The people behind Australia’s restaurants.

Table and Time celebrates restaurateurs, chefs and food in Australia, going behind the scenes in their kitchens to show the work guests rarely see.

Cherry tomatoes tipped from a bowl into a deep red pot of sauce on the stove.

A frame from the first Table and Time film.

At the heart of every story

Restaurateurs

The people who build a restaurant and keep its doors open.

Chefs

The cooks who set the standard and run the kitchen, shift after shift.

Food

What reaches the table, and everything that happens before it gets there.

About the project

Most of us only know a restaurant from one side of the pass. We see the room, the plate and the people who bring it to us. The rest stays out of sight: the early deliveries, the stock that’s been going since morning, the dish that took a season to get right.

Table and Time is about the rest. It goes behind the scenes in Australian kitchens to meet the people who make restaurants happen, from the owners who carry the risk to the chefs who set the standard and the crews who keep it up, night after night.

The name says what the project is looking for. The table is what guests see. Time is what it takes to get there: years spent learning a craft, long shifts on your feet, and a recipe made again and again until it’s right.

This isn’t restaurant reviewing, and nobody gets a score. Table and Time is a record of the work, told by the people doing it, and made out of respect for a trade that feeds the country and rarely stops to tell its own story.

A chef's hand ladling dark sauce over plated dishes in a stainless steel kitchen.

A hand carrying two white plates of grilled meat and greens.

A chef's hands finishing small dishes at a dark kitchen bench.

Photos by Luis Becerra Fotógrafo, Luca Luperto and noah barblan on Pexels.

Get in touch

Run a restaurant or work in a kitchen? Have a question about Table and Time? Call or email.