About the Chef Hat Awards

The Australian Good Food & Travel Guide (agfg.com.au) was launched in the late 1970s, inspired by the Michelin and Gault Millau guides of Europe, and the first Chef Hats were presented in 1982. Today, the AGFG has grown to become a highly trusted national guide reviewing restaurants across Australia Chef Hats are awarded for the food alone. Typically, the awards are based on judges who dine anonymously and pay full fare, as well as on readers’ votes, although the judging carries more weight. The judges pay particular attention to ingredients, taste, presentation, technique, value and consistency. Inspectors score out of 20, based on the traditional French rating system. (It is believed a score of 20 has never been awarded and a score of 19 is rare).

The Australian Good Food Guide awarded hats to 375 restaurants across the nation this year.

The Terrey Hills based Urban Tadka Indian restaurant has just won its first Chef Hat awarded by the Australian Good Food Guide 2019.

“I’ve been absolutely in awe, ever since I first heard,” Inder Dua, one of the restaurant’s three owners, tells Indian Link

“It was Monday morning, my day off, and I wondered who would be calling at 8.30 am. It was AGFG informing us.”

The sheer responsibility of it all, though, did not take long to set in.

“It was a feeling of elation – that all our hard work had paid off. After the moments of self-congratulation, the feeling of responsibility came on; that we have to maintain this position, continue to stay where we have reached, and indeed, strive to get further.”

Had they been working towards this goal?

“Yes absolutely,” Inder responds immediately. “Since the day we began! It’s a hugely prestigious acknowledgement.”

The restaurant was launched in 2011 by Dimpy Singh and Mandeep Rana, both North Shore restaurateurs with years of local experience, with Inder Dua joining a

The Tadka Boys arrived, quite literally, with a bang, becoming a major player in the restaurant scene from Day One. Today, patrons come from as far afield as Penrith; Indian community events are held here with increasing regularity, and outdoor catering orders have gone through the roof.

As well, the mainstream are thronging in. Visit on any random week night and you’ll see the place filled to near-capacity with school mum groups, local diners, family groups.

“To have attained the Chef Hat, is I think, phenomenal for a restaurant that is only eight years old,” Inder muses. “Remember we were competing with restaurants all across Australia, and from all different cuisines.”

Urban Tadka is among a small subset of Indian restaurants in Sydney that is offering the mainstream a fresh new look at a centuries-old cuisine, repackaging traditional fare with a modern outlook. Here, you have street food of the little towns, with all the sophistication of the large metropolises.

Indian Link’s own menu items of choice bhare chaman ke tukde, Murgh tikka, Fish kolumbu, Kesari lamb, and the variety of naans on offer.

You will be bowled over by presentation, without doubt, but top marks here for technique as well. It is clear that much attention goes into both.

But there are other considerations as well, such as social media.

“I think social media is such an important element of the restaurant business these days,” Inder reveals. ‘It is true that you eat first with your eye, hence Instagram! But it is also a way of keeping in touch with our patrons. We try and respond to all our comments – even the critical ones, as we try and explain issues to the odd unsatisfied customer.”

And how do they explain to their mainstream patrons what “tadka” means?

“We get asked this constantly,” Inder laughs. “We tell them it’s the final finishing touch in Indian cuisine. The tadka is where all the flavour sits, and which adds that bit of oomph to a dish.”

Here’s hoping there will be extra sizzles to their tadka, post the Chef Hat honour.