Icebergs Dining Room and Bar is an icon, standing sentinel over Bondi Beach and the powerful Pacific Ocean. Despite the beauty, the path from concept to restaurant was not always straightforward. What Maurice Terzini was asking people to see wasn’t there – and he wanted to keep it that way. The ocean was to be the hero; the rest, in essence, was to remain invisible. A place where conversations dominate the food; where art, music and beauty all share a place at that table. Of course, the food and drink have to be world-class, as do the design and service. To be on par with that ocean, you need to be irreproachable. It’s been challenging, but it’s also been the greatest of honours.

This book tells the story of the past 20 years of that custodianship. There are tales of people, personalities and the influences that shaped the idea, a collection of our best known recipes from two decades of head chefs, cocktails from our award-winning bar and playlists from summers gone by. See the restaurant through the eyes of acclaimed architect Carl Pickering; peer into the minds of six of Australia’s best chefs – from Karen Martini to Monty Koludrovic; read about why a great wine list is about so much more than the wine, and then take a little taste of the indefinable magic – Maurice’s treatise on his signature rules of hospitality. There is so much that goes into making a restaurant disappear; much of it enclosed within these pages.