Cured and Cultured Bar, Bennelong
Winter sees a new reason to fall in love with the Utzon sails, but it has nothing to do with seafaring mammals and everything to do with chef Peter Gilmore.
Ever wondered if bare hands ever touch your food in a restaurant kitchen? They do. Regularly. And here they're fearlessly open about it.
Chefs massage, fondle and grope each dish until it's perfect. One chef in the corner stands in front of a pile of Sydney rock oysters, the station dry and pristine. Another painstakingly tweezes, squeezes, and applies tiny flowers to a saltwater chicken salad. Sesame and peanut gives it a bit of a bang-bang chicken vibe, only with thick udon noodles and shavings of silky-soft palm heart.
Most dishes are prepped in the downstairs kitchen, so this area's more for assembly and beautification. The only smell of cooking is that of olives being gently warmed through.
Methodical, light and gentle are the catch cries here. That applies to everything from the muted, burnished room, offset by the almost brutalist concrete ribs of the 'House to the warm buckwheat pancake, lemon jam, cultured cream that accompanies a plate of yabbies, served in the shell for you to remove as you eat.
Roast carrots are deftly dressed in sticky sherry caramel and tossed with young almonds, feta and amaranth. The dish is finished with in thin shavings of raw heirloom carrot, artfully arranged over the top in a sort of nest thing. "It looks like Krang getting angry at Shredder about something," says my dining pal.
This is probably the only time a dish of Peter Gilmore's has been compared to a Ninja Turtles supervillain. And no, we can't promise it'll be the last.
THE LOWDOWN
Pro tip: Arrive in the late afternoon for a natural light show better than any fireworks display.
Try this: Yabby pikelets with lemon jam and clotted cream, served in the shell so you can create your own personal midden.
Like this? Come back again and again - we will. This is a one-of-a-kind experience.
- 02 9240 8000
- http://www.bennelong.com.au
- Cuisine - Modern Australian
- Prices - Roasted carrot ($24), Yabbies and pikelets ($30), Saltwater chicken salad ($27)
- Features - Views
- Chef(s) - Peter Gilmore
- Opening Hours - Lunch Fri-Sun noon-2pm; pre-theatre daily 5.30pm and 6pm; dinner daily 6.30pm-10pm
- Author - Myffy Rigby
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald - Good Food, Myffy Rigby, July 14th 2015