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Bentley duo’s majestic new two-hatted venue Brasserie 1930 hits the heights of luxury and quality

Terry Durack
Terry Durack

Luxury by the metre: The dining room is all about high comfort and splendid surroundings.
1 / 9Luxury by the metre: The dining room is all about high comfort and splendid surroundings. James Brickwood
Go-to dish: Whole roasted duck to share.
2 / 9Go-to dish: Whole roasted duck to share.James Brickwood
Flinders Island scallop with brown butter and finger lime.
3 / 9Flinders Island scallop with brown butter and finger lime.James Brickwood
Seasonal vegetable tart.
4 / 9Seasonal vegetable tart.James Brickwood
O’Connor’s 400g bone-in sirloin.
5 / 9O’Connor’s 400g bone-in sirloin.James Brickwood
Coral trout with potato-yoghurt puree.
6 / 9Coral trout with potato-yoghurt puree.James Brickwood
Brown sugar tart served with figs.
7 / 9Brown sugar tart served with figs.James Brickwood
Brent Savage (left) and Bentley Group’s Nick Hildebrandt.
8 / 9Brent Savage (left) and Bentley Group’s Nick Hildebrandt.Kristoffer Paulsen
Leather banquettes, marble tiles and brass-bound tables result in a pretty grand brasserie.
9 / 9Leather banquettes, marble tiles and brass-bound tables result in a pretty grand brasserie.Dominic Lorrimer

Good Food hatGood Food hat16/20

French$$$

They call this part of town the Sandstone Precinct due to the abundance of magnificent buildings hewn from Sydney’s favourite golden stone. They may have to refer it to in future as the Leather, Marble and Whole Roasted Duck Precinct instead.

Now that the high-end hotel Capella Sydney has moved into the heritage-listed former Department of Education building, with its mesmerising collection of Australian paintings and lighting installations, towering ceilings and indoor swimming pool, there’s sheer bloody luxury by the metre.

Colonising the ground floor corner is a restaurant overseen by Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt of Sydney’s celebrated Bentley Restaurant Group, with light spilling in through tall steel-framed windows that face onto Bridge and Young streets.

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They call it a brasserie, but it’s a pretty grand brasserie, with its leather banquettes, marble tiles, brass-bound tables and glorious floral displays. Walk in, and you will immediately feel underdressed, among the gleaming elegance of the smoky mirrors, burnished ice buckets and subtle brasserie lamps. The word majestic springs to mind.

So it’s not as if they can just send out a sausage roll.

Go-to dish: Whole roasted duck to share, $190.
Go-to dish: Whole roasted duck to share, $190.James Brickwood

Brent Savage and head chef Niroshan Richards call the food “classic brasserie with an Australian spin”, which is cute but not necessarily helpful.

A classic move such as a vegetable tart, for instance, is crisp, buttery pastry holding a pretty composition of salt-brined daikon, roasted and raw yellow squash and fresh breakfast radish. They perch on wattleseed curd, with chervil and dill peeping out as if they had grown there. Fresh and delicate, it’s like a wander through the kitchen garden.

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The lavishness is bolstered by linen napkins, rough-hewn charger plates and uniformed waitstaff with that attentive but not servile manner that Australia does so well.

Amid such riches is richness. Flinders Island scallops ($38) are sauced on the half-shell, spliced with nectarine and topped with scarlet finger lime and pickled wakame - spiked mouthfuls of luxury.

Flinders Island scallop with brown butter and finger lime.
Flinders Island scallop with brown butter and finger lime.James Brickwood

Spaghetti alla chitarra with spanner crab ($52) is richly sauced and garnished with fat lobes of sea urchin, but at what point is something just too rich?

Glazed quail ($38) is cleverly imagined as two halves resting on whippy feta with a gorgeous green olive salsa, and a lovely fillet of steamed coral trout ($68) sits serenely on a pillow of potato yoghurt puree with grilled pencil leeks in attendance.

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They call it a brasserie, but it’s a pretty grand brasserie, with its leather banquettes, marble tiles, brass-bound tables and glorious floral displays.

The room acts as a brasserie in that people use it in different ways. Two women order the signature dish of roast Tathra Place Maremma duck ($190) with a bottle of pinot noir, and demolish both (that’s an entire duck, by the way, with crisp-skinned breast, neck sausage, roasted plum, fennel, spinach and glazed eschalot).

Corporates order Yarabah’s F1 wagyu 250-gram rump cap, O’Connor’s 400-gram bone-in sirloin or Coppertree Farms 600-gram rib-eye grilled over ironbark, and cover the table with all four sides – leaf salad, green beans, roast Andean potatoes and fries.

Cooked precisely to the rare side of medium rare and served sliced next to its bone, the sirloin ($85) is a big serve for one but delivers long flavour and a relaxed chew.

Luke Curry’s juicy 2021 Banjo pinot noir ($110) from the Mornington Peninsula is equally classy and long-flavoured – and tastes even better when you are aware it’s named for his dog. Hildebrandt ensures the wine lover can go from the rare and unique to a more approachable focus on newer wine-makers (and their vineyard dogs).

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Desserts are classic, with a wedge of expertly made brown sugar tart served with figs ($24), and there is a rather grand trolley of cheeses ready to roll if you are.

Brown sugar tart served with figs.
Brown sugar tart served with figs.James Brickwood

It’s an interesting move for the Bentley team. With its splendid surroundings, high comfort and signature duck dish, Brasserie 1930 aligns more with the city’s other grand brasserie, The Charles, than it does with its own high-art Bentley restaurant or jazzy Monopole wine bar.

One more of this ilk, and we’ll have to call the CBD the Grand Brasserie Precinct instead.

The low-down

Drinks: Wines go high and deep, international and local, with a rotating by-the-glass list from Bentley Wine Vault.

Vibe: Hitting the heights of comfort, luxury and quality

Go-to dish: Whole roasted duck to share, $190

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Terry DurackTerry Durack is the chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and Good Food.

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Original URL: https://www.theage.com.au/goodfood/sydney-eating-out/bentley-duo-s-new-two-hatted-venue-brasserie-1930-hits-the-heights-of-luxury-and-quality-20230328-p5cw12.html