Machiavelli Ristorante: Delicious taste of power is always on the menu at Clarence St institution

MACHIAVELLI Ristorante is Sydney’s ultimate testosterone temple, where the whiff of male entitlement combines with the heady aroma of rich Italian food and full-bodied cab savs.

AMY HARRISFood critic

2 min read

March 27, 2016 - 12:00AM

The Sunday Telegraph

IT'S a weird thing when lunch turns into a day at the theatre. And so it was, last week, at Machiavelli Ristorante, Sydney’s ultimate testosterone temple, where the whiff of male entitlement combines with the heady aroma of rich Italian food and full-bodied cab savs.

Of course you could fill 10 columns with stories of this fabled Clarence St haunt, favoured by the media and political elite for 30 years and the scene of many a corporate takeover or political coup.

Though it’s recently changed hands, one of the most-famous Machiavelli hallmarks — its collection of power portraits taken by stinking rich media buyer/closet photographer Harold Mitchell — still remains.

New owner of Machiavelli restaurant, Nicholae Bicher. Picture: John Fotiadis

In fact, aside from a few tweaks to the interiors the restaurant experience has remained relatively unchanged in general — apparently deliberate on behalf of new owner Nicholae Bicher who, wisely, anticipates that the venue’s old school titans are creatures of habit.

Proof of that is the table structure at the restaurant. There’s a Channel 7 table which is located, funnily enough, underneath a dapper portrait of its owner Kerry Stokes.

Then the Nine table nearby, plonked under — you guessed it — portraits of James and Kerry Packer.

“They keep those tables free every day for those networks,” my lunch companion informs me, himself a bit of a Machiavelli regular.

And no sooner had the words come out of his mouth, Stokes — decked out in the same suit he wears in his portrait, down to the pocketchief and Australia Club membership pin, sweeps past us and is seated at his usual spot.

Weird! My interest was primarily on what dishes are ordered, as years of writing about the rich and famous have taught me they are often oddball eaters. As if on cue, Stokes begin eating a single strawberry with a knife and fork in a moment straight out of a Seinfeld re-run.

Prosciutto and salami plate.

At a nearby table, two women with a high wine tolerance and low necklines are craning to catch the eyes of a future husband — with one even overheard to say she might “walk past Kerry’s table’’.

As a former gossip-turned-food writer I can’t tell you how much I am eating this up.

So much so that the task at hand — to review the food — becomes a bit of an annoying distraction. But of course Machiavelli is less about the food and more about the lesson in political and business theatrics going on around you.

The caprese salad.

As for the food — still overseen by long-time chef Giovanni Toppi — it’s pretty super. Our caprese salad is autumn on a plate, and the paper-thin sheets of sweet San Daniele prosciutto are piled high.

A heaping bowl of duck ragu with fusilli — a special — is rich and decadent and turned through a delicious red-wine sauce; the pillow-soft gorgonzola gnocchi even better, swimming in thick cheesy goo.

Our waiter highly recommends the John Dory and he’s on point — the fillets are juicy and tender and are perfectly teamed with subtle sides of potato, creamed spinach and sauteed carrots.