The Old Fitzroy Flickr

So I dropped by The Old Fitzroy, that eccentric boozer in Woolloomooloo, a month or so ago. It was my first visit since the mid-noughties when a whole era came to an end on the day they took the (then) very hip laksa off the menu. More recently the Old Fitzroy has been acquired from the Pasfield family by hospitality entrepreneur Jaime Wirth, on the strict understanding that nothing would change, lest an ancient Irish curse be enlivened, causing the appointment of receivers and Brian McFadden to be played on high rotation.

This time I was there ostensibly to see The Cripple of Inishmaan performed in the pub’s indie theatre. The play was a tour de force in the hands of a top-notch Australian cast, but it did occur to me that if I were Irish (phew) I might resent the way that a timeworn theatrical trope depicting my co-ethnics as bucolic morons, continues to delight audiences. Father, I confess I was also undercover at the pub. I’d heard and read great things about the Old Fitzroy’s kitchen, helmed by a star chef, Nicholas Hill (ex-Sepia, Quay and The Ledbury), and I thought The Real Review readers need to know.

And yep, plus ça change etc. Those gnarly old men are still there, telling fibs at the tables in the downstairs bar, sitting among the signs and wonders on the raw brick walls, clutching schooners or a house red, with a couple of gnarly old dogs snoozing at their feet. The staff remain fabulously unpatronising. But hang on, something about the old pub menu looks different. Gee, I had to wipe my specs. Cauliflower cheese tart? Chopped liver with blood orange mustard and dripping toast? A schooner of devilled pigs’ tails? Dory and chips with mushy peas? Treacle custard tart?

Breathe out dude. This is exciting.

Hill is certainly a gifted chef, with impressive credentials, who can be trusted with flavours. But how do you pull off the challenge of serving up restaurant-quality food from a squeezy pub kitchen, to a gritty audience of staff and punters with highly evolved b—shit detectors? It might be like watching Fred Astaire on a skateboard.

Cauliflower cheese tart at the Old Fitzroy The Old Fitzroy Instagram

And it is. This is arguably Sydney’s best gastro-pub – a term I haven’t used since 1993. The crunch of those breaded and deep-fried devilled pigs’ tails (AUD $12) announces the lush cartilaginous interior: a captivating mosaic of skin, fat, tendon and meat; and naturally those porky bits are presented in a schooner glass. Then there’s a lovely, light cauliflower cheese tart (AUD $18), made on buttery pastry (none of your sinister industrial pub pastry with an aftertaste of bad breath here) and John Dory, with chips and mushy peas – a fillet of firm, flaky fish in a brittle non-greasy golden batter, which comes with joyfully uneven (i.e. hand-cut) hot chips and a heaped spoonful of mushy peas, pimped with a splash of vinegar for acid balance (AUD $27).

At dessert, please note the goodies you’ll want to befriend: a ‘strawberry biscuit puff’ atop a scoop of olive oil ice cream – a dish which, without having an obvious purpose in life, is really good (AUD $15), and a treacle custard tart made on lard (AUD $12) designed to enthral anyone who identifies as English and who had a thing for their nanny.

As for The Old Fitzroy’s wine list, while it isn’t going to wow the connoisseur readership of The Real Review, it’s very serviceable, with all the usual pub suspects in various colours. There’s also some minimal intervention gear such as Shobbrook Riesling and Ochota Barrels, for the true believers.

Speaking of the usual pub suspects, on the night The Real Review visited, we spotted a couple of infamous former Kings Cross detectives, no doubt reminiscing about SP bookies and the brothel madams they’ve known and loved. Great playwright and Old Fitz regular, Louis Nowra, was fighting vainly the old ennui, sans Coco the chihuahua. And there was another local, off his medication, doing tai chi movements.

But the big story is really about the startling return to form of the kitchen at The Old Fitz. Be sure to visit before Fred Astaire rides off on his skateboard.

Rating: 25/30

• How good was the food? 8/10
• How good was the wine list? 3/5
• What was the service like? 4/5
• Did the atmosphere work? 5 /5
• Is there an X Factor about this place? 5/5

The Old Fitzroy

• Address: 129 Dowling St, Woolloomooloo
• Phone: +61 2 9356 3848
• Email: hello@oldfitzroy.com.au
• Website: oldfitzroy.com.au
• Open: Monday – Saturday 11:00–12:00; Sunday 11:00–10:00
• Price: Bar food $8-$14; lunch/dinner menu $17-$28

The courtyard dining area at Bibo Wine bar. Bibo Wine bar

When Sydney’s miserable winter chills the meadows of your mind, and her icy fingers squeeze you where it hurts, a cosy neighbourhood bistro is a saviour. Although it’s warm at home, most sane folk feel the need to escape the kitchen once a week, so long as we’re not schlepping it too far when we do.

So, those lucky Double Bayliens have a fine thread of silver to draw from the leaden clouds, in the form of Bibo, a three-year veteran of the Bay’s wine bar scene. Bibo inspires devotion in a cohort of locals who know it as an overlooked gem in a leafy, but patchy, dining precinct.

Trans-Atlantic, with a leaning to Lisbon, darkly burnished in black marble and polished wood, perhaps Bibo is easy to miss because the vibe here is more discreet and grown-up than the Mrs Sippy crowd down the road demands. Down there it’s your pouty eastern suburbs private school girls interrogating under-prepared Toffee dates; at Bibo it’s more their divorced parents looking for love on a seductive menu and smart wine list. Chef Jose Silva (ex-Guillaume) and sommelier Louella Mathews (ex-Rockpool Bar & Grill) offer both types of love. Equally important, whatever season, is the warming welcome to regulars and to first-timers.

Now we’re up at the long bar, each cradling a nicely crisp, aerial and delicately oceanic sardine and squid ink beignet (AUD $6); and then assaying some lovely, traditional peixinhos da horta – green runner beans lightly-battered (AUD $10). Madame Cruella says this is just the sort of humble wine-bar food that doesn’t break her Zen concentration on a disciplined Tanqueray martini (two parts vermouth three parts gin, with a twist – AUD $20).

After the martini meditation, a spectacular chorizo flambé arrives rapidly, (AUD $14.50) and we point our hands toward it like it’s a blazing log fire. Then we eat it. Tonight is a rare rebuttal of one of my lesser known universal laws: not everything is improved by chorizo. This one will leave me with a breathy memory of lovely winter eating.

Next, a squeaky-fresh fillet of poached bonito, with its glinting skin face up, mixing it up with two juicy grilled swiss mushrooms and a splodge of intense molho verde (AUD $38). It’s a dish that feels a bit like three petiscos parading as a main course, but it’s no less delicious for it. Spiced, fatty lamb ribs, grilled into sultry smokiness with paprika, cumin, coriander and chilli (AUD $28) hit the spot. And there’s a beef cheek on a deep rich jus with roast cauliflower (AUD $38): a dish that benefits from the acid uplift that the surprising (unless you’re Portuguese) squirt of passionfruit juice gives to the jus.

Louella Mathews’ intelligent wine list at Bibo offers 34 wines by the glass, so you’re actively encouraged to ensure every dish you choose is enhanced by a suitable wine. The world’s best rosé, 2016 Domaine Tempier (AUD $27) with those sardine and squid ink beignets – yes please – and what about a gulpable 2013 Aragonesas Coto de Hayas Reserva Grenache (AUD $17) with the chorizo? The 2015 Charles Joguet Silenes Chinon (AUD $22) will make you a Loire red convert, even before you see how good it is with the Piri Piri chicken, Jerusalem artichoke and sweet potato (AUD $36).

For those with the wallet width, there are some whale-bait local names on a special aged-wine list too, courtesy of Bibo co-owner Paul Jones. All types and stripes of wine drinker are catered for here, with the Coravin preservation system in place, for assurance.

This evening we can overhear two screen traders from a large retail bank bemoaning their bonuses, the Royal Commission and private school fees.

“Heartbreaking” observes Madame Cruella. “I used to enjoy thrashing underlings like that” she adds, before movingly reminiscing about the years when she made a good living as a dominatrix after she’d discovered how “apocalyptically badly paid “ being a journalist is.

I could have told her that.

Unusually for a wine bar, the dessert course at Bibo is no diminuendo. That’s probably as you’d expect from a chef whose other gig is Sweet Belem in Petersham. Silva creatively revisits a traditional Portuguese belocha, so it resembles a semifreddo, with chocolate and walnuts (AUD $14); and a voluptuous Îles flottantes-style Portuguese meringue thing, called a molotof, (AUD $14) which, judged it on its looks alone, should be arrested for public lewdness and eaten behind closed doors (AUD $14).

So, what more can I say about Bibo? Neighbourhood wine bars are always about pleasing the neighbourhood. Only a special few are also destinations in themselves.

On that principle, you’d have to say Bibo is pretty special.

Rating: 24.5/30

• How good was the food? 8/10
• How good was the wine list? 5/5
• What was the service like? 4.5/5
• Did the atmosphere work? 3/5
• Is there an X Factor about this place? 4/5

Bibo Wine Bar

• Address: 7 Bay Street, Double Bay, Sydney
• Telephone: +61 2 9362 4680
• Email: contact@bibowinebar.com.au
• Website: bibowinebar.com.au
• Open: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday: 5:30pm ‘til close. Friday, Saturday & Sunday: Midday ‘til close. Licensed
• Price: Appetisers AUD $6-$14.50; A la carte AUD $27-$38; Chef’s menu AUD $68 pp; matching wine AUD $52pp

The dining room at Alberto’s Lounge Alberto’s Lounge. Image: Daniel Boud

Authenticity? Hmm. A precious but rare quality in humans. It’s certainly essential in wine. Is it necessary in food? I used to think so. But I grow old…I grow old… Now I reckon as long as it tastes good I’m down with it. Take Dan Pepperell’s trippa alla Romana at Albertos. To the protests and furious hand gestures of every Roman, it sails high over ideas like authenticity and tradition. Ma che fai?! He uses garam masala, fenugreek, butter and cream for the sauce! Indian spices in a dish that’s as vecchia as the Eternal City itself? Sei pazzo!

Yes I know, I know, Pepperell atones for his heresy, with mint and a shower of pecorino. And the honeycomb tripe is sweetly spiced, with the unique velvety mouthfeel braised tripe must have. But it’s too late now. We’ve all gone into shock. Because it’s a thrilling dish. The crab’s gonopods you might say. It’s a dish whose surprising elements speak of a modern church, but somehow connect with the past(a) and some of my deepest flavour instincts too.

I’ve followed Pepperell’s comet tail since he was on the pans at the tiny but perfectly-formed 10 William Street in Paddington. There he was sending out a ragù bolognese pimped with Red Boat fish sauce and an inspired whipped bottarga and hot pretzel invention that will probably never leave the menu at the pumping, squeezy Paddo bar.

Then a year later, in the wee small hours I joined the conga line snaking down the stairs at Hubert, on Bligh Street in the CBD, for Pepperell’s quirky but fabulous riff on oeufs en gelée (egg yolks set with ocean trout roe in a crystalline bonito jelly), for some dreamy escargots with XO sauce and for the huge sainted chook resplendent in beak and claw, served with bread sauce & green garlic

The team behind Hubert, Baxter’s Inn, Shady Pines and Frankies (aka The Swillhouse Group) has reimagined Hubert, this one in the guise of a friendly inner-city neighbourhood bar. Like Hubert, the lighting in Alberto’s Lounge flatters the jaded diner, the rustic bentwood chairs and padded banquettes add comfort and the walls are decorated with Art Deco posters, in this case of famous Italian aperitivi. And, as Jeeves would say, there are always cocktails.

Food being prepared at Alberto’s Lounge. Alberto’s Lounge. Image: Daniel Boud

Sit up at the bar with a bowl of housemade crisps (AUD $4) and a piercingly cold Gibson martini (AUD $24) while considering your menu options. Then let Alberto’s mischievous GM, Benjamin Brown (ex-Sepia) show you to your squishy table.

Tonight the polpo e ceci (chickpeas and octopus) (AUD $24) is a no-brainer to prep the tastebuds. Pepperell is after a quieter, more textural effect with this one: tender and tasty octopus consorting with nutty pulses that yield gradually to the bite, a handful of parsley, a grind of pepper, a splash of intense olive oil. After that, you might want a bouncy fillet of blue eye trevalla – beautifully cooked pearly white fish – draped on a pile of vongole moistened by a combination of their own juices, white wine and garlic (AUD $40). Finish on silken lemon gelato spooned onto cheesecake, a dessert that is, frankly, sell-your-grandma good (AUD $12).

It’s not easy to adequately capture the eclectic vibe at Albertos. It lives somewhere in the ‘70s, just about when Boz Scaggs was in his Silk Degrees period. That’s the Boz on the soundtrack tonight. Everyone’s lip syncing to Lido Shuffle. And it’s certainly squishy in here. We’re so close to the pregnant couple at the next table, they’re talking about making us godparents.

The wine list has been curated by the forever inquisitive, award-winning Andy Tyson, so you can find yourself hot air ballooning with him over traditional countryside such as Piedmont and the Loire Valley, then be gusted off course into more esoteric regions like the Jura, a place once known only to the wine wonk, now well and truly on the radar. As at Hubert, some of the prices on this list can make you feel like you’ve been spanked by matron, so ask sommelier Sean McManus for guidance. Tonight we’re very happy with the value proposition represented by the 2016 Maschitano Rosso, a subtle medium-weight aglianico del vulture from the vineyards of the Musto Carmelitano family in the obscure village of Maschito, Basilicata (AUD $78).

If you’re a chef there’s no middle road you can straddle when you’re cleaving away from authenticity towards an eccentric but inspired corollary of it. Adding Red Boat fish sauce to a ragù bolognese or pimping trippa alla Romana with sub-continental spices can produce powerful emotions in folks. When you’re at Alberto’s Lounge, the main one is “wow!”

Rating: 24.5/30

• How good was the food? 8/10
• How good was the wine list? 4/5
• What was the service like? 4.5/5
• Did the atmosphere work? 4/5
• Is there an X Factor about this place? 4/5

Alberto’s Lounge

• Address: 17-19 Alberta St, Sydney
• Email: pasta@albertoslounge.com
• Website: albertoslounge.com
• Open: Mon-Thu 5pm-late, Fri-Sat noon-late, Sun noon-10pm. Licensed
• Price: Entrees AUD $18-$28 ; pasta AUD $26; main courses AUD $36-$38; desserts AUD $8-$14

The dining room at Buon Ricordo. Buon Ricordo

A dignified white-jacketed waiter stands in the lobby of Buon Ricordo, waiting to take your coat. “Buona Sera signore.” At that moment a bow-tied barman – it might be veteran Nick Caraturo – glances up from his station as he pours an obscure, probably bitter digestivo, for a 91-year-old lady who has enjoyed the full menu degustazione earlier tonight. Until recently the decorous Gemma Cunningham would usually be on the floor here too, greeting you with smiling recognition, even when it had been quite a while since your last visit.

I sometimes hum a few bars of Napule è, Pino Daniele’s poignant ode to Naples (see the clip at the end of this review) as I push on the heavy blue front door of the restaurant and walk in. That song is a tribute to a great city and to the same spirit that Buon Ricordo’s former owner Armando Percuoco and his family brought to Australia when they migrated here in the ’70s.

Armando wasn’t the first Napoletano to introduce Southern Italian food and dining culture to Sydney, but he was probably its most Vesuvian emissary. He inspired, amused and intimidated a generation of Sydney diners, chefs and waitstaff for over thirty years. In the very early ’80s, when I took a first date to ogle the antipasti table at Pulcinella – the Percuoco family’s pioneering trattoria in Kings Cross – Armando’s mother was in the kitchen and her eldest, mercurial son commanded the floor.

Over the years at Buon Ricordo which he opened in 1987, Armando didn’t change. It’s simply that, as he expected, we all adjusted to his rigorous standards and orchestral directions (“Everybody wants to eat at 7.30pm! WHY? Can someone please tell me?” “Do NOT eat the bruschetta with a knife and fork!”). It made for some interesting industry tales about life in the kitchen at this dusty pink Paddington osteria.

The rich furnishings and fine art here still impart the moody atmosphere of a Visconti film, but in one important respect the times at Buon Ricordo have changed: Armando and Gemma have retired, and chef David Wright is the new owner.

Wright held the position of head chef for seven years and he met his wife Rosalba here in the kitchen, where she was a sous chef. Since his coronation as the new owner, Wright’s been tweaking some dishes according to the seasons and offering one or two new ones. Watch this space. But he’s also keeping the flame burning under the restaurant’s high-demand signatures, including the truffled-egg fettuccine (AUD $38) tossed a tavola, which makes for an indecently good coupling with a very upmarket Lambrusco from Luciano Saetti (AUD $82); and the handsome pan-fried Snapper fillet with lemon, butter, parsley and Sicilian Capers (AUD $49.50), a fish and a dish that requires no further embellishment.

Buon Ricordo’s zuppa di pesce. Buon Ricordo

Fetch a snorkel to enjoy the deeply oceanic zuppa di pesce (scampi, octopus, bass groper, vongole, calamari and mussels) (AUD $51.50); or hew to the traditional Milly Hill lamb shoulder (AUD $49.50), a lovely gelatinous cut that tastes sturdily but sweetly of itself, braised in almond milk, and given a welcoming jolt of acidity by green olives, orange zest and saffron.

For me Buon Ricordo is mostly about small, memorable moments: a perfect salmonata (thinly sliced ocean trout, bottarga, lemon, garlic, tarragon) (AUD $31.50) paired with a glass of finely-beaded Berlucchi Franciacorta rosé (AUD $24) ; two rich rissole-shaped fagottini made in-house (small pig trotter and veal sausages – AUD $34); and of course the signature baked figs wrapped in prosciutto and dressed in fruity/salty gorgonzola cream sauce (AUD $32.50) . I’ve always preferred the figs at the end of the meal, as a savoury dessert, but if you crave sweet, there’s a very fragrant, very moist crostata d’arance with candied citrus and vanilla ice cream (AUD $23).

The wine list is properly weighty in local and Italian masterpieces (Grange, Sassicaia, Gaja etc.), however, if you’re like me and inclined by temperament and bank balance to something less luxurious, but equally soulful, allow sommelier Daniel Marcella, as Virgil to your Dante, guide you to a few gems in the AUD $75-$100 range. Look for the whole page of Lambrusco, or for the toned and succulent 2010 San Francesco Duca Dell ’Argillone Riserva, made from the Calabrian grape variety Gaglioppo.

I look forward to seeing chef David Wright burnish his crown over the years ahead. Buon Ricordo is no cheap trattoria, but in a town where the comfort and pleasure of the diner is not always a visible priority, at least you can see where your money’s being spent, in the quality, service and old-school style here.

And to the pazzi who don’t get that equation, I can hear an unforgettable voice from the past shouting, “Nothing pleases some people anymore… WHY???”

Rating: 22.5/30

• How good was the food? 8/10
• How good was the wine list? 4/5
• What was the service like? 4/5
• Did the atmosphere work? 3.5/5
• Is there an X Factor about this place? 3/5

Buon Ricordo

• Address: 108 Boundary St, Paddington NSW 2021
• Phone: +61 2 9360 6729
• Email: buonricordo@buonricordo.com.au
• Website: buonricordo.com.au
• Open: Lunch 12pm – 3pm; Thursday, Friday & Saturday; Dinner from 6pm Tuesday to Saturday. Licensed.
• Price: Entrees – AUD $12- $15; primi piatti AUD $31- $34; pasta AUD $31.50 – $38; secondi – AUD $47.50 -$ 64; desserts – AUD $23; Six course menu degustation AND $150 Matched wine degustation AUD $85 100ml per serve.

Stuart Knox at Fix Wine Fix Wine

“You know, the police called on me during their investigations into a spate of bank robberies across Sydney in the 90s” the crusty criminal barrister is telling his pretty floor clerk, as the Peking duck spring roll and a steak tartare arrive at their table.

“I assumed they wanted my advice. In fact, I was a suspect.”

Gales of wheezy laughter from the Rumpolean advocate, as he tops up her glass of 2016 Bokeh shiraz.

Three things about that monologue said I was at Fix Wine (Fix), formerly Fix St James, on Elizabeth Street in the city. First, on any day at about noon, if you dropped a container of Le Montrachet on this hospitable 60-seat modern split-level bar/bistro, you’d wipe out most of the legal precinct’s top silks and their instructing solicitors. Second, that cool climate spicy shiraz from Victoria’s Strzelecki Ranges is a fascinating domestic rarity, which Fix’s vinously-obsessed owner Stuart Knox would like you to try, no-obligation, as you’re sitting up at the bar.

Third, it was a Friday. Tradition consecrates this as a long lunch day for all the wine-loving be-wigged types of Phillip Street celebrating a win or lamenting a defeat.

It’s noisy here, but not brutally so, as we slurp down four shockingly fresh Sydney rock oysters on ice (AUD $15) with a glass of the fino-like 2012 Puffeney Arbois – the highest expression of the Savagnin grape (AUD $11) – and a Tyrrells 2006 Vat 1 Semillon (AUD $16) – a fully mature, unoaked Hunter beauty. Alongside all this, we’re also grazing across a selection of seasonally fresh air-cured salumi from Pino Tomini Foresti: speck, capocollo, mortadella, nduja (AUD $24-$35).

Fix is a favourite among off-duty sommeliers and wine wonks. A former Len Evans Tutorial scholar, Knox understands that sometimes all you want to do is journey across his 100 bottle-strong list, but only by the glass, enjoying the interesting byways while you nibble something savoury. His enthusiasm for the Coravin preservation system makes it reassuring to choose from over 50 wines by the 50ml glass, ambling through a Benjamin Leroux village white burgundy, pausing at an amber wine made by Gravner in Venezia Giulia and making a sharp right hand onto a funky local road, with a ‘186’ Ochota Barrels Grenache.

That crunchy, tasty Peking duck spring roll served on a red curry sauce, with curry leaves for garnish (AUD $21) is a dish purpose-built for wine lovers. Pick it up with one hand, swipe it through the velvety sauce, which is only mildly spicy, and with the other hand lift a glass to your lips. That glass might contain the Dappled ‘Appellation’ Chardonnay from the Yarra Valley (AUD $13), a fresh and zippy minimal intervention wine.

A dish at Fix Wine. Fix Wine

Fix opened back in the day, 2004, when Sydney wine bars were in the doldrums generally, and particularly average in the food department. Knox wanted to change it up, so there’s been a history of good chefs through the Fix kitchen. Today, chef Mark Archer (ex-Tomislav) sends out superior examples of text-book bistro classics including a no-nonsense, tangy beef tartare (AUD $31); smoky, grilled swordfish with a fennel & soft herb salad (AUD $36); sirloin steak and red wine butter (AUD $45).

At dinner the menu shifts a gear seamlessly, driving into more adventurous territory but without getting lost: a starter of tender chicken hearts, macadamia nut satay, Szechuan pickle (AUD $13); fish egg ‘Fairy Bread’ fingers (AUD $19) and a whole rainbow trout cooked in paperbark (AUD $38).

Desserts at Fix play second fiddle to a serious cheese board of three or five perfectly presented, mostly European cheeses (AUD $24 for three; $38 for five); but there’s usually something interesting in the sweet section too, to throw down a challenge to your wine wisdom, such as a melon salad with coconut and thyme sorbet (AUD $15). Take Knox’s advice and go the 2015 Vouvray Moelleux from Sebastian Brunet.

Since it opened doors fourteen years ago, Fix has been joined by a raft of competitors, along with quite a few pretenders, for the title of Best Sydney Bar. While staying hip to current trends such as the natural wine movement, this place mercifully remains a hipster-free zone. It’s worth noting too that if you’ve moved beyond the current obsession with primary flavours, and you’re reaching out for a broader selection of mature wines, or ones that can age, they can fix you up with that here too.

At Fix, as an eloquent member of the Bar of my acquaintance says, “Everyone wins.”

Rating: 23/30

• How good was the food? 7.5/10
• How good was the wine list? 5/5
• What was the service like? 4/5
• Did the atmosphere work? 3.5/5
• Is there an X Factor about this place? 3/5

Fix Wine

• Address: 111 Elizabeth St, Sydney NSW 2000
• Phone: +61 2 9232 2767
• Email: reservations@fixwine.com.au
• Website: fixwine.com.au
• Open: Mon-Wed food 12pm-9pm. Drink 8am-10pm; Thurs food 12pm-9.30pm. Drink 8am-11pm; Friday: food 12pm-10pm. Drink 8am-11pm; Sat, Sun closed, except for group bookings. Closed on all public holidays.
• Price: Entrees AUD $17 – $21; mains AUD $29-$95; cheese AUD $26-$38; desserts AUD $4-$15. Chef’s selection of dishes to share AUD $55pp

Lankan Filling Station dining room. Lankan Filling Station

Sydney is a vast table set for any feasting experience that its lucky residents desire. It’s a town that willingly shares its dining secrets too. To discover how it hums there’s usually no need to leave your snug semi in Ashfield or Burwood (or Campsie or Wolli Creek or Marrickville). In these ‘burbs you can happily eat global but stay local.

The best Nanjing salted duck this side of the Yangtze River is hiding in plain sight in Ashfield; the numbing-est malatang you’ll eat lurks in Burwood; and the most delicious labneh is kissed with maple smoke and can be found headlining the list in a Turkish-Mexican restaurant on, of all places, crazy-busy Canterbury Road, Canterbury. These suburbs were once the white-bread heartlands of working-class Sydney, now they display a vivid and storied layering of many migrant food cultures.

But for some diners, Sri Lankan food has stayed tantalisingly out of reach. Next to the two capitals of Sri Lanka, the beating pulse of Sinhala cooking in Sydney is Toongabbie. Unfortunately, Toongabbie is usually a bridge too far, one whistle stop too many, for your rusted-on inner-city types.

Cue Lankan Filling Station (LFT), a contemporary take on Sri Lankan dining, which has been fragrantly plonked under the noses of the good folk of East Sydney. Gifted chef O Tama Carey’s Burgher heritage and a fastidious cooking eye means LFT’s cute coconut bowl-shaped hoppers are perfectly executed, and when you drop a cracked egg in the middle of one it becomes an egg hopper. That’s made better for pairing with some deep, dark seeni sambol (AUD $6), itself in turn a love-match for O Carey’s deep-flavoured pork curry (AUD $18). The sauce, clinging intimately to tender chunks of pork, tilts subtly towards the tamarind-sour, rather than the palm sugar-sweet end of the flavour spectrum. That’s a point on the spectrum where I like to be.

Lankan Filling Station chef O Tama Carey. Instagram #otamacarey

The Snapper curry (AUD $18) is moist pieces of fish nicely helped along by a construction crew of lunu dehi, a mouth puckering pickle of lime and red onion (AUD $4). The fermented cabbage called mallung is pimped with turmeric, mustard seeds and coconut milk (AUD $10) – a vegetarian’s fantasy with smoke, crunch and soothing sweet notes, all held in fine balance. The watalappam, a traditional spicy sweet custard made on condensed milk, which Carey schusses with a crunchy cashew topping and murmur of rosewater (AUD $12) is a delicate and lovely dessert. But then, a single scoop of zingy, refreshing ginger and turmeric gelato (AUD $6) might be all you need.

LFS’s wine list is short and unusual (Tbilisi amber wine anyone? Mead?), but not too pricey and offers nearly all of its eleven wines by the glass or carafe. It links hands with a cocktail list that features Ceylon Arrack a traditional Sri Lankan spirit distilled from the sap of the coconut flower, which can only be collected by hand, and aged in Sri Lankan oak casks. Well, you asked.

It should be said that there’s plenty of fun to be had if you’re just dropping by this long, narrow, stylised industrial digs on Riley Street for a snack. Cruise the ‘short eats’ list, while you graze on murukku, with a crunchy bhuja mix alongside (AUD $6) and consider some smart street food options such as tasty beef or spicy potato pan rolls (AUD $7 each); or hot buttered cuttlefish punched up with turmeric, shallots red onion and chilli (AUD $16).

LFS is another reminder that Sydney is a city of villages. It’s hard to be a locavore when so many unique communities and diverse food cultures thrive alongside each other. So, if you live in Ashfield or Campsie, why not step outside your comfort zone? Come to East Sydney.

Rating: 20/30

How good was the food? 7/10

How good was the wine list? 3/5

What was the service like? 3/5

How was the atmosphere? 3.5/5

Does this place have the X Factor? 3.5/5

Lankan Filling Station

Address: Ground Floor, 58 Riley St, East Sydney NSW 2010

Phone: +61 2 8542 9936

Email: info@lfsfood.com.au

Website: lankanfillingstation.com.au

Open: Dinner Tues-Fri 12pm-10pm; open Sat 10am-10pm; Sun 10am-4pm. Licensed.

Price: Entrees AUD $6-$16; mains AUD $10-$22; desserts AUD $8-$12

Lot. One dining room Lot. One

What a pleasure it is to be visiting the quiet seaside retirement village of Kings Cross on a mid-week night. Those much-loved lockout laws have turned the neighbourhood into a perfect retreat for exhausted Sydney workers escaping the CBD hell. The hell that Premier Berejiklian and her thick-as-wet-cement transport minister have been inflicting on pedestrians, business owners and tourists for too long now.

Anyhoo, it’s a brave restaurant that opens in Potts Point away from the Macleay Street main drag, because the foot traffic in this precinct is way down. And the crowds aren’t as frisky as they used to be. By 8pm more than a few of Potts Point’s senior local residents are snoozing with their dachshunds in front of the TV.

Lot. One was an early émigré from the city’s open-cut quarry nightmare, landing up in the moneyed, elegantly residential Rockwall Crescent. Co-owner Michael Bradley has taken a few souvenirs of the former city location’s eye-catching AUD $5million fit-out with him – some swish lights, a smart zinc-style bar and distressed brick walls. He’s taken the menu philosophy too, which remains international in spirit and direction, and it’s now executed by co-owner and chef Xenia Jade (ex-Jonah’s, Fig Tree – Byron, Saké). The dinner hour begins at a neighbourly 5.30pm and on Saturday and Sunday they’re open for the rest of the day from lunch onwards.

Head chef Xenia Jade with co-owner Michael Bradley. Lot. One

I like the big bay windows looking out on the streetscape, the welcoming red front door and that very classy glass of Ca ‘Del Bosco Franciacorta – Italy’s answer to champagne – on arrival (AUD $18).

No doubt it’s a tough site here and the locals are hard markers, so the chef might need to acclimatise her patrons to some of the more unusually creative items this seasonally-driven menu offers.

On the night we visited, we loved a lush nettle spaghettini with pesto, coral and wood ear fungi, manchego and pine nuts (AUD $24) – fine comfort food – but had to adjust our thinking to a thickly-cut Wagyu MS 5 carpaccio (AUD $18).

“Well-done wagyu comes with a punch in the face,” said Madame Cruella, “but this beef is too marbled for a carpaccio.”

I had to agree.

Don’t wait until the steamed pork buns dry out in a signature dish of steamed pork bun sliders with pulled pork and accompaniments à la Peking Duck (AUD $30) and you’ll find it’s easy to eat, if just a little misconceived. A bizarrely re-imagined, tooth-chilling ‘Turkish Delight’ involving rhubarb & rose gelato, white chocolate crumb, apple, toasted marshmallow, pistachio and fairy floss (AUD $14) seems to confuse childhood and adulthood in a single dish.

On the other hand, there was furious agreement around the table that we’d cross this dangerous construction-zone of a city again, just for Jade’s retro offering of a delicious sticky date pudding (AUD $14), which Madame Cruella helpfully described as a “corset-burster.”

The Lot. One crew are serious about wine and this is good news for the neighbourhood. The by-the-glass choice is thoughtful and priced without greed (2012 Seppelt Private Cellar Shiraz anyone?) and the wine list gives chardonnay the room it deserves.

It remains to be seen, but I hope the locals do the same for this friendly newcomer.

Rating: 17/30

• How good was the food? 6/10
• How good was the wine list? 3/5
• What was the service like? 3/5
• How was the atmosphere? 2/5
• Does this place have the X Factor? 3/5

Lot. One

• Address: 22 Rockwall Crescent, Potts Point, NSW 2011
• Phone +61 2 9539 6830
• Website: www.lot1pottspoint.com.au
• Email: info@lot1pottspoint.com.au
• Open: Tuesday – Sunday dinner from 5:30pm; Saturday – Sunday lunch from 12pm. Licensed
• Price: Entrees AUD $4-$26; mains AUD $25-$49; desserts AUD $14

Ételek restaurant Supplied

When I see people sitting in some edgy pop-up restaurant smugly cradling one of those cloudy wines that smell weird and taste like you’re on a juice cleanse, while willingly submitting to a degustation involving ‘caramelised pumpkin juice’, ‘koji cream’ and ‘raw kangaroo’, I begin to wonder if Sydney’s appetite for courageous dining might have hopped the shark. Throw in a side-order of snark from a ‘team-member’ with esoteric tats called Drew and you start asking big questions of a purposeless universe like “why am I here?”

Happily, when I dined at ételek last week I knew the answer. This pop-up on cosy Roslyn Street, Kings Cross, is unpretentious and the menu borders on fascinating. Adam Wolfers (ex-Bentley, Yellow, Monopole) is presenting Middle Eastern, Jewish, Eastern European and Australian elements in new guises and offering the thrill of tasting them anew. He’s dropping them into an idiosyncratic menu devoid of politics or mission statements (unless you include the category ‘everything bagel’.)

So get ready for fun. Picture the mind that thought up parsnip schnitzel served with hot sauce, labneh and gherkin (AUD $4 pc); or a lovely fermented pancake with ocean trout and dill (AUD $12 pc); and a fresh look at Hungary’s favourite flatbread, lángos, which at ételek is a pneumatic bread balloon puffed up on the griddle, drenched in paprika and served with almonds and cultured cream (AUD $14). High props on the night went to brussels sprouts with a smoky anchovy schmaltz (wow!) (AUD $14) and an elegantly composed fillet of Saddletail snapper with raisins, chickpeas and hazelnuts (AUD $40). Less fun was the nokedli: noodle dumplings served in a sauce the hero ingredient of which was sea urchin, which could have been fresher (AUD $27). On most days a fennel brûlée might have tested my fennel tolerance, but this was unexpectedly, really, good (AUD $12).

Marc Dempsey (left) and Adam Wolfers Supplied

Wolfers’ buddy Marc Dempsey (ex-Universal, 121BC, Cornersmith) can sort you out with a very correct martini and ételek’s wine list is surprisingly approachable, boasting just a few oddities for the wine wonks (yes that’s you), including 2015 Schweiger Zweigelt (a black-fruited beauty not just for Austrian patriots). Dempsey is also in charge of the fit out here, which involves, mysteriously, fluorescent pink duct tape and diaphanous pink curtains. It’s sure to have some folk asking big questions of a purposeless universe such as “Why pink?” But it was Madame Cruella who had the last word, as usual, on the night.

“The most courageous act is to think for yourself. Aloud.” she said.

That’s pretty much the vibe at ételek.

Rating: 20.5/30

• How good was the food? 7.0/10
• How good was the wine list? 4/5
• What was the service like? 3.5/5
• How was the atmosphere? 3/5
• Does this place have the X Factor? 3/5

ételek

• Address: 5-9 Roslyn St Potts Point, NSW 2011
• Telephone: +61 2 8354 0766
• Email: info@etelek.com.au
• Website: www.etelek.com.au
• Open: Wed-Sat from 5pm; Sun from 2pm. Licensed
• Price: Entrees AUD $4-$12; mains AUD $20-$40; desserts AUD$12- $15

Bar Patrón by Rockpool dining room. Rockpool Dining Group

The Midnight Cowboy was back, after a messy exit from Mexico City. It seems the mayor of one of those border towns where the cops mug the tourists, objected to him walking around in skin-tight active-wear that resembled a mariachi costume. And then there was that problem with the daughter of a local cartel lord. Next thing he knew he was being drummed out of Michoacán – quite literally, by a Santeria shaman – with just a guitalele to his name. He almost missed his flight too, when the donkey threw him halfway between Tlalpujahua and Toluca.

We’re perched on a stool at Neil Perry’s latest gig Bar Patrón by the Rockpool Group (how’re those tamales for a double-branded restaurant name). The Midnight Cowboy is pining for Rosa Maria and her fragrant pozole. So, we’ve come in search of an authentic Mexican experience in Sydney.

That was always going to be a challenge. Whenever you’re talking Mexican dining in this city, Mexican is usually placed in quotation marks. With one or two decent exceptions over the years (thank you Gerardo Macip, Phil Bayly, Annette Zubani) it’s been a pestilence of chain-brands, a theme-world of shot bars, dim filament lights and wrestling masks, with the ubiquitous Tex-Mex menu. The aromas, textures and earthy depths of authentic regional Mexican food, haven’t gained much traction here against melted cheese, watery salsas and sour cream.

But now Neil Perry has stepped in with Bar Patrón, a project which, to quote the Rockpool Dining Group blurb, is “a marriage of two internationally renowned and elite brands, Rockpool Dining Group and Patrón.”

Patrón, recently acquired by spirits behemoth Bacardi, markets a line of artisanal tequilas fabricated by the ancient tahona process. So, there’s no point asking for any other brand in your margarita at Bar Patrón.

But what you will find for starters are a couple of, um, treats in form of the ‘millionaire’s margarita’ – a steal at a mere AUD $100 per glass – and the exclusive Patrón Serie 2 tequila, bottled in AUD $10,000 decanters of Lalique crystal, for AUD $990 a shot.

Yes, it’s a bit hard to divine what Chef Perry thinks of this Vegas-style excess, but I do know he’s proud to have brought in Chef Pamela Valdes. Valdes is from Xalapa in the Mexican state of Veracruz, so that’s a good omen for a dining experience which ‘blends authentic and aromatic Mexican ingredients with the finest produce that Australia has to offer’.

Oh, and there’s the 5am licence. This means that those stiff-necked folk who defy the City of Sydney’s diktat to be in their pyjamas by 9:30 pm, can get a cold, sour margy made on fresh lime juice, at 2am from Thursdays to Saturdays. Now that’s progress. Arriba!

Pozole rojo with braised pork and hominy at Bar Patrón by Rockpool Rockpool Dining Group

Chef Valdes is sending out the best pozole in town (AUD $12). This one combines pork, onion, garlic, hominy (softened maize kernels), bay, oregano and chilli, and it has a ragged-edged beauty that no soup, stew or goulash I’ve recently tasted can match.

Neither sour cream nor chilli gets near the hand-pounded Vera Cruz guacamole with house-made corn chips (AUD $14); and Valdes’s tortillas are made fresh every day, wrapped around red rice, cabbage slaw, pickled red onions and served with a lime (AUD $22.5), or they’re filled with marinated flathead, red rice, lime, pineapple habanero salsa (AUD $32.50). It’s no-contest at dessert for the tres leches cake, a traditional flavoured sponge cake, moistened with layers of evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and cream, and frosted with browned meringue (AUD $9). Superb.

I like the Grant Cheyne fit-out at Bar Patrón, with its leather-lined chairs, rustic pine timber, pale handmade Mexican ceramic tiles and long marble bar. It’s no humble taqueria, but the view to trains speeding past on the city-circle line under the Cahill Expressway contributes some realistic Edward Hopper-style downtown anomie.

And while you won’t find a simple chilacayote to drink with your enmoladas con carnitas (pork filled tortillas in a mole sauce) (AUD $22.50), Bar Patrón does offer a range of craft beers and ciders, together with some traditional and refreshing non-alcoholic cocktails such as the virgin ponche de granada / 12 (hibiscus and pomegranate punch with apple and guava) (AUD $12). There’s a focused selection of about 20 red and white wines too, with a slight bias to Spanish.

The Midnight Cowboy pauses briefly, holding his Padrino (reposado, Benedictine, bitters) (AUD $24) up to the light, admiring its amber glints.

“Well, it was the Noche de Muertos amigo,” he tells me, by way of explaining his hasty midnight departure from La Tierra Azteca.

“Isn’t it the Day of the Dead? I ask.

“Usually is. But I renamed it, ‘cause I was one muerto dude if I didn’t vamoose that night.”

Just then I had a spooky vision of skulls, candlelight and a wizened tarot reader with long fake nails and pencil-thin eyebrows, hoarsely whispering “go gringo, go, there are bad spirits everywhere.”

That’s certainly not something you could say about Bar Patrón.

“So I stopped drinking margaritas,” the Midnight Cowboy said.

I looked shocked.

“Said no-one, ever!” he laughed, as he necked it.

Rating: 23/30

• How good was the food? 8/10
• How good was the wine list? 3.5/5
• What was the service like? 3.5/5
• How was the atmosphere? 4/5
• Does this place have the X Factor? 4/5 

Bar Patrón by Rockpool

• Address: 2 Phillip Street Circular Quay
• Telephone: +61 2 9259 5624
• Website: www.barpatron.com
• Open: Lunch and dinner 7 days from noon to late
• Price: Snacks AUD $5-$9; small plates AUD $9-$28; soup AUD $12; empanadas AUD $9.50 (2 per serve); tacos AUD $12-$19 (2 per serve); tortillas AUD $25-$32 (4 per serve); large plates AUD $15-$22.50; desserts AUD $9

Hartsyard dining room Hartsyard

A few years back now, reviewing restaurants for a certain well-known Sydney food guide, I was happy to recommend a chef’s hat award, for the first time, to a quirky niche in Newtown. It was called Hartsyard, it was hard to define, and it hadn’t been trading much more than twelve months. Chef Greg Llewellyn and wife/front-of-house Naomi Hart had created a funky, democratic space that was part-farmhouse kitchen, part LA dive bar; and they really put their customers first.

The menu walks and talks like a vegetarian, without completely claiming the moniker.Back then Hartsyard was different – ahead-of-the-curve, even by Newtown standards. But the big bonus was a fully legit and talented chef. There was always an overlay of technical sophistication that referenced Llewellyn’s backstory of jobs in some big-name US kitchens.

In those days the menu was a battle hymn to Llewelyn’s native USA. He was smashing crunchy deep-fried Southern chicken with sausage gravy and biscuit, smoking husky beef ribs and ramming out oyster po’ boys. There were house-carbonated fruit syrup sodas and a dirty martini that brought you to your knees, whimpering. That fried chicken eventually became a celebrity, with its own star on Enmore Road.

Back-filling all that was what could only be described as massive and addictive desserts, from a holy fool of a pastry chef called Andy Bowden. I remember crazy honeycomb and strawberry cheesecake soft serves, giant pies, and a wicked peanut butter and banana sundae with pretzel ice cream, banana doughnut and salted fudge. This gear obeyed no rules of decorum. At some point the sundae attained immortality.

It’s been a long while since I last visited Hartsyard and the word around town is that Llewellyn and Hart have recently made some seismic changes. And tonight confirms it. The room has been opened up to the street and re-painted white; it’s less noisy and the tables more generously spaced. Pastry chef Bowden has long since departed for the bracing challenges of self-employment. A sibling restaurant called Wishbone is on the way. So far so normal.

But in 2018 the Hartsyard menu has taken a decidedly gnomic turn. I wasn’t expecting to see ‘broccolini, pumpkin seed lave and lemon’ (AUD $12); ‘mushroom creamed kale, Tasmanian wakame butter’ (AUD $25); or ‘chocolate, tahini, ginger, miso and macadamia’ (AUD $18), in this place anytime soon.

Perhaps some more back-story is called for. Hartsyard was certainly rootsy Americana at one level, but Llewellyn’s secret vice was always vegetables and with the new menu he nails his colours to the mast. He’s also brought in Jarrod Walsh, formerly Chef de partie at Automata, to help make it all happen. The menu walks and talks like a vegetarian, without completely claiming the moniker. Everything is designed to be shared, talked about.

I quietly cheered this small dish of deeply resonating, funky shellfish flavours, with the added vinegary crunch for another textural dimension.Standouts tonight are an ultra-fresh Hervey Bay scallop with radish and whipped roe (AUD $7 each); and a tartare of gently-warmed prawn and scampi meat with an intense prawn oil dressing, dressed with some splodges of saffron aioli and tobiko (orange flying fish roe), and schmoosed a bit more with a side of house-made salt and vinegar crisps. (AUD $27). I quietly cheered this small dish of deeply resonating, funky shellfish flavours, with the added vinegary crunch for another textural dimension. Extraordinary.

It’s not the focus but there is some meat protein offered: for us, pork belly on top of a milky-hued fermented brew with ancient origins called koji, served with maple Chinese broccoli and onion soy (AUD $32). This one defies kakuni fantasists like me with fairly dry but definitely tasty belly; while the liquid koji seems to be the real hero, adding aromas of yeast, funk and a fugitive sweetness. A very Japanese-inspired dish that’s easy to love.

Now, who’s wondering what wine to drink with koji (hands up TRR readers)? Yes, well, you’re not on your tod there. Hartsyard’s very smart wine list showcases mostly local boutique, organic and skin-contact producers and there’s plenty worth drinking in the AUD $65 to AUD $75 range. Nearly all wines on the list have a by-the-glass option. The list is stacked with medium-weight reds and whites, which align nicely with the menu.

Tonight we’re not entirely convinced the young Hartsyard staff are able to take the wine and food pairing much beyond a rote spiel, but that’s okay. We already know that the Lee Quinze Arpents sparkling Vouvray (AUD $15 per glass), usually an aperitif wine, with its crisp appley and bready characters, will allow the parsnip custard with apple and buttermilk ice cream (AUD $18), to fly safely.

You can expect to fly safely too, because while Llewellyn and Hart have changed things up at Hartsyard, they haven’t stopped caring about their customers. And if you’re a customer who hasn’t stopped caring about that superstar Southern fried chicken, relax, it will soon have its own show at Wishbone.

Rating: 23/30

• How good was the food? 7.5/10
• How good was the wine list? 4/5
• What was the service like? 3.5/5
• How was the atmosphere? 4/5
• Does this place have the X Factor? 4/5

Hartsyard

• Address: 33 Enmore Rd, Newtown NSW 2042
• Phone: +61 2 8068 1473
• Email: hello@hartsyard.com.au
• Website: hartsyard.com.au
• Open: Dinner Tuesday to Saturday 6pm – 9.30pm
• Price: Small dishes AUD $6-$20; Larger dishes AUD $21 -$32; desserts AUD $18