Renowned for his bold and boundary-breaking cuisine at Melbourne venues ezard (Two Hats) and Gingerboy, chef Teage Ezard says it’s a dream come true to introduce Sydney to his new contemporary Australian grill, BLACK by ezard.

The restaurant seats 114 people and boasts two stunning and intimate private dining rooms seating 10 and 16 people. The restaurant also features a stylish wine bar with an international cellar boasting roughly 750 bins and the best representation of American wines in Australia.

Designer Paul Kelly wanted to create something that was as authentic and hand made as the meals that were being prepared.

“Our initial design was a ‘classic steakhouse with a twist’, in which customers expectations were exceeded through the approachable yet dynamic combination of materials and design styles,” said Paul.”We wanted to create a series of memorable experiences. The atmosphere created is one of fun and approachable luxury, we want people to frequent Black often, its not a one off experience it a part of the culinary calendar.”

The inspiration for the space was combination of Vegas / LA meeting a contemporary European dynamic as the chef Teage Ezard is from Melbourne. The space needed to ‘pop’ and still needed to land in Sydney giving the casino a different face to the previous perception.

The whole design is a series of experiences, upon entering the bar area has a huge circular refrigerated wine store holding close to 5000 bottles of wine, from roughly 770 labels. The large log table next to the fire place is a two tonne piece of solid ‘Black Butt’ timber sourced from a farm in central NSW which was sculpted to form a table.

The private dining room has a ten metre wide hand painted mural (by Diemme Creative) of a farm district in Oberon NSW, one that was used as inspiration for the interior. The pendant lights over the private dining and the semi private dining were designed by PKD and handmade over a six month period.

The kitchen has some serious horsepower and has its own meat dry aging rooms and butcher area onsite,  the whole kitchen can be seen via windows to the retail corridor allowing future chefs to take lessons from the professionals.

The semi private dining room is surrounded by stainless steel curtaining which is referenced by a butchers steel glove, and this surrounds the circular table that at night shimmers as a surround.

“All the materials selected are from a palette understandable and approachable from our customer base,” said Paul. “The marble stone cladding, the use of warm timber tones, chopping block style tables and lighting that is warm yet appropriate. The use of items like the hand made bulls head sculptures and the hand blown glass pendants add to the individual nature of the restaurant through traditional techniques.

“It’s a beautiful space that we are very proud of, it has been twelve months solid work and this is the most detailed space we have provided any customer to date. The result is a world class signature restaurant space located in what will be a huge competition to Crown Melbourne -The Star.”