The new Bentley restaurant is a stunning journey of modern Australian tastes and flavours

Don't let the unusual sculptures hanging from the roof put you off Bentley Restaurant in Sydney's CBD

Sommelier Nick Hildebrandt and chef Brent Savage

Fashionable restaurants these days call their food "contemporary", reflecting the fact that the Mod Oz fusion trend has passed and a new style of "new" cuisine has been forged.

But also, I suspect, many associate the phrase Mod Oz with bad '80s cafe food - terrible slabs of chicken breast coated in macadamia on beds of baby spinach with sun-dried tomato and balsamic glaze. The sort of thing that still causes nightmares for many. Well, me, at least.

But quietly, in the past few years, a new modern Australian food has emerged. It's beautiful, creative, artistic food often using unique Australian ingredients - yes, even macadamias - with influences from all corners of the world, but which is uniquely ours.

It's food done in restaurants that include The Bridge Room in the Sydney CBD, and at Victoria's new Brae. And it's the food of chef Brent Savage at his trio of Sydney restaurants, now including the newly recalibrated Bentley Restaurant and Bar (the others being Yellow bistro and Monopole wine bar, both at Potts Point).

The fine diner Bentley has long been an industry favourite for its edgy food paired with the inspirational wine lists of sommelier Nick Hildebrandt.

But in December it took the leap to the next level, leaving the confines of the faintly dingy Surry Hills spot it inhabited for seven years and moving into a grand space in the Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel.

If that sounds like another drab hotel relocation, don't be too harsh to judge. The restaurant is in what was the Bank of NSW building, a gorgeous 1856 sandstone monolith that internally retains all the high ceilings and heritage touches you may expect.

Southern calamari with carrots, squid ink and samphire

Unlike Neil Perry, though, who has converted another heritage building into the stunning new Rockpool on Bridge St, the design is contemporary.

Designer Pascale Gomes-McNabb has gone for a kind of out-there decor that includes what I can only describe as a stick-like sculpture hanging from the ceiling. I'm unsure lovers of heritage buildings will approve, but that's art.

Like the space, the menu is stunningly contemporary - modern, even - and has the advantage of offering a la carte as well as degustation (the seven-course dego is $150, plus $80 with matched wines). It's said degustation dining is coming back, and maybe it is, but it's still good to have the option to order dishes as you please.

For the budget conscious - the entrees are around the $25 mark, the mains $36-$46 - there's an option of starting with smaller entrees in a raw and cured section that includes dishes like scallop with foie gras ($18) and scampi with lettuce and avocado ($18).

Quail, smoked celery and white soy dressing

It's really hard to think of anyone in Sydney - or Australia - doing prettier and more measured food than Savage right now, so let your imagination go crazy when ordering even the most improbable combinations such as entrees as meagrely described as "zucchini + borlotti beans + summer squash" ($24) or "pea and buttermilk soup + spanner crab" ($24).

There's artistry in a dish of "southern calamari + carrots + squid ink + samphire" ($26) that involves immaculately, intricately scored squid in a jus rich from a squid ink and jamon reduction, with paper-thin slices of carrot layered on top like a miniature edible house of cards.

Try North Bondi fish and get hooked

Gloriously luxe is another entree of "quail + smoked celery + white soy dressing" ($26), a dish with Asian undertones made pretty via ribbons of whole charcoal-charred celery in a duck and quail bone jus.

The mains are roughly divided into lighter and heavier proteins, a list culminating in three steaks done on charcoal.

Kurobuta pork with macadamia milk, wattle crumbs and rhubarb

Admire the beauty in a very now dish of "Kurobuta pork + macadamia milk + wattle crumbs + rhubarb" ($44) that involves a pork chop on the bone basking dramatically in its sweet-savoury native ingredients. It's a rich, manly dish of complex flavours the likes of which you won't get elsewhere.

More subtle, perhaps, is "Moreton Bay bug + john dory + shellfish broth" ($44), with the clean-tasting seafood enlivened by a prawn and lobster shell bisque.

There's plenty more: kangaroo with purple carrot, riberry and native pepper, say, or chicken with rye and shimeji. The choices can be overwhelming: perhaps dego really is the way to go.

Mention must be made of the excellent, eclectic wine list, so amiably poured by Hildebrant and his brylcreemed staff, and, finally, Savage's immaculate desserts. White chocolate with apple sorbet and fennel ($20) is a superb, cooling shot like icy licorice.

Bentley’s Aero bar

The Bentley may be named after a flashy car but it reminds me more of a big cat - a black panther, say, all sleek, sharp and cool. The cooking and presentation are immaculate, the flavours absolutely precise.

Perhaps the room misses some of the grand theatre of Rockpool, making the experience more understated, less flashy. But Savage and Hildebrandt are part of something worth celebrating: a new Mod Oz movement to be proud of.

Source:  the telegraph - 25 January 2014