Simon Wilkinson reviews Billy’s Table

HOLLYWOOD producers get your chequebooks ready, for here is a tale with all the elements found in a feel-good film script.

HOLLYWOOD producers get your chequebooks ready, for here is a tale with all the elements found in a feel-good film script.

Our hero is a hard-working chef who, after getting a start in a humble suburban cafe, goes on to fame and fortune, cooking for royalty and opening restaurants around the world. Returning home, he discovers that the street where it all began has fallen on hard times, so comes to the rescue by opening an eatery he hopes will turn around the fortunes of the local community.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of Billy’s Table, which opened in Queen St, Croydon, at the end of last year. Is it all too good to be true? Can our hero win over the cynical reviewer? Does it have a happy ending? Please read on.

The chef in question is Billy Petropoulos, whose connection to the area goes back to his first foray into a professional kitchen, a decade back at the Queen St Cafe. Back in Adelaide after a global jaunt through Europe, Asia and the US, he opened the Boneshaker Cafe at an indoor skate park, a concept he has since taken to China.

Interior at Billy's Table

All of which seems a long way from Queen St, a bohemian little pocket of the inner-west that has long been on the radar of people whose dining aspirations haven’t necessarily been matched by their budgets.

For the past few years, however, major roadworks have disrupted business, a factor in the well-publicised downfall of popular Red Door Bakery and the adjacent Croydon Social, run by the same owners.

It’s the latter space that Billy’s Table has taken over, with little noticeable adjustment to the knocked together, DIY-style interior, which isn’t a bad thing. Too many lights, or too much glitz, would never have fitted in.

The dining room is a squeeze and getting a table inside, even with a booking, can be a challenge. Service leans more towards happy and helpful than super-professional but, with plenty of goodwill on all sides, it seems to work.

The whole concept, in fact, comes across as quite practical and generous, based on feeding local families and bunches of mates the kind of things they’d cook at home if they could be bothered.

Sardines at Billy's Table

At lunch, big plates of meats and veg are laid out for diners to build their own meal. Dinner is a more traditional menu. Either way, everything is given a boost from being cooked in a wood oven which, like the decor, was already in place. It means the pizzas we watch heading to other tables look suitably puffed and pock-marked with char. And the whole heads of cauli with almond sauce are black as a bowling ball.

Even a little dish of green olives has felt the heat, a few of them starting to shrivel, their orange and fennel dressing warm and fragrant. So have five sardine trunks, lined up like soliders, with a chunky chopped tomato salsa scattered over the top, a pool of aioli and a few pearls of finger lime. If only the little fish had been pulled out a few minutes earlier, so their flesh hadn’t become dry.

Octopus tentacle curls across the plate as if grasping for the little discs of chorizo and fried potato slices around it. Poached slowly before finishing in the oven, it is meaty and juicy at one end, tapering gradually to a shrivelled tip, all fantastic eating when doused in lemon and wiped through the paprika-stained oil from the sausage.

A mega bowl of mussels has been tossed with the larger Israeli couscous in a mildly spicy tomato broth. It’s strange that so many of the shells are shattered – a brutal stirring style perhaps – but, once opened, most contain a neat package of seafood and couscous pearls.

Lunch selection at Billy's Table

A turmeric rub gives the skin of the roast chicken an extra golden glow and it is cooked beyond reproach, with breast and thigh just so. However, with more tomato salsa and a few microherbs the only real accompaniment, it’s lucky the veg sides are so good, particularly blistered green beans with orange, hazelnut and a tangy herb dressing, and an eggplant half, roasted until its insides have turned to moosh, blanketed in yoghurt, pistachios and pomegranate.

Dessert lets the side down a bit, a pavlova more like dry meringue, with none of the chewy or marshmallowy bits that make it special. At least the crimson puree of poached rhubarb hits the right notes.

Billy’s Table is the kind of eatery most neighbourhoods would be grateful for. Look out for a sequel coming soon.

 

 

BILLY’S TABLE

16/18 Elizabeth St, Croydon

8340 8904 , billystable.com.au

OWNER/CHEF Billy Petropoulos

FOOD Contemporary

SNACK $9-$14

SMALL $16-$23

MAIN $23-$39 (for two)

DESSERT$6.50-$8.50

DRINKS List of local and imported wines has more depth than you might expect

OPEN BREAKFAST Sat-Sun,

LUNCH and DINNER Tue-Sun

TOTAL: 13/20