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Prime

Prime

REVIEW At Prime, the cavernous steakhouse set within the GPO, things are done on a grand scale. As you step through the colossal arched entrance and follow the red carpet to your linen-draped table, it’s clear size is the key player here (the height of the menu is just the start) and prices follow suit. […]
Cinco Bistro

Cinco Bistro

REVIEW Suburban standout Cinco keeps its loyal clientele returning for more by offering generous portions and familiar-sounding dishes, albeit often with an adventurous twist. A deftly balanced entrée of prawn gnocchi with brown butter and goat’s curd arrives studded with raisins, adding an unexpected yet welcome sweetness. Pork belly braised in master stock shares a […]
Otto Ristorante

Otto Ristorante

REVIEW Here’s a spot for sun-drenched lunches fuelled by white-peach Bellinis and bright antipasti. The glow of Otto’s egg lamps has long drawn Sydney’s glitterati, who flock here for the cashed-up marina vibe, snappy service and sensuous riffs on traditional Italian fare. There’s polish in Richard Ptacnik’s pasta offerings, as in twists of strozzapreti with […]
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Guillaume

Guillaume

REVIEW Double-clothed tables. Framed Matisse drawings. Thirty-five-dollar glasses of Bordeaux. Fellow diners who begin their sentences with the phrase, “So I get a call from the ambassador…” Yes, Guillaume is every inchthatrestaurant. The sommelier will have a European accent, the other staff will be quietly competent if not exactly engaging. The same could be said […]
Glebe Point Diner

Glebe Point Diner

REVIEW If we’re brutally honest, Glebe Point Road’s status as an eat street rests more on the quantity of its outlets rather than the quality. But Glebe Point Diner stands tall among the handful of exceptions to the rule, a bistro with the sort of local charm that has near-universal appeal. The mild eccentricity of […]
Glass Brasserie

Glass Brasserie

REVIEW The cavernous glass and steel-framed space bustles with business folk hepped up on one of Sydney’s most voluminous and finely wrought wine lists, dipping into the broad menu that skitters from raw to grilled while touching on tapas and leaning heavily on seafood. For an entrée, try grilled sardines, crunchy and lightly charred, finished […]
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Catalina

Catalina

REVIEW One could assume that a restaurant so well located might rely on its good looks to get by. Not so. The views of Rose Bay may be seductive, but the food is equally commanding. Seafood is the star, as an entrée of seared scallops with a tiger prawn and snapper brandade, leek purée, seaweed […]

Bodega

REVIEW Bodega in one word? Swingin’. The tunes. The skirts. The tapas and share plates making their way from the open kitchen, carried by some of the friendliest waitstaff in town. The energy is infectious. Slide into a baby-blue leather banquette and peruse the strictly Latin wine list while well-coiffed chefs build queso fresco towers […]
Azuma

Azuma

REVIEW There are plenty of Japanese restaurants in Sydney, but not many truly evoke the feeling of dining in Tokyo in the same way as Azuma. The corporate location, sophisticated, dark-tinted interior, Japanese artworks on the walls and perhaps Sydney’s best tempura more than set the scene. There’s a tasting omakase menu, but it’s not […]
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Bar of the year 2008: Der Raum, Richmond, Vic

Bar of the year 2008: Der Raum, Richmond, Vic

It’s no big deal to meet a bartender who’s also an actor or a would-be singer-songwriter. Bartender-artists are a rarer breed, though, and finding someone active in the arts who is working in a bar not so much as a sideline to support themselves but as a dual profession or indeed another form of artistic […]
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Sommelier of the year 2008: Simon Curkovic, Catalina, Rose Bay, NSW

Sommelier of the year 2008: Simon Curkovic, Catalina, Rose Bay, NSW

One of Simon Curkovic’s favourite words is ‘fun’. He uses it when he tells you how he regularly introduces adventurous diners at Catalina restaurant to the wine world’s more obscure bottles (“drinking something different is great fun”). Tellingly he also uses the F-word when talking about the great older-vintage Burgundies at the heart of Catalina’s […]
Regional restaurant of the year 2008: Nu Nu, Palm Cove, Qld

Regional restaurant of the year 2008: Nu Nu, Palm Cove, Qld

Among the many things we love to love about Nu Nu is the way in which it’s good all day long. With Jason Rowbottom from Punch Lane on the floor and Pearl’s Nick Holloway running the kitchen, it’s like a little piece of Melbourne’s scene gone troppo: diverse influences unified by a kitchen that offsets […]
New restaurant of the year 2008: Rockpool Bar & Grill, Melbourne

New restaurant of the year 2008: Rockpool Bar & Grill, Melbourne

There’s always been another side to Neil Perry; a side that wasn’t Chinese roast pigeon with prawn-stuffed eggplant. And that side was steak with horseradish cream, pappardelle with duck ragù, confit of suckling pig with mustard fruits and a nice little apple and rhubarb crumble. In short, Rockpool Bar & Grill, his remarkably accomplished and […]
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Best new talent 2008: Ben Shewry, Attica, Ripponlea, Vic

Best new talent 2008: Ben Shewry, Attica, Ripponlea, Vic

Ben Shewry exhibits refreshing characteristics for a young chef, not the least being the credit he gives his mentors for their part in a brief, yet brilliant, career: his first boss, back in New Zealand and his culinary school teachers; his first serious chef, the decorated Swiss-New Zealander Mark Limacher, for a gruelling work ethic […]
Restaurant of the year 2008: Pier, Rose Bay, NSW

Restaurant of the year 2008: Pier, Rose Bay, NSW

Judging three-star restaurants is a funny business. Do you go in and just sit and wait to be wowed? Or do you work backwards, clipping points back from a perfect score and see who’s left at the end? Whichever way you choose to look at things, Pier comes up trumps. Speaking personally, I visited every […]
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Quay, Sydney restaurant review

Quay, Sydney restaurant review

If three stars weren’t enough, Peter Gilmore’s food at Quay has risen higher yet with a new degustation menu – and the views still rock.
Gingerboy, Melbourne restaurant review

Gingerboy, Melbourne restaurant review

Teage Ezard’s funky and fun Asian spin-off, Gingerboy, goes beyond the usual wok-mongers – it’s Thai, Malaysian and Chinese street fare with a style all its own.
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Fratelli Paradiso, Sydney restaurant review

Fratelli Paradiso, Sydney restaurant review

A bastion of Italian restaurant culture and more Melbourne than Sydney in style, Fratelli Paradiso is a place where locals come for the ever-charming waiters as much as the gutsy food.
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Three Weeds, Sydney restaurant review

Three Weeds, Sydney restaurant review

We raise a glass to chef John Evans, who has crossed the Harbour Bridge to take over the kitchen at Rozelle’s Three Weeds, cooking the kind of assured food the city’s better pub bistros are built on.
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Nobu restaurant review

Nobu restaurant review

Nobu Melbourne has arrived at Crown and it’s rollicking good times whether on a budget or a blow-out.
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