of events. That’s exciting because every day is different. You meet clients and do something new all the time. Hotels show a chef so many other pathways. There’s something beautiful about doing the same thing every night, and something beautiful and a little scary about not knowing what’s coming next week. The properties there are different from here. In Australia, you might go to a hotel for a wedding or work. In Bangkok, people go all the time because some of the best restaurants are there. That’s changing here now.

Here it’s the other way around, although hotel restaurants are gaining more street cred, as you said. Hotels seem to open their spaces to big chefs rather than run the restaurants themselves. The energy in hotels in the UAE and Asia Pacific is very different: big budgets, teams, events and names. It was exciting. I kept going because it opened things up for me. I got to go to Asia, which I had always wanted, and I was the novice again. I didn’t know how to manage woks or roast duck. I was a very European guy, so it was a steep learning curve, but that’s what I wanted. I took notes and jumped in wherever I could, even when it wasn’t my role. That’s what kept me there. I like Hyatt as a brand. This is not sponsored by Hyatt, but from what I know and from talking with people in other brands, it’s one of the best hotel groups to work for worldwide. They nurtured me and gave me opportunities to grow. They gave me opportunities to do more than I had to at any one time. That’s how I went down that path.

Do you live in Melbourne now? Sometimes you hear about people that come and just oversee the restaurant. But you’re here. It’s good.

I live in Prahran.

Nice. What are you most looking forward to over the next few months, then, for Langlands?

For Langlands, I do think this is a relaunch of something that had already begun. We have a new venue manager coming on board and a few other new team members. I like to think we now have the right people to do what we always wanted: establish ourselves more clearly as a restaurant. We’ll always exist in the hotel ecosystem, but in Australia we need to move like a restaurant and have people see us that way. Since the renovation, for various reasons, we haven’t been able to. We’re changing how we operate. We’re not doing breakfast, lunch and dinner every day like a hotel restaurant. A lot of good restaurants close Sunday and Monday. It gives the team set days off and lets them focus on what they want to create. We’re not opening for public lunch Monday to Friday, though people can book the space for an event. That lets us focus on dinner. We’ll still open on weekends, and we can have the people we want here for a five-day period without overextending ourselves. We’ll be more focused on dinner service than all-day dining. It’s a chance to put ourselves where we wanted to be from the beginning, and to control how we cook, serve and take care of guests.

I usually finish with this question. You have had a very cinematic career and life. There could be a movie.

That would be fun.

Who would play you?

I don’t know. Adam Sandler?

What would your advice be, given your experience, to a young person starting out as a chef?

It’s an interesting one. I’ve been lucky to have great mentors. Where you begin matters because it sets the foundation. Start in the best place you can. That doesn’t necessarily mean Michelin stars. Values matter, and the standards you learn when you’re young stay with you. They’re harder to change five or ten years later. I’d also say balance matters. I think Australia has created more balance than I had when I was young. There have been blow-ups about underpaying people, but make sure the right structure exists. Stay focused on the cooking itself and don’t get too caught up in the drama around kitchens and hospitality. When I was young, I cooked things I wouldn’t have wanted to eat because I thought they were cool: complicated, overworked, beautiful things that took a long time to make and were eaten in a moment. Be honest with your cooking. Ask whether it’s good or bad.

Have an opinion, because it matters. A chef, sommelier or restaurateur isn’t necessarily the best at everything, but they know what they want. Being confident about whether something tastes good or bad is nearly 80 per cent of it. You also need the confidence to know when to stop. The micro-herb thing has disappeared, thank God. It’s about honesty and self-reflection: is it good when I eat it? Am I giving this to people because it’s technical and impressive, or would I actually buy it?

Be sure you want to do it. I wouldn’t recommend it to my daughter. It takes so much of your time, and everyone has an opinion about what you do. Without a thick skin, that can affect you. Food is personal, but that’s also why you can’t take every response personally. You might not like onion; I like spicy food; you like French food. There are positives and negatives to that, but you need a thick skin.

Know the difference between good and bad from the beginning, and where you want to go. It’ll help you find the path. Be sure you want to be a chef. It’s all-consuming, and you’ve got to love it. Crazy enough, I still do. What I love most is not the administration and management, but the creative moments when you try something new and remember what it was about. If you love it, those moments come back and lift you up. Keep the joy. What’s that Marie Kondo thing? If it doesn’t bring you joy, get rid of it. That’s what you’ve got to remember. If it’s not bringing you joy, get rid of it.

Langlands, Hyatt Centric, 25 Downiw