Porcine is stronger than ever. Paddington’s beloved French joint – owned by Nik Hill and Matt Fitzgerald – was recognised internationally with La Liste’s Discovery Gem Award for 2026. Then the team backed it up by doing the upstairs-downstairs thing with L’Avant Cave opening in January.
“There’s great energy in this little building,” chef-co-founder Hill shares. “To think of how we started to where we are is fucking crazy – in a really good way. We’ve been in our own little lane since we started, we just started doing the food we’re doing, running the sort of restaurant we run – not changing for trends or anything. Porcine’s Porcine.”
On paper it’s French bistro, but it’s not cookie-cutter. “We’re not steak frites, snails, chicken parfait,” Hill says. “All those are beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but we have always been like: take from the old, give it the new. You have to make everything your own, especially when you’re cooking the classics.”
There will always be a pork main, the restaurant’s namesake, and there will always be pigeon. Sweetbreads, guinea fowl, rabbit. “We have things that people aren’t normally serving, and we have the confidence to serve it. And people have the confidence to come up and eat it.”
When he’s not captaining the kitchen or plating up the favourite pâté en croute, Hill’s stopping at these spots around Sydney.
Quick takeaway dinner: I’m a sucker for Thai food, I eat so much of it. There’s a new little place near me called Tangmo Thai. It’s really cute, just delicious – great larb, coconut rice, som tum salad.
Lunch on the go: I banh mi hard. A successful day off is a banh mi and a dip in the pool. I go to Vietnam Delights in Balmain. All the usual suspects – lemongrass chicken, braised beef, crispy pork. It’s just solid, solid, solid.
Snack: I went to City Oltra the other night, and man they do that fish finger – a slice of the deep pan square tomato, with one white, one dark anchovy on it and a bit of parmesan. That rich red sauce. The dough they make gets lighter every time I eat it. They also do that deep-fried lasagne, which is super naughty.
Ideal date: There’s a tiny little French restaurant in Balmain called La Saveur. [The owners are Japanese], never been to France, didn’t work in France – but they cook great French food and it’s BYO. Or, I did have a really cute date night at South End the other week for my birthday. Gorgeous – dark, moody and super cute.
Snack and a drink: Paski, a fucking great spot.
Special occasion: The best place you can eat to feel special is Bennelong. I don’t think there’s many places in the world you can sit in a building like that, have a glass of champagne and eat that kind of food. It’s one of the most iconic places in Sydney. Whenever someone comes to town, I’m like, “You have to eat there, it’s going to blow your tiny mind.”
Noodles: 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle, for sure. There are a few locations. I get the hand-pulled noodles with braised beef and pickled cabbage.
Yum cha: To be honest, since Marigold went down, life hasn’t been the same. That was my introduction to yum cha as a little white kid from the suburbs. Now, The Eight in Haymarket. Get the mango pancakes when you sit down, because they won’t be there when you finish. Other than that, just the usual suspects – with the fried to steamed ratio depending on how hungover I am.
Japanese: Edomae Sushi, in Regent Place – under the escalator. It’s a sushi train, but it’s one of the best. You get spanner crab, you get uni, kingfish – not just salmon and tuna. There’s a daily nigiri – John Dory, mackerel, sardines. All the top shit. Most of the plates are $4.80, so you can go pretty hard.
Burger: Mary’s burger with bacon. Forever. That’s the burger. I actually had a banging one at Joe’s Tavern, half lamb, half beef – [chef-owner] Elvis Valore really did a number on that.
Coffee: Little Marionette. We actually started using it at Porcine – the whole building’s wired from drinking too much espresso. It’s bloody good coffee.
Big group: Grappa in Leichhardt. That’s my spot. I’ve loved that spot for a long time. Sunday night with our staff, or friends and family – just whatever.
Long lunch: Bathers’ Pavilion. It’s nostalgic for me – I did four years there as an apprentice, that’s where I started. I could sit in that building all day just reminiscing on old times. Aaron [Ward]’s a phenomenal cook – fucking amazing. Last time we did it, we just sat there till four o’clock, rolled out the door, got a beer from the bottle-o down the road, then jumped in the water.
Bucket-list restaurant: Le Louis XV in Monaco. It’s outrageous, on the hills – as long as someone else is paying I’m pumped. Just one of those iconic restaurants where you’re probably going to pay 50 euros for a glass of water. The room, the service, that’s plush on plush. Those restaurants, no one’s really doing them anymore, even in France. You don’t get those hand-carved ceilings and paintings anymore. I tried to get in there two years ago but it was booked out six months in advance.
Something sweet: Pain au chocolat from Shadow Baking.
Underrated: Ante is amazing. Anytime someone asks me for a recommendation I say, “Go to Ante”. Every time I go I think, “Oh, I think I’m a saké guy now.”
Favourite cooking utensil: A small maryse, a small rubber spatula. The industrial one with a little white head on it. We use it for everything. Everything gets scraped out of a big pot and [with a maryse] you’ll get a litre out of it, not 950 mils – every skerrick, waste not, want not.
At-home appliance: To be honest, the airfryer’s saved my ass. But I actually bought some copper cookware last year – I was like, “Right, it’s time I grew up”, because I cook like a twat at home. I got a Falk set, and it’s actually a pleasure to cook at home now.
At-home hack: Buy some copper cookware and a small maryse.
Top late-night snack post-service: a Hungry Jack’s pepper mayo slider. The burgers are not better, but they’ve started frying chicken and they’re not fucking around. It’s like a little tortilla thing with fried chicken, lettuce and pepper mayonnaise.
@nikhill_porcine
@porcinebistro
Dining and Cooking