Vardis steers a royal tradition at beef restaurant in the big end of town

THE identity of the restaurant matches the meat credentials at Kingsley’s Steakhouse.

The high ceilings, brick walls and timber beams give the three-level 1830s building plenty of character.

Walls are festooned with broadribbons from Sydney Royal Show.

Each year, restaurant owner George Vardis attends the steers challenge and hand-picks up to six prizewinning steers of Angus or Limousin breeds from schools, such as Scots School, Bathurst, and Scone High School, and the open section.

Mr Vardis has the steers aged and prepared, and then the restaurant serves the cuts as specials to all customers.

“I really enjoy it myself,” he said of the show judging.

“I personally go out there (to Sydney Olympic Park, Homebush) and bid up to $11 a kilogram liveweight for a champion.

“If you consider what good beef sells for in the market, paying three and four times the market rate for that champion, it’s well worth it.

“It’s part of the tradition of this restaurant; we inherited it and we’ve continued it. 

“It’s a lot of fun and what’s even better is we are using up all of the carcase across all our restaurants.”

Each year he keeps a nice cut of rump for himself. 

“I’m really a rump fan myself, it’s my favourite cut.”

Mr Vardis said his chefs would take 300g of rump and grill it medium rare to medium, which was ideal.

“Because it is a coarser grain (cut of) beef you want to get enough heat in it,” he said.

“We have our technique where we cross it and turn it over once – we shift it three times.

“And then resting is important so for as long as we cook it, we rest it equally, if not more – so if we cook it for eight or nine minutes, we’re resting it for that period of time as well.”