From Liverpool food trucks to caviar bumps: The best and worst of the food and restaurant year in Sydney that was
From $20 pies to food trucks, caviar bumps, saying goodbye to old favourites and hello to new tastes: The best and worst of the food and restaurant year in Sydney.
Confidential
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In years to come, when we look back at this year in Sydney’s food and hospitality scene, will we remember how remarkably restaurants recovered after two years of lockdown? Or how we lost an icon, with the closure of late night hotspot Frankie?
Probably not.
Instead we will probably remember it as the year Tik Tok told us to serve smooshed butter on a board and how some of us, stupidly, did it.
THE BEST OF 2022
SYDNEY’S BEST RESTAURANT
One of our favourite ironic toasts has long been “we may not always get what we need, so long as we don’t get what we deserve.” Well, this year Sydney got both, and in an entirely non-ironic way.
Oncore, high up the Crown tower, may not serve everyday food (we’re saving our swear jar money for another trip next year) but it is absolutely world class cuisine, service, and decor brought to us via the good offices of London chef Claire Smyth.
The Mouth’s best of the year.
THE FOOD TRUCK WE SENT VIRAL
In a field on the side of a road in Denham Court lies a food truck that is serving some of the best Italian food in Sydney. Buon Appetit is the passion project turned thriving business of the Vitagliano family.
Matriarch Rosa serves up the “antique” style Italian food alongside her husband Joe and their children Ben and Mara. Sydney responded to Kitchen Confidential’s August story about the family, with them serving over 400 customers a night with lines 100s of metres long.
However, the customers have come at an expense. It’s understood nearby residents have complained about the increased traffic to the area and Liverpool Council have threatened to remove the families tables, chairs and gazebo.
Son Ben said the family will fight the matter in court in March, and in the meantime, they are making plans to open their own restaurant.
However, for those who prefer Turkish to Italian, Campbelltown’s King Kebab House became a hotspot for Kitchen Confidential readers after our May story declared they served the best kebabs in the Western World.
THE ‘NEW SIMPLICITY’ RESTAURANTS
While we love a big slap-up feed, with the times being what they are wretched excess seems less and less the go. Which is why we love dining out at an increasing number of restaurants that are all about the food and the fun, rather than expensive multi million dollar fit-outs whose interest payments are built into every dish on the menu.
Some of our favourites are long-stayer Bar Vincent in Darlinghurst, the upstairs private room at Woollahra’s Wine Library, and the elegant simplicity of the new Strand bistro on William Street.
THE $20 MEAT PIE THAT’S WORTH EVERY CENT
In a year marked by cost of living pressures, there are still some things that Sydneysiders are happy to spend a lot of money on. And that’s the perfect meat pie.
Lodes Pies and Pastries on Crown Street serve up a $20 pithivier which has caused a frenzy. A pithivier is basically the French version of a pie, although much more labour intensive. This one is filled with beef brisket, shiitake and has a chimney where a decadent chicken jus (or gravy!) is poured down into the filling.
It has to be tasted to be believed. So we did. The stakes were (with apologies) ... pie. Journalist William Tyson lined up the humble Four’N Twenty, a 7/11 servo classic, and the $20 LuMi Pithivier meat pie to see if the luxe variety passed the taste test. Spoiler. It did.
The pie wasn’t the only fast food that became fine dining in 2022. More than 20,000 people signed up for the world first, 11-course KFC degustation by famed Sydney chef Nelly Robinson which attracted global attention.
THE HUMBLE CLUB GETS A GLOW UP
From Mona Vale Surf Club installing a top chef to West HQ’s Chu by China Doll making a run for best restaurant in Sydney, the humble (RSL/Surf/sport) club has been given a glow up in 2022 and people are loving it.
Celebrity Chef Colin Fassnidge’s takeover of The Castlereagh has brought the crowds. While the dominance of chicken schnitzel at clubs across NSW has come to an end with a vegetarian dish, from Cabra Vale Diggers, voted the number one dish in the state by the public in the Perfect Plate awards.
KEITH MCNALLY’S INSTAGRAM
He may post from 15,000km away, but we reckon New York restaurateur Keith McNally’s Instagram account is the foodie and hospo social media account of the year.
Why? Quite simply, he says the quiet part loud about life at his super-successful and super-fun Manhattan outposts which include Balthazar, Pastis, and Minetta Tavern.
While the reports filed by his managers and maître d’s are entertaining and are a great peak at life behind the scenes, it is when he takes out after celebs behaving badly that he really comes alive. Who can forget the James Corden storm in a restaurant teacup scandal!
Thank heavens for Keith McNally – and the US’s First Amendment, which keeps him safe from what would be defamation lawyers at ten paces in Sydney.
THE WORST OF 2022
THE CAFE THAT BECAME A KITCHEN NIGHTMARE
The owner of Homebush Cafe de Vie, Virginia Cheong, went on the Channel 7 reality show Kitchen Nightmares hoping it could rescue her struggling business. Instead, as she told Kitchen Confidential, she claims she lost business because customers thought her restaurant was “a joke” after the show rebranded it to Cafe Tabouli.
The front page story went viral with many quick to help and also criticise Cheong, including Fassnidge who told Cheong she needed to take responsibility for her restaurant woes.
However the public support has helped Cheong create a cocktail menu for the restaurant and she’s keeping with the Lebanese cuisine, working on a fusion menu with four different tabouli.
LUXE RESTAURANT CLOSES OWING MORE THAN $1.8M IN RENT
When one door closes, another one opens for Mark Richerdson, the owner of Barangaroo Italian restaurant and emporium, Bel & Brio. In November, Kitchen Confidential broke the news that the corner restaurant had dramatically had its doors locked after failure to pay rent, leaving customers and staff stranded.
Confirming the closure, Richerdson said up to $1.8m was owed in rent over two years. “It is a shame for the staff but I’ve lost the most. I’ve lost 8 years and $11 million,” he said.
That wasn’t the last to be heard of Richerdson. Despite declaring he would never get into the hospitality game again, Richerdson’s company, Kings Experiences, is providing entertainment at the reopening of Arq nightclub.
BUTTER BOARDS
What is it with humans and their bizarre desire to eat things off wood? Over the years we have seen smallgoods on a plank (a.k.a. a “charcuterie board”) became the hallmark of bougie-ness, and once were even served pancakes and syrup on a flat slab of wood at a cafe in Leichhardt. Predictable stickiness ensued. But all this pales in comparison the bizarre “butter board” trend that kicked off in 2022, which we thought was a joke but apparently is a real thing where people cover a chopping board in smears of butter, top it with a bunch of other nonsense, and then serve it people they allegedly care about. New year’s a-coming, can we stop this please?
CAVIAR BUMPS
On the one hand, we hear that lots of people are doing it tough, are being punished by their mortgages, and won’t be able to afford to keep the lights on next year. On the other, we keep reading about – and occasionally encounter – menus where guests are encouraged to spend $40 or $50 on a caviar bump, i.e. a spoonful of fish eggs sucked off the bit of their hand where a tequila shot’s salt normally goes, followed by an equally extortionate slug of icy cold vodka. We get it, we are no puritans, and can see how this is fun and extravagant.
But it’s now gotten so overexposed that it is really just a vulgar way to show off one’s income. No wonder it’s so popular in Sydney.
END OF THE FRANKIES ERA
The closure of Hunter St hot spot Frankie’s Pizza By The Slice in December was among one of the worst moments of the year. However, the way Sydney marked the passing was among one of the most glorious moments of 2022.
After ten years serving Sydney, the late night haunt which was home to everyone from politicians and businessmen after a late drink and a bite to stars, grungy live music devotees and those just desperate for a nightcap closed its doors on Sunday December 11th to make way for a metro line. But before that happened, lines of over 200 people waited at 4pm for its doors to open, thousands of dollars worth of merchandise was sold and people even attempted to loot the premises.
This year, Sydney also said goodbye to institutions like Stanbuli, The Sausage Factory. But on the more positive side, we also welcomed back the arrival of Arq, The Abercrombie and the relaunch of Icebergs and Toko.
CLOCK-WATCHING RESTAURANTS
Look, we get that everyone has to earn a living and the golden rule of restaurants is to turn tables as much as possible.
But it has really gotten a bit much when we find ourselves fending off huffy waitstaff 100 minutes into a meal because they need the table for the next booking in another 20 minutes.
Particularly when we’ve been making a red-hot assault on the wine list. Closely related to this is the phenomenon where we have to book everything including tables at the pub, killing spontaneity.
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