Good Food Guide Awards LIVE updates: Crowd gives standing ovation to Sydney icon Peter Gilmore as he wins Legend Award; Peter Fiander takes out Young Chef of the Year as all the winners, hats revealed

Our team travelled 14,867 kilometres to review regional NSW restaurants for this year’s Good Food Guide. In all that mileage, there was one postcode we’ve picked as an area to watch: 2800.

For the uninitiated, that’s Orange, where Printhie Dining and Hey Rosey are still ticking along nicely, while we had a couple of previously hatted restaurants come storming back.

One was Fiorini’s, thanks to a generational refresh and a gun team on the floor and in the kitchen. The other was The Schoolhouse Restaurant, where the kitchen combines Central West produce with Middle Eastern flavours (do not miss the bittersweet tahini caramel tart).

The sign out front says it all: Soul food, good tunes and great vibes. Our Critics’ Pick of the Year is AK’s Diner.

Sometimes some of the most delicious things come from tiniest setups, such as this particular spot, inheriting a space outside the Ovolo hotel in Kingston. It’s on our critics’ hit lists, and it should be on yours too.

Every weekday, Anand Kumar “AK” Ramakrishna – the former chef-owner of XO in Canberra – gets up and writes a menu of specials to serve over rice. The bowls may be disposable, but what’s in them sure isn’t, drawing on the chef’s Tamil-Malaysian roots and the flavours of South-East Asia, whether it’s chicken cooked to his amma’s recipe, Chettinad pork neck varuval or black-rice pudding. Congratulations AK!

From the podium: “I didn’t prepare anything, I don’t know what’s happening!” says a shocked Ramakrishna.

It’s the award that recognises those in our community who are not in it for the awards, and this year’s winner is Lettuce Eat by Omnia Inclusive.

Attracting and retaining staff is one of the key struggles facing the hospitality industry. Five years ago, Omnia Inclusive came up with a solution that opens doors to a talented workforce which is too often overlooked.

Lettuce Eat is a 12-week training program that gives people living with a disability a pathway into the hospitality industry. Students learn valuable skills, from cooking and serving to purchasing, pricing and workplace safety, then put them into practice running a pop-up restaurant for the local community.

It’s been a few years since chef and Three Blue Ducks co-founder Darren Robertson attended a Good Food Guide awards ceremony, he said. Back then, he was accompanying legendary Sydney chef Tetsuya Wakuda.

Today he attended with fellow Duck Andy Allen on behalf of Three Blue Ducks Burradoo – finalist for the New Restaurant of the Year award, presented by Aurum Poultry Co.

Robertson said it was important to the hospitality group that no one person stood at the helm of their first fine-dining venture. When former Sydney Morning Herald chief restaurant critic Terry Durack gave the Ducks their first hat, he noted there was no head chef, and that stuck with Robertson.

“It can feel cliched to talk about collaboration, but it really does feel like a more progressive way of doing things,” he said.

The nomination had come as a surprise to Robertson, given the infancy of the restaurant. But the whole team was waiting at a bar around the corner to celebrate … just in case.

From backstage: Matt Fox, head chef at Porteño in Surry Hills, was waiting for the ceremony to start with a beer in hand, alongside fellow chefs David Lim and Bastardo’s Hernán Barboza.

Fox has noticed some changes when it comes to customers in the hospitality industry.

“People are more careful about when it comes to dining. They like to know where everything is,” he said. For him, the best part of being a chef was seeing people enjoy food.

“I love the kind of creativity side, the science behind cooking. I like watching people take a bite of food and smile and nod at their friends,” he said.

From the bar: Among the elite inside the awards this afternoon is Osteria di Russo & Russo Enmore owner Marc Russo, who opted for a full tuxedo.

We asked the 25-year veteran of Sydney’s dining scene to reflect on what has changed.

“I feel like in the last five years, people have appreciated a more warm, inviting space rather than just the newest, flashiest set-up,” he said.

Family-owned restaurants like his were not considered “cool” about five years ago, but that was changing.

The attendees (and your bloggers) are refreshed with Chell-Oh! limoncello spritzes, and returning to their seats after the break, so let’s meet the six chefs who are up for one of the biggest awards of the night.

For a moment there, things were looking grim for NSW dining. The closure of two three-hatted restaurants – Quay and Oncore by Clare Smyth – in February was followed by two-hatted Bentley calling it a day in the CBD, and much-loved Ursula’s pulling up stumps in Paddington.

It was looking unlikely we would have 10 cracking spots to nominate as the Good Food Guide’s New Restaurant of the Year.

But then, bang! A volley of new bars, cafes and restaurants opened in June, some led by veteran operators pouring decades of experience into passion projects, others led by young guns making sure NSW will be the best Australian state for eating and drinking for generations to come.

Cast your vote here:

Marrickville’s Ester Spirits is on martini duty today, but when it comes to the stiff drink, competition is stiff.

A normal martini ideally should be between minus 5 degrees and minus 10 degrees, but people have been getting competitive. The general rule of thumb is “as cold as humanly possible”, but some bartenders are now taking that to extremes.

Take Alfie’s, for example. The high-energy chophouse in Sydney’s CBD served us the coldest martini of the year – a positively freezing minus 18 degrees. Could have been colder, in my humble opinion.

(Today’s martinis are of the two-sip variety!)

From backstage: Carlisle Castle Hotel executive chef Cameron Votano and head chef Jimmy Walker held their Pub of the Year frame high before a short speech on the podium.

Walker was still clutching it when we caught up with the duo once they walked off the stage.

“It’s a bit surreal,” said Votano.

A stunned Walker echoed his colleague. “It’s just crazy. I can’t believe how quickly it’s happened … we’ve only just opened ... six weeks ago. The recognition’s insane in this amount of time, it’s just unbelievable.”

The 150-year-old Newtown pub, which had been family owned and run for the past 60 years, was recently sold to Universal Hotels, who also owns Redfern’s Bat & Ball Hotel. The revamped, pokie-free community hub opened in September.