Ruse, Burger Head, LilyMu: Western Sydney’s hottest chefs and restaurateurs
Many have left behind their kitchens in hatted city restaurants to flex their culinary skills in Sydney’s melting pot. Meet the chefs and restaurateurs bringing the flavour to the west.
Parramatta
Don't miss out on the headlines from Parramatta . Followed categories will be added to My News.
From the shiny Parramatta Square to funky burger joints and wine bars in Penrith, western Sydney is the place to be for some of Australia’s hottest young chefs.
If it weren’t for the pandemic, Brendan Fong would be wowing New Yorkers with Cantonese and modern Australian fusion cuisine instead of feeding diners at LilyMu in Parramatta.
The executive chef, best known for his work at celebrated dumpling restaurant Mr Wong, just wrapped up a three-year stint in London and was about to fulfil a dream to work in the Big Apple when COVID-19 started to spread beyond Asia.
He had already inspecting the midtown Manhattan restaurant, to be called Ms Alice, which he would helm.
“The idea was to take the best thing about Chinese restaurants over here and bring that experience to New York,’’ he said.
“In typical New York style, it just got moving really fast.’’
But COVID was spreading faster and he was soon diverting travel plans.
After forking out $18,000 to return to Australia and enduring stress “I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy’’ Fong returned to Sydney. He was planning to lay low but when he met Ibby Moubadder through a mutual friend, the Nour Surry Hills owner approached him to join his new venture, LilyMu in Parramatta, a drawcard in the domain of the $3.2 billion Parramatta Square redevelopment.
“Initially I didn’t want to commit because I was waiting for New York and I didn’t want to let these guys down and leave a project halfway,’’ he said.
“At the start I thought I would do this to pass the time quickly as something to do and it’s turned into this which has turned into a success.’’
New York’s loss is Sydney’s gain and LilyMu opened at Parramatta in October.
Fong, who grew up in Brisbane before moving to Penshurst in southern Sydney in 2000, is relishing working at Parramatta, where the scorching summers have influenced the menu, which draws heavily on seafood and eliminates pork.
“Of course we have meat on the menu but when I’m sitting in this space (Parramatta Square) I was imagine sitting in the space during summer and kind of went ‘We’d like to eat seafood, it’s pretty light and out in the west, it gets pretty hot’, he said.
“People are tending to go for a lot of pipis with our housemade XO sauce. I didn’t think it would sell that crazy but it’s gone off.’’
The light but more-ish offerings are also suitable for the corporate crowd who are slowly returning to offices and don’t want to be burned by a heavy stomach after a work lunch.
Think kingfish and snapper sashimi, the Tom yum dumplings, which allows room for the butter-smooth lamb curry that is a product of its 24-hour “labour of love’’ cooking process or the black garlic mie goreng.
Head chef Songthum Kumponthanatat’s Thai heritage melds with Fong’s Chinese and Fijian lineage to deliver dishes such as the Pacific Islander snapper ceviche (lemon, lime, coconut juice and taro) that is dressed with fish sauce and chilli.
Though the Manhattan project is still a possibility for May, Fong is appreciative to once again have easy access to Aussie produce.
“It’s great to be in a kitchen in Australia again and cook Australian seafood,’’ he said.
As an 18-year-old apprentice, Fong’s foray was at Jordan’s Seafood Daring Harbour before working at Sobo Bondi, Faveaux Surry Hills and The Lincoln at Potts Point but gained most attention crafting knockout dumplings at Mr Wong, a Dan Hong Merivale Cantonese establishment. He headed a burger restaurant and oversaw a sushi bar in the UK from 2017 but is happy to be behind the wok in Sydney’s west.
“I’ve got family that live out here in Prospect and Glenwood so I was familiar with that area, but I’ve never lived here and especially Parramatta. I’ve been to Parramatta more in three months than all the time I’ve lived in Sydney.’’
For Sydney’s hardcore coffee lovers, and those who make brunch their business, Circa Espresso is a household name. And the man who fitted out the terraced house into a cafe at Wentworth Ave, Parramatta, a decade ago is the respected Aykut Sayan.
“After working many, many years in fine dining restaurants, I was looking for a place where I just wanted to do my own thing,’’ he says.
“I just wanted to do something where I wasn’t being led by anything around me. I just wanted to do something on my own merits.’’
The Auburn-raised Sayan was visiting friends opposite the building when he struggled to find a good coffee. He made it his mission to turn that around and introduce specialist coffee, including blends from Ethiopia and Kenya, to locals.
“Back then in Parramatta no one knew anything about specialist coffee and it was the days of toasties and things like ham and cheese sandwiches, nothing like avocado and toast,’’ he recalls.
Sayan says specialist coffee is a philosophy and about transparency.
“Coffee’s a fruit and should taste like a fruit and it shouldn’t taste like a restricted product,’’ he says.
He explains that Ethiopian beans are bright, berry and citrusy, while Kenyan varieties adopt a “deeper richer jammier, slight tobacco’’ profile.
“You would brew the coffee in a different way. There’s a whole science behind coffee now and no one was used to that here,’’ he says.
The change in palate means most of his customers opt for darker coffees and he says Circa is the only cafe in Parramatta to roast its own beans.
“Before we came it was one out of 20 people do black but now it’s 50/50 so that’s telling of the culture — it’s changing, they’re becoming more discerning, and western Sydney is becoming more and more educated about coffee.
“I think the approach to coffee right now in Parramatta is on par to anywhere else in Sydney.
“My first love is wine but coffee is very familiar because coffee allows everybody to spend a little bit of money, it’s cheap, it allows you to have an experience at a very accessible price.’’
Circa celebrated its 10th birthday in October and hasn’t just survived on fine coffee but a menu that is a creative and boasts the signature dish of Ottoman eggs, inspired by Sayan’s Turkish heritage.
The anniversary has given Sayan, who ran Aqua Dining at Milsons Point and worked at Quay, an opportunity to reflect on Circa’s highlights.
Along with a mission to change the coffee culture in western Sydney, opening the cafe in a terrace was a process that paid off for Sayan.
Not bad for someone with a couple of tools and a deteriorating building.
“The whole idea (of having a cafe in a former terrace) was relatively new to Parramatta so when I did my DA (development application), council did not approve of things like that it and the layout because they wanted the stock standard fit-out,’’ he says.
“But I said to them you can go to Surry Hills, you can go to Melbourne and St Kilda, you can see it works.
“The character of the building allows you to do wonderful things with food and wine and coffee and it makes it more relatable to the people.
“At the moment, with what they’re doing a lot of the places in Parramatta, it lacks the relationship.”
The former engineer is heading back east to open a Caribbean and South American cafe at a boutique hotel in Potts Point but is also working on a plan to open a neoclassical-inspired wine bar in Parramatta, which will always hold a special place in Sayan’s heart.
“Most people I speak to know Circa, whether I’m in Crows Nest or the CBD,’’ he says.
“If they tell me where I’m from, they know. Every specialty cafe place in Sydney would know us.
“Whatever we do, wherever we do, the reflection will be back to Parramatta and Circa … It’s always reflected back to Parramatta. We’re always from Parramatta, always will be.”
IF YOU want to see how far the food scene has evolved in clubs, West HQ shows how the days of the bain marie are long gone.
Last year, the venue formerly known as Rooty Hill RSL Club and affectionately known as the Vegas of the west, opened its $10 million food and dining precinct, with the swanky Chu Restaurant by the same owners of China Doll as its centrepiece.
The new restaurant comes complete with chandeliers, dim lighting, plush interiors and, of course, top notch cuisine.
Coronavirus cut its heyday short but the restaurant is due to reopen in March, with culinary director Jean Philippe Secondis overseeing the operation with his worldly experience that included managing 28 restaurants under the Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai.
Employing Secondis to run West HQ made sense after an accomplished resume that most recently included working at the Sydney Sofitel Darling Harbour as executive sous chef, training under Michelin star chef Richard Ekkebus and working with René Redzepi, chef and co-owner of the two Michelin star and number one restaurant in the world, NOMA.
Also having worked at Panthers, Secondis has seen the a key shift in the club food scene.
“It’s changed on a 360 degrees, I might say, because it’s a growing population and people living out here now have a means to spend,’’ he says.
“They know what they want. When they come out here there’s no limit to spend and they know what they’re eating. We let the produce speak for itself. It’s fresh.
“We changed the whole concept because we were referred to as an RSL, which is fair enough because it’s been established, but the price, the quality of meat we use, the techniques and execution, that’s what makes the big difference.’’
As part of the club’s overhaul, Steak & Co by Sean Connolly attracted chef Terry O’Brien to Rooty Hill, immediately after working as the chef de partie at the one-hatted Greek restaurant, The Apollo in Potts Point, and several establishments including the Hilton Hotel over a 12-year career.
Opening Steak & Co was always going to be a success at Rooty Hill, where those partial to surf and turf are treated to a five-star cuisine in an unpretentious open food court arrangement.
Celebrity chef Connolly’s philosophy on the menu says “everything tastes better on the bone and in the shell, that’s how we roll”.
The rib-eye hangs off the bone in the dryer and ages for six weeks while the marbled wagyu rump steak is slowly cooked for 12 hours before it reaches 54 degrees and is chilled down, cut into 300g portions and cooked further in a broiler.
“It just intensifies the flavour of the meat,’’ O’Brien says.
“It’s just familiar to people out this way. We don’t try to make it complicated.’’
O’Brien, of Jordan Springs, says the club’s eateries such as PizzAperta would not have been around 10 years ago, “or Steak & Co, but now people are craving the better quality restaurants”.
For diners planning to sample Chu when it reopens, it comes with O’Brien’s recommendation. “I dined at China Doll at Woolloomooloo and it was on par with that,’’ he says.
Diners who opt for classic Italian are blessed with authentic pizza at PizzAperta, courtesy of Sicilian-born head chef Antonio Maio, who has been making pizzas since he was 13 when he had a stint in his uncle’s eatery.
Now the 34-year-old is passionate about bringing classic pizzas to the west after starting off at Arte Bianca in Double Bay and The Argyle in The Rocks.
“Making pizza is not that hard, like flour, salt, wheat and yeast but there is a big process,’’ he says.
That includes making dough 18 hours before it hits the oven, making it easier to digest.
“It gets nice and crispy and doesn’t get tough when you eat it,’’ Maio says.
Just like their predecessors who introduced Mediterranean flavours to Australia when they migrated in the 1950s and ‘60s, Maio says a new wave of Italians are now moving abroad and cooking up classic pizzas, with no pineapple in sight.
Serkan Tamcelik is also bringing his expertise to clubs.
For the best part of a decade, the former Parramatta High School student worked the kitchens in some of central Sydney’s finest restaurants and chefs – Quay with Peter Gilmore, Rockpool with Neil Perry and Pier with Greg Doyle.
He had a stint at Wenty Leagues’ Italian restaurant Lucio’s in 2014 and when he made it through as one of six finalists in the national Appetite for Excellence competition last year, it piqued the interest of the club’s former executive chef Colin Yabsley.
Yabsley spruiked the club’s multi-million refurbishment and the new 200-seat a la cart steak and seafood restaurant, Char, to Tamcelik, 31.
He was won over and is now the co-head chef with Caleb Smith at the club with one of Sydney’s largest membership bases.
“I said ‘I want to be part of this’,’’ Tamcelik, recalls.
“It opened my eyes a lot to see you don’t have to travel to the city to have good food. There’s good food at your feet and we’ve got machines and cooking toys every chef dreams of.’’
Tools of the trade include the $80,000 bratt pans, a $30,000 ice cream churner, smokers and deck oven (normally only found in bakeries) that churn out croissants and pastries in the club’s Crave Desserts.
Coronavirus curtailed Char’s foray but is expected to reopen early next year along with the cocktail bar, Envy, an anticipated venue to indulge in an apervito before savouring Tamcelik’s “go-to dish”, the lamb belly, which is chargrilled on the bone and served with labneh, radicchio and chicken herb jus or bone marrow jus.
Seafood includes Queensland Crystal Bay prawns and Merimbula oysters from the NSW south coast.
“I think we’re surrounded by water in Australia, we have such a variety and abundance of it, it would be a sin not to cook with it,’’ Tamcelik says.
The chef of 13 years says his eyes were opened to good Aussie seafood while serving his apprenticeship at Rockpool while working with the passionate Neil Perry, and again at Pier under Greg Doyle’s tutelage.
His three years at Quay were instrumental in his career.
“It’s like the creme de la creme of restaurants,’’ he says.
“Peter Gilmore’s held as a bit of a godfather of cooking. To me it’s one of the best restaurants in Australia, if not the best. You’re not doing it for the money, the name, you do it for the privilege. For me to get a trial there and getting a job there was a highlight of my career. At the end of the service trial you were sweating, you were knackered and can’t believe you made it through.’’
The gig also taught him militant-style discipline.
“Everything has to be 10 out of 10. You approach work differently, you approach it with a different mind. I feel like I’m very organised, I’ve got an eye for detail. The training there has really impacted my future.’’
That professionalism is something he has carried into Wenty Leagues where he is relishing working in his old stomping ground and being part of the food evolution even though he concedes employing staff is a challenge.
“I’ve worked in western Sydney and the city and, in the city, it pays better, there’s tips, there’s more incentives compared to western Sydney where it’s harder but now it’s changing,’’ he says.
“We’ve got (Parramatta Square restaurants) CicciaBella, LilyMu so it’s creating more opportunity for chefs employment wise.
“We started off pretty quiet after the lockdown but up until now it’s been pretty full on.
“Really busy, lots of functions now all the restrictions have lifted it’s getting busier and busier.’’
AT UNCLE Kurt’s, an inconspicuous (until you walk in), pint-sized bar under a multi-deck carpark at Horwood Place, Parramatta, you might expect to find hipsters dominating the venue with graffiti-tagged walls but tradies in high-vis feel just as comfortable sipping bespoke cocktails whipped up by Ruya Can and Kels Tran.
The most popular is the “herbal, sweet, fruity and acidic’’ Kurt’s Flower Girl with spiced blueberry, housemade orange bitters, Cinzano rosso and vodka.
The Penicillin (called so because it’s recommended you take two before pain subsides) features Islay scotch, lemon, honey and ginger, and the photogenic Westside surprises the palate with Kaffir lime-infused gin, sugar snap peas and yellow chartreuse.
“It’s completely different on another spectrum,’’ Can, who previously worked at the Woolpack Parramatta for three years, said.
“I would say Uncle Kurt’s is more of an entertainment area and there’s more customer service. At a pub you get a drink and that’s it but at Uncle Kurt’s people check on you constantly.’’
Other cocktails are not your cookie-cutter variety, with herbal and spirit blends setting it apart from other watering holes.
When George Makram opened Uncle Kurt’s in 2016, recreating a Brooklyn vibe was on the agenda and the simple, Big Apple-inspired food menu complements the tipples.
If you love diner-style food you’re in for a treat with the traditional Reuben (smoked pastrami, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing, coleslaw and pickles on New York-style rye bread) or the Brooklyn bagel (smoked brisket pastrami, Swiss cheese, mustard, house-made sauerkraut, Russian dressing) or the veggie jaffle with Swiss brown mushrooms, shallots, enoki mushrooms, nashi pear, Swiss cheese, cinnamon, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on wholemeal bread).
It’s a menu to make the bar’s namesake, Uncle Kurt, who is a Jewish deli owner in Brooklyn, proud.
YOU know you’re doing well in the barbecue business if vegetarians rock up for a nosh.
“We have vegetarians come and order the chicken maryland,’’ BlackBear BBQ general manager and pitmaster Scott McCoy says.
“They just try the meat and they enjoy it.’’
There’s even a latte sauce, which might not have so much cred if it was whipped up other than the barbecue kings – McCoy, Haydn Graham, Ben Huppatz and Glen Ellis, who debuted Black Bear BBQ in the industrial area of Forge St at Blacktown on Friday nights in 2016.
Families and tradies ensured the business was an immediate hit and there are now branches in Vineyard and Wetherill Park, with 60 employees firing up the barbie with tucker from brisket to burgers.
The key to its winning flavours is the ironbark fuelling the fire and adding a smokey accent, whether it’s on the sweet potatoes or the lamb.
“It’s a nice vintage ironbark which is aged for 15 years,’’ McCoy says. “It gets a low moisture content so it burns longer and has a nicer flavour. A lot of the other woods have a stronger taste.
“It’s a nice mellow taste so it’s not offensive to people.’’
It’s also an extra flavour hit for the popular brisket.
“It’s got a high fat content so once it’s cooked over a period of time the fat breaks down and the meat’s particularly soft,’’ McCoy says. “Fat equals flavour.”
In fact, if it weren’t for brisket, McCoy might still be working as a sales rep.
About five months before BlackBear BBQ opened, he met Huppatz at Pendle Hill Meat Market where he approached him for tips on cooking brisket, based on some facial hair.
“He had a nice beard, it looked like he could make a nice brisket,’’ McCoy recalls.
Huppatz and Graham were formerly builders while Ellis, like McCoy, worked in sales.
Nowadays, those building skills are used to fit-out eateries in BlackBear’s expanding business, such as the one that opened at Wetherill Park last year and a sit-down steak house at Vineyard where a Brazilian parrilla grill will be used alongside the butchery, which just turned one.
The business also mushroomed to sell the sauces it uses to marinade its meats – including the latte sauce, which McCoy says pairs well with all cuts of meat. “It’s sensational,’’ he said.
“It has a nice barbecue taste and then afterwards it has a nice coffee taste.’’
McCoy says barbecuing offers a sense of mateship and is a social form of cooking.
“It’s just exciting cooking low and slow, it’s just good fun, good camaraderie around the barbecue world, and all the Meatstock (festivals) and events we go to,’’ McCoy says.
“Everyone loves what they do so it doesn’t feel like work at the end of the day.
“It’s a big family atmosphere that we have and everyone likes to chat about what they’re doing with their meat and we’re always obliged to talk to everyone.’’
Along with the Central Coast, BlackBear knows it has a winning formula in western Sydney and will open more eateries in Penrith and Campbelltown.
“We’ll stick to the west,’’ McCoy says.
“West is best.’’
ALSO bringing the heat to the west is Josh Deluca and the team from Burger Head, who recently expanded their business with barbecue haunt Gringos at Morley Ave in Kingswood’s industrial area.
Smoked briskets, pork belly, chicken, lamb and sausage are ready to win over a new wave of fans and keep loyal customers who made their initial business, Burger Head, a major success when it opened at Henry St, Penrith, in 2017.
The new kids on the block were an immediate hit, with 500 burgers sold on its debut day and 4000 snapped up in the first week.
“We were prepared to serve 100 a day, maximum,’’ Burger Head co-founder Deluca said.
“That’s what we were mentally prepared for and then it blew out of proportion.’’
A regular customer has even declared his love of the burger joint with some ink.
“We had somebody getting a tattoo of our business, which was crazy,’’ Deluca said.
The fanatic scored a year’s worth of free tucker while another customer has shown loyalty with 50 transactions in half a year.
“There’s definitely some diehard fans which is pretty crazy,’’ Deluca, of Prospect, said.
Deluca and his business partners Richard Borg and Timothy Rosenstrauss might be synonymous with burgers among Sydney’s aficionados but the trio would never have teamed up if it weren’t for their fine dining backgrounds.
Deluca, a former Patrician Brothers College Blacktown student, was inspired to venture into casual dining while living in Sweden and working at a two-star Michelin restaurant, Mathias Dahlgren Matbaren in 2013, after completing his apprenticeship in Sydney.
When he visited the Flippin’ eatery at Stockholm, he was blown away and the business idea was hatched.
He returned to Oz and to work at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Sydney where he met co-founder Borg, of Silverdale.
But starting Burger Head was thrown a barrage of setbacks. Deluca, 21, and Borg, 20, had the know-how in the kitchen but not the business acumen just yet so the plan was sidelined, but not their talent.
Borg took up an opportunity to open a fine diner, Master in Surry Hills, and, keen to get experience in running a business, Deluca joined him, while also studying at university for a business degree in hospitality management and accounting (he still has one more unit before completing that one).
If the pair needed a confidence boost to open their own restaurant, surely Master notching up a chef hat a mere month after opening did the trick.
They met Rosenstrauss at Master and, despite more legal hurdles that almost killed off the idea, Burger Head was born at Penrith in January 2017, followed by food trucks at Bella Vista and Strathfield, where they are still regular features.
The menu has six burgers and is uncomplicated but enticing. Classic cheeseburgers, Angus beef, southern fried chicken and the vegetarian Mike Tyson (smoked, pulled barbecue mushrooms with crispy kale and slaw) are staples.
Specials include the Borat with haloumi, lamb and beetroot.
Along with Master and the Park Hyatt, the trio has worked at hatted restaurants Momofuku Seiobo, Ormeggio and Quay, and Deluca acknowledges it’s the meticulous skills honed in fine dining that set them up for success at Burger Head.
“It’s attention to detail and everything’s really done right,’’ he said.
“A lot of people are learning we make our own pickles and mince our own beef, we make our own sauce.
“The seasoning, the acidity, the way we cut the tomatoes and the way we cut the lettuce and the way we treat the bun. We always make sure it’s piping hot. It’s all these points of difference.
“It’s just a burger but it’s a level of dedication and training we drill into ourselves.’’
That includes sampling buns with too much salt, some with not enough of the seasoning so staff can learn about the ideal amount.
Burger Head is expanding in the southeast with a Botany branch to open in February, while Gringos will keep western Sydney carnivores happy.
These days, Burger Head flips close to 2000 burgers a week, with about 1200 at its Penrith shop and the rest sizzling away on grills on its food trucks.
“I never anticipated loving what we do that much,’’ Deluca said.
He also sees more chefs follow his team’s path from Michelin-star restaurants to working the kitchen in quality fast food restaurants.
“All we’ve got to say Neil Perry went from Rockpool to opening Burger Project.’’
He also sees a promising future for Penrith’s burgeoning dining scene, which in recent years has seen the opening of boutique bars Mr Watkins and Allan Grammar along with refined cafes such as Percy Plunkett and Henri Marc.
Deluca is most impressed with Allan Grammar and is convinced that it would have been a hatted restaurant if it was in Surry Hills.
OF COURSE notching up a hat is welcome for any chef but for Allan Grammar and Henri Marc’s co-founder Sophia Bernecki it’s all about continuing to give the place where she grew up the opportunity to relish the kind of cuisine she used to travel to the city for.
Bernecki, 30, and her now ex-husband Aaron, would make regular treks east for a good nosh, decent coffee and fine dining.
“I think that our goal was never to have a hat or anything like that,’’ the proud Penrith resident says.
“It was more to deliver a product to Penrith that we believed it was missing. I grew up in Penrith and I love Penrith. It wasn’t a business decision for us, we wanted to change the culture of Penrith. We weren’t worrying if it was making money. We were young and a bit naive in that sense.”
When she was 22 and Aaron 24, that calling led them to open Henri Marc’s cafe on Penrith’s main drag of High St.
Grinds included Reuben Hills and Catapult speciality coffee, which they developed a pining for after regular pilgrimages to Surry Hills, and soon signed up Nic Theo to provide the beans.
“We used to drive to Sydney every week to get a coffee because there was nothing good at Penrith,’’ Bernecki said.
“We really believe in the process of ethically-sourced coffees that are looked after from farm to roaster.”
Henri Marc is considered a pioneer on the local food scene with dishes that include classics and creative newcomers such as the caramel toast, or one of the most popular dishes, the chorizo, mushroom and shallots capped with a poached egg and sourdough.
“We just wanted to deliver an all-day menu and we were the first to do that in Penrith as well,’’ Bernecki says.
“That was probably the biggest thing for us. I think we did some things that were experimental but the classics as well. ‘’
The cafe was embraced from its heyday eight years ago, but much to Sophia’s angst, there were some diners who equated cafes to English breakfast fry-ups with no room for semolina porridge with raspberry and almonds, or veggie bowls with miso-roasted pumpkin, corn salsa, hummus, kraut, broccolini, pickles and hummus.
“Some people don’t get it but they’re the same people that will never get it,’’ she says.
“I guess for me growing up in Penrith and opening Henri Marc, there’s a certain sort of client, they don’t want Henri Marc or Allan Grammar.
“I was 22 and I used to cry all the time. I just wanted to make everyone happy, I wanted to make everyone like it but as I get older I just wanted to stay in my lane and do what I love.’’
That lane has room for beverages and in 2018, Allan Grammar, a plush bar with 80 local and international wines ,and six cocktails, opened to give a cosmopolitan touch to the night life at the foot of the mountains.
Just like Henri Marc, the Berneckis wanted to give western Sydneysiders a chance to relish drinks without enduring a two-hour return trip commuting east to venues such as one of their old haunts, 10WilliamSt at Paddington.
Much attention is given to the De Beaurepaire family wines, cultivated on a 53-hectare vineyard in the hills above Rylstone in NSW’s central ranges while the cocktail list is enticing without being overwhelming (the high ball with Tasmanian vodka, Stellacello, lemon and honey looks top notch).
Diners can pair their beers or bubbles with dishes that mirror the imagination of Henri Marc. Mooloolaba tuna tacos, chicken wang sambo with dill pickle and aioli, black opal wagyu rump and charred salad with pomegranate with preserve lemon and pecorino whet the appetite in salubrious surrounds.
Allan Grammar is bedecked in chic but inviting interiors: white walls, parquetry floorboards and upholstered emerald booths.
“I guess the vibe we were trying to generate was more so about culture,’’ Bernecki says.
“I think for us we wanted to create a space where we could come and have a wine before dinner or after dinner.
“The space is very polished but I like to think it’s relaxed.
The wine bar’s title is an inside family joke for Bernecki and her siblings, who were homeschooled from when she was in Year 5 until Year 9 when she left to start TAFE.
Sick of being teased by their peers for not attending a conventional school, they hatched the fictional campus of Allan Grammar, after Allan Rd at Mulgoa, where they lived and hit the books.
And while the jibes about maths might have a degree of truth about them, Bernecki is laughing all the way to the bank now.
“I was so bad at maths at school but now I sit in a meeting with my accountant,’’ she says.
Her resume includes cooking at the acclaimed Restaurant Como in the Blue Mountains and other hatted restaurants she is too modest to mention but her greatest joy is coming full circle in Penrith and seeing its dining scene take off.
“I think that when we opened we wanted to make it easier for people to open spaces in Penrith, so when I here of other places opening it excites me for Penrith. When I see places like Percy Plunkett opening or High Street Depot opening, it’s exciting.
“If you’ve got the ability to do it, it’s probably your calling per se.’’
JUST like fellow Parramatta Square chef Brendan Fong, Jay Rao is using Pacific Islander influences in the newly-opened Ruse Bar & Brasserie. The Fiji Indian has traded outdoor cooking for fancy basque grills to cook whole fish.
“Every dish is something that traces back to my background cooking with wood, cooking on charcoal and spices from the Indian side of me as well,’’ Rao says.
“Growing up we used to do a lot of cooking underground.’’
The North Rocks 30-year-old has returned to the western suburbs to flex some creativity in his backyard after being the sous chef at hatted Newport restaurant Bert’s Bar and Brasserie, a Merivale venue where seafood abounds.
The owner of Ruse, John Vissaritis, who also owns the neighbouring Threefold Pastry and Harvey’s Hot Sandwiches, enticed Rao to head west.
A couple of years ago, Rao drove from the northern beaches after his shift to the under-construction Parramatta Square at 10pm and that was it. He was sold.
“I was looking at something where I could be the head chef and sink my teeth into,’’ Rao says.
“I think it was just the idea of Parramatta and what hasn’t been done in Parramatta before. Because I’m a local, when I think of Parramatta, there’s nothing like this.’’
Ruse, named after convict James Ruse, who became a well-known wheat and maize farmer in Parramatta after he was the first person in NSW to receive a land grant from Governor Arthur Phillip gave in 1791, has made its Parramatta Square debut with aplomb, as if it has been a local haunt for decades.
Rao’s expert touch is enhanced with handmade breads, pastas, and charcoal-kissed meat and fish sourced from NSW seas and farms and into the 360-degree charcoal oven.
‘Cultural capital’: Sydney’s west over the moon with Lunar events
Thousands are ready to flock to Sydney’s west where Lunar New Year celebrations have kicked off in the city’s “cultural capital”. Find out how you can ring in the Year of the Snake.
‘No one wants to be filmed’: Lewd-photo accused’s beach ban
The 63-year-old man arrested at Bronte Beach on Australia Day after allegedly taking lewd photos is accused of similar acts in Parramatta and Coogee.