Northern Rivers chef heading to Sydney’s hottest food event

THE Salty Mangrove chef David Moyle has been selected as one of 10 “flame master” chefs to showcase his grilling skills at this year’s Vivid Sydney festival.

Moyle will join fellow Northern Rivers chefs Mindy Woods from Karkalla at Myocum and Ben Devlin from Pipit at Pottsville and Sydney chefs such as Mark Best from Marque at the Vivid Fire Kitchen showcase at Barangaroo Reserve. The event will highlight techniques such as smoking, grilling and roasting over hot coals.

“Each chef has a station and we rotate,” he said. “The food that’s going to be put out is going to be pretty extraordinary for a large scale. It’s not a marquee in the middle of a field – it’s quite unique.”

Originally from Port Fairy, Moyle began his apprenticeship at Marchetti’s Latin in Melbourne at the age of 18. He later worked at renowned venues including Stokehouse, Ezard and the former Circa restaurant at Prince of Wales Hotel.

 

He first arrived in Byron Bay in 2011 to open a restaurant at The Beach Hotel, which he ran for four years before relocating to Tasmania. There, he established his own restaurant, Franklin, which closed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We closed Franklin because we were 50 per cent reliant on international tourism and we didn’t see a future in it,” he said. “At the time there was absolutely no certainty to what was happening.”

Like many chefs during that period, Moyle returned to the Northern Rivers, where he worked at venues including Harvest and Barrio.

He opened The Salty Mangrove in 2023 with two business partners, serving approachable seafood dishes such as poke plates and crumbed snapper sandwiches.

“We all lived in Ocean Shores and there was an opportunity there with the space,” he said. “You can order oysters with your coffee at 7am if you want to, and a lot of people do. It’s a really nice way to start the day.”

The venue has long been a community gathering place, and the trio wanted to maintain that ethos through a blend of art, music and food.

“A lot of professional chefs have returned to the area where they may have grown up,” Moyle said. “They still want to cook in an area with good food, but they’re having families and want to be part of the community. High end restaurants can only really exist at night, which isn’t convenient for people bringing up kids.”

Moyle has also been involved in a range of major festivals over the years, including Laneway Festival in Melbourne and Dark Mofo in Hobart, and said he enjoys the atmosphere such events create.

Featuring open-fire cooking demonstrations, talks, tastings and live music, Vivid Fire Kitchen is at Barangaroo Reserve every night of Vivid Sydney from 22 May to 13 June.