Food
New Day Rising with Mark Best – Infinity by Mark Best
Mark Best talks reinvention, and his latest mission: to revitalise a long-standing Sydney icon.
Given his professional – and physical – stature, there’s something eminently fitting about where Mark Best should presently find himself, towering over the Sydney skyline. From this vantage point, on the 81st floor of Sydney Tower at his latest culinary expression, Infinity by Mark Best, it somewhat feels like you’re in the presence of a man reborn.
This building demanded something different,” Best says when asked to reflect on the arc he has traced from his former three-hatted home, Marque, which closed to the dismay of many a Sydney diner in 2016, to this revolving eye in the sky. “It was a different time. I was a different man, in terms of my ego. I was trying to build a brand, trying to build fame and celebrity.”
Best reflects on being angry, in a hurry, as a younger man (but “older, for the industry”) riding on the bones of his ambition and his talent, his focus culminating in Marque and global recognition less than 10 years after finishing his apprenticeship at a Potts Point bistro. “Decades later, I’m different. I’m less prone to making errors. My risks are more calculated.”
And there’s no doubt that, on paper, Infinity must have contained at least a little risk when the prospect was first floated to him by Tony Panetta (Executive Chef of Trippas White Group, the building’s owner) at a chance meeting. Best was consulting at the time, and “I was complaining about the fact that, you know, I could see all the issues but I had none of the power to change them: I was sick of the hustle. And he said, ‘I might have something for you.’”
Infinity by Mark Best and its view of Sydney Harbour and surrounds, where every seat is the best seat in the house.
That something, as it turned out, was Sydney Tower. “Tony said, ‘don’t laugh, but I’ve got this building.’ I did laugh,” says Best, who concedes to never having visited Sydney Tower in all his 35 or so years living in the city. “I said, ‘I don’t really see myself there.’ Once the lift opened, he saw the opportunity. “I said ‘Ok, alright, I get it.’” And so, after almost a decade consulting, Best would be donning his apron again.
Best’s biggest job, as he sees it, is to “change Sydney’s relationship with this building,” referring to the colloquially-named Centrepoint Tower, once so emblematic of Sydney, swallowed now by the city’s flotilla of taller buildings and fickle tastes.
“These types of buildings when they were built were almost a public utility – they actually are, by definition, a public utility. They were seen as a glimpse into the future, what the future might look like, and now we’re here and we’re having to reinvent these buildings.”
Originally unveiled in 1968, Sydney Tower’s revolving deck has been home to numerous restaurants over its lifespan, from The Summit to O Bar and Dining, 360 Bar and Dining, and even an earlier incarnation of Infinity under Mike Dierlinger. Not having ever been designed to host a full-sized commercial kitchen necessarily limited the venue’s possibilities. “Most people’s culinary experience of the building has been as a buffet. So it’s never really been considered a serious destination.”
According to Best, Kevin Zajax, CEO of Trippas White Group, had just two pieces of advice. “Well, demands, perhaps,” smiles Best: be bold, and make a profit. The challenge led Best on something of an inner reckoning with the city he’s called home since before kitchens became his calling.
“I came here at 21, you know, and worked my way through it, between all its little villages. And from here, I found myself looking down on them, and I got this almost emotional information overload as the city sort of spoke... that’s when I said, this has to be a celebration of Australia, first and foremost.”
For Best, Infinity was not just an opportunity to renew the city's relationship with one of its most famous buildings, but also a chance to revisit the fundamentals of his cooking.
At the urging of Mark Best and with the aid of sommelier Polly Mackarel, the drinks list at Infinity by Mark Best is 100 per cent Australian – wines, beers, and spirits alike.
HEY TRUE BLUE
Best gestures out the gently raked floor-to-ceiling windows, describing how, from the Tower, not only can he see the places he used to work, but also the places that many of the ingredients for Infinity are being sourced from. It is, despite its elevated position in the figurative heavens, a locus of local produce and passion.
Together with Head Chef Jen Kwok Lee, recent recipient of the Good Food Guide’s Young Chef of the Year, the menu weaves together a seasonal anthem of ingredients that deepen and develop the motifs of Best’s cooking, with classic hand-cut tallow-fried chips and Snowy River trout being joined by dishes like lion’s mane dosa and stir-fried marron with salted duck egg.
The food is finessed without being fussy, a panoply of dishes that speak to both Best’s technical skill and his almost preternatural understanding of flavour and its manifold combinations – witnessing his prawn dumplings arrive at the table is like being presented the seed pods of some plant from the garden of unearthly delights.
It’s been a process of “really getting back into learning what food and wine was, and where we’re going as a country as well, in terms of what we’re putting on our table,” says Best. “People have a fairly narrow notion of what a country represents.” International visitors, he observes, in many cases still “literally think there are kangaroos running down the streets.”
Decades later, I’m different. I’m less prone to making errors. My risks are more calculated.
As for Australian cuisine, a definition remains as elusive – and perhaps as pointless – as ever. “What Australian cuisine is, you know, I’m always asked. Who knows?” says Best. “This is my version. This is what we’re doing. This is my answer to that question.”
The response has a directness that’s always been part of Best’s character. “I cooked what I wanted to cook,” he told food writer and critic Myffy Rigby in a 2019 interview, in defence of Marque’s sometimes uneven reputation.
“Mark Best is an artist,” asserts Rigby, who has closely observed Best’s career for years. “He isn’t out to please people, he’s out to express himself. And what could be more expressive than serving sea urchin crumpets with clotted cream 81 floors above the city?”
In conversation with Best, however, one senses that self expression being directed towards a higher purpose; to craft a menu – an experience – that truly presents the sheer breadth of product we have here, one element at a time. “You know, Australia’s a vast place, and you give them a small snapshot of that on the plate when they come in.”
REGIONAL REVOLUTIONS
The philosophy extends to the impressive Australian-only wine list, overseen by accomplished sommelier Polly Mackarel. Its all-local composition, however, was something Best had to insist upon.
“My first big argument was that it was going to be an all-Australian wine list, and all-Australian bar,” he says.
It took the group some convincing, but Best persevered. “People are coming here from all over the world to celebrate being in Sydney... having seen the sort of nascence of the contemporary Australian wine industry over some 40 years, seeing the brands evolve, the sheer scale and nuance of it, I said, ‘no one’s really explored that yet.’”
Eventually, Best’s argument won the day. “I was astounded that it was this leap of faith that they were taking. I had to have that argument – pretty stern arguments – with a lot of people several times to get it across the line.” Best insists it’s not jingoistic. It’s an acknowledgement of how local ingredients complement one another, a nod to the increased maturity of the Australian palate and our evolution as a food and wine-producing nation.
“It’s just celebrating our sophistication as a country and where we are now. It’s following on from my growth as a chef: I want to treat things simpler than before, and just really showcase the true beauty and nature of the Australian food and wine industry.”