The Sydney restaurant where the power players eat

It’s a colourful clientele at Blue Angel: Business leaders, gangsters, rock stars, Hollywood heavyweights, clued-up international visitors. Marcello Marcobello has flambéed lobster for them all.

Oh boy, if these walls could talk.

Blue Angel owner Marcello Marcobello has seen it all in his 61 years in the restaurant business.

“It is an institution,” Marcobello tells Kitchen Confidential. “We’ve had three ex Prime Minister’s here, and many colourful people.”

Marcobello’s late father opened Blue Angel on Palmer Street, Darlinghurst, in 1961.

The family lived at the back of the restaurant that remains one of the hottest tickets in town and attracts everyone from business leaders to gangster, as well as Hollywood star Burt Lancaster and late boxer and activist Muhammad Ali. The guys from the band KISS have also been in.

“I won’t say I would go to jail but it would be very interesting,” Marcobello mused about the colourful stories the eatery has seen.

“As a restaurateur, you are part of the service industry that has to welcome everyone.

The famed lobster tank at Blue Angel in East Sydney. Picture: Jeremy Piper

“I don't ask anyone when they come through the door what they do for a living. We have entertained people here that were a little colourful and you have to duck and weave a little bit but that is the end of it. It is the old part of Darlinghurst and we’ve had certainly our share of diners who were very colourful.”

Blue Angel is known for its spectacular array of lobsters with giant tanks stationed throughout the restaurant. It has a large Chinese Australian clientele as well as visiting internationals that seek out the locale.

Flambe – the process of adding alcohol to a hot pan to create a burst of flames – is a great passion for Marcobello too as he wheels out a cart and performs for diners.

Steak Diane and Crepe Suzette are among his specialities.

“Back in those early years, table cooking was very much part of either a nightclub or a restaurant scene,” he said. “And I still keep the tradition ongoing. I cook some lobsters at the table. It is also the taste it gives to certain dishes. Little things we do here at the table brings back the old traditions.”

Originally published as The Sydney restaurant where the power players eat