When Sarah Tiong first met Rashedul “Rashie” Hasan, she immediately recognised a kindred spirit who loved all the same food she did. For Hasan, although he soon came to recognise Tiong as a passionate individual and “a feeder”, his overarching memory of that first meeting is of someone who seemed deeply nervous. Those jitters make sense when you learn that the pair met in 2016 in the audition room for Masterchef. (Tiong went on to place sixth on season nine, and Hasan 24th.)

Seven years later, in December 2023, the pair joined forces to open a small-scale diner on Devonshire Street in Surry Hills – in the former Soul Dining space. The idea began to percolate amid lockdowns when Hasan, who was working in telecommunications, found himself itching for a change. He approached Tiong, looking to bounce ideas off her, and when she shared that his concept was similar to one she’d been toying with, they decided to team up.

Ogni is named after the Bengali word for “fire” (a nod to Hasan’s grandmother who lived in a village without electricity, cooking in clay pots over fire), and tells the story of growing up as first- and second-generation Australians.

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“Rashie migrated to Australia [from Bangladesh], I was born in Australia – that has a different influence over our story and what food means to us,” Tiong, who has Chinese-Malaysian heritage, tells Broadsheet. “Rashie has all of that traditional Bengali history but when he feeds his kids, it’s everything from authentic biriyani to steak and chips … [and when I was growing up] I knew spaghetti and meatballs to have fish sauce in it. It’s really interesting the way that all our flavours come together, and how we can build new cuisines out of it. The menu is almost our migration story.”

“I would say it’s pan-Asian representation,” adds Hasan. “It’s not really Bengali food with Chinese influence, it’s basically both of our food experiences on a plate. We call it our modern Australian take on our Southeast Asian and South Asian heritage.”

Snacks include fried mantou (Chinese doughnuts) with house-smoked butter, and house-made spicy Lao-style pork sausage. Mains run the gamut from porchetta with Thai basil peanut pesto to mango-glazed calamari grilled over the hibachi with a green mango salad, and delightful handkerchief pasta with king prawn Malai curry doused in sage burnt butter. (“That dish is something that Rashie gives to his kids for, like, a Thursday night dinner, which is absurd,” says Tiong.) Dessert might be coconut crystal dumplings with smokey snow.

The disparate flavours are forged by fire, the dishes highlighting smoked elements and cooked over the hibachi or in the venue’s high-heat Gozney oven – nodding to the venue’s fiery name. Also in the kitchen is head chef Arvin Januar (ex-Apollo, Le Foote), who the pair hired because of his gentle demeanour. Januar, whose background is Indonesian, is likely to influence the development of future Ogni menus.

Pushing back against traditional ideas of fusion – that pick and choose elements from a pair of cuisines – the Ogni team is embracing flavours, textures and techniques and playing in a space that defies definition.

“This is a really fun space to create in and explore,” says Hasan. “I think as we develop, you’ll see a lot more of that really playful, almost borderline-sacrilegious type of food. And we love it, because what we want is just flavour and texture. We just want people to enjoy it and approach it with curiosity.”

Ogni
204 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills
(02) 8034 4162

Hours:
Tue to Fri 5.30pm–10pm
Sat midday–3pm, 5.30pm–10pm

www.ogni.com.au
@ogni.au