Longsong's David Moyle on upping sticks and cooking from the hip

Hold the phones, world, David Moyle is not a qualified chef. "There it is," he says. "I'm not a chef, I'm a cook." There again, unlike many certificate-weilding chefs, he stuck out school all the way through to year 12. "I've always been into cooking, but I didn't wake up one day and think 'I want to be a chef'. It sort of just happened," he says. "My brother in law was the sous chef at Marchetti's, so I went and spent a week there to just hang out and I f---ing loved it straight away."

Moyle, somewhere in the middle in a family of five kids, likes to joke that he became a chef out of necessity. Both of his parents worked, so he would often do the cooking at home. "I always enjoyed it. Not creating flavours – that wasn't the part I enjoyed. I don't love that approach to things. Just the actual act of cooking and changing the actual makeup of something."

As a younger chef, he was drawn to the naturalists – Michelle Bras, Pierre Gagnaire, Andoni Luis – but these days, he's drawn to humbler offerings. "Before," he says, "it was all about control and asserting that through the skills that you learned. Now, less is more." He talks about the perceived simplicity of Sixpenny chef Daniel Puskas' cooking. "The craft and skill in it is just extraordinary and the concept behind it in other hands would look really clunky. But I love elegance, I guess. To sit in a kitchen and really refine something... it's the Miles Davis thing. It's the notes you don't play."

The chef, who in recent years is best known for keeping the kitchen fires burning at Franklin in Hobart, has recently relocated to his native Victoria (Moyle grew up in Port Fairy). He now runs Longsong, the long-awaited Thai inflected bar/restaurant above Longrain. But why leave Franklin, a place that, over the years has attracted a strong interstate following for Moyle's hyper-locavore menu?

Ultimately, it was his discomfort in being the face of the business when his natural inclination was to put his head down and cook. He's not a showy chef. He doesn't like to stalk the floor glad-handing. And at Franklin, where he felt he was still developing as a cook and a chef, it made him feel a little fake. "It made me really uncomfortable," he says. "Because it becomes an expectation and creatively, you get pigeonholed."

The weight of expectation on a destination restaurant is certainly heavier than that of say, a restaurant in the heart of Sydney or Melbourne. And many visiting diners will want their pound of flesh. A table visit, a handshake, a conversation. "You [make a choice to] take part in that and deal with the fact you might be disappointing. It's a conscious decision to put up a facade. You can't truly connect with somebody in a 10-minute interaction over a pass. You're giving something of yourself, sure, but you need to make some distance to a degree and it's f---ing draining to be honest."

It's the Miles Davis thing ... it's the notes you don't play.

Living 45 minutes' drive outside Hobart (big boozy nights in town would involve sleeping in the car) meant long stretches of road with his dog as company but he describes those trips as cathartic. Any free time he had (which wasn't a lot) was spent around Bruny Island, or in the water. The scope for adventure was a massive drawcard for Moyle, who once walked two and a half hours for a surf when he first arrived in Tassie.

"I thought I was the most intrepid motherf---er on this planet. 'Look at me, driving down there by myself. I am David Attenborough.' In saying that, I get down there, the surf is pumping and there's 15 dudes out. In the middle of f---ing nowhere on a Wednesday at 10am."

It's certainly not the first time Moyle has upped stumps to cook in an out-of-the-way locale. The first time saw the chef in Byron Bay in 2010 to head up the Pacific Dining Room, on the old Fins site at the Beach Hotel. He was head chef at St Kilda's Circa the Prince at the time, and the break from formal, pre-defined, highly structured menus was welcome. "I'm definitely more of a cook-from-the-hip type guy. And with smaller kitchens, there's connection there. Everything that comes through the door you see and touch and translate. I just needed to have a connection to the food I was cooking."

The initial draw to cooking in Byron was really to go surfing. When he arrived, he described it as a kind of weird wonderland. "The geography and land is stunning. Hazy and beautiful and bejewelled. The ocean's just incredible – bath-warm all the time. You can walk around in board shorts. I'd just leave a surfboard everywhere." But while he was there, he made connections with growers and the farming community, which really surprised him. "I didn't really expect there to be a really strong growing community there. But hippies in hills, man, they've been growing shit for years. I found myself using different ingredients. I had a bloody ball."

Ultimately, Byron ended up being a little small and isolated for the chef, whose passion outside work lies in arts, culture and disruption. And though there's a great music and creative current that runs through the veins of the town, at its heart it's still a small town. "But then funnily enough I ended up in Tasmania."

He's really enjoying being back in Melbourne, though, and so close to his childhood stomping ground. "I'm from Port Fairy. A sleepy, country coastal town. I'm a simple guy. Simple desires. Plaid shirts. My partner's in Melbourne as well so there are just so many reasons to be there.The food, the booze - everything. There's so much more going on."

Moyle, if you asked him today, still isn't comfortable with his cooking. "No. F--- no. I don't think I'll ever be comfortable. I believe I could come to a state where I'd have a certain set of dishes that I know work and can take from place to place. But I don't want to do that. Being uncomfortable is very important. You have to deliver something that is delicious and worthwhile. At the same time, you owe it to yourself – it's important to keep challenging."

Quickfire corner

Music to cook to: Alone, or in a group? Because alone, I get shoegaze-y, full emo Ben Shewry teary shit. With a group, it has to be fun and engaging. Afrobeats.

After midnight snack: I'm a noodle guy. A puttanesca. Or a hummus and boiled egg sandwich

Kitchen weapon at work: The barbecue.

Formative food moment: I still refer back to a lunch I did on Bruny Island when I first moved there and I had to cook purely from what was on that property. That was very formative – it's very interesting how people eat outdoors as opposed to a restaurant setting.

Non-cooking ninja skill: I once pulled a leech off a man's eyeball, without removing the retina. But I'm not sure if it's a secret ninja skill or a party trick.

The national Good Food Guide 2018, in partnership with Citi and Vittoria, is available from newsagencies, bookstores and via thestore.com.au, RRP $29.99