FLIPP Photographer Rob Palmer has built his career capturing some of the biggest names in the Australian food industry. Rob’s passion for their craft has seen the creation of many award winning cookbooks. Most recently Rob took out the prestigious National Photographic Portrait Prize with an image from Josh Niland’s ‘The Whole Fish Cookbook’.

This is the second instalment of a project Rob is currently working on with writer Tristan Lutze documenting Sydney chefs as they navigate this period of uncertainty. Thankfully many of the restaurants in the series are now beginning to reopen with the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.

In these images Rob portrays Niland sitting amongst a pile of single-use packaging, the result of his fast changeover to take-away restaurant following restrictions on non-essential businesses.

“Will we just flip back to being the kind of restaurant we were after this? Probably not. The only thing that people want is to be cooked good, wholesome, proper food while enjoying company. I’m questioning all the silly noise that comes with that.”