Restaurant review: Mercado

Mercado, one of Sydney’s hot new restaurants, serves peasant food at middle-class prices.

JOHN LETHLEAN

2 min read

12:00AMJuly 09, 2016

Jamon, jamon: Mercado takes pride in its cured meat and in-house production skills. Picture: Jane Dempster

Consider the open kitchen, that potent symbol of restaurant democratisation. On the one hand it gives the dining public that frisson of drama, a connection to the food and the people making it. Mostly, that's a good thing. On the other, it's a fairly transparent guide to the roster. I think it's called a double-edged Sabatier.

So here we are at Mercado, a new, semi-basement restaurant in the heart of Sydney's increasingly busy CBD. The thing about Mercado's open kitchen, this busy Thursday night, is that it is plain to see head chef Nathan Sasi - who made a splash at Nomad in Surry Hills before taking a sabbatical - is not working tonight. Which seems odd, given this brand-new restaurant, built especially for him, is only months old. How the chef runs his working life is his business, but if you're taking time off the tools early in the life of a serious new venture, you'd want to be sure you were leaving things in good hands, wouldn't you?

Perhaps demand has engendered false confidence. Same-day reservation options are 5.30pm or 8:30pm and the place is groaning.

Why? Mercado - which makes a song and dance about its in-house production of things such as salamis and house-milled flour, whole animal butchery and cheese-making - overcharges and underdelivers.

Noisy, with diners jammed in tight, the restaurant's menu is Spanish-ish. They have one of those dome-shaped ovens you might be tempted to call "a wood oven", however this one has a gas jet pumping flame inside. I looked for burning embers; there were none. This matters because one part of the menu is labelled "Rotisserie/Wood Oven."

Two lingering impressions of Mercado (beyond lovely brass tables and a very helpful waiter) ...

First, for all their DIY philosophy, I'm not sure how much they have to show for it. An nduja-like "Mallorcan style salami paste" is uneventful, despite the wild thyme honey and crisp, round croutons it's served with; cured pork sausage - fuet - thinly sliced and served with pickled "dilly" beans, whatever they are, barely cracks "pleasant" on the salami-o-meter. Just an $18 plate of sliced sausage. There's a charge for bread, a disturbing sign, although two crisp-crusted, buttery brioche toasties, with thinly sliced wagyu tongue and pickled green tomato inside, are about the best things we tried. Quite delicious.

Second, the prices. Eating like a peasant increasingly requires a middle-class income. A whacking $29 for a gratin dish of overcooked and texturally knackered Madridstyle tripe, covered in soft (rather than crisp) crumbs, is risible. With little suggestion of sausage or gelatinous thickening, the price would be steep even if the tripe weren't limp.

A pleasant starter of "kingfish jamon" (cured fish) comes salad-like with pickled kohlrabi discs, housemade water crackers, creme fraiche and freshly grated horseradish; $28.

A fillet of excellent snapper (pictured) comes in another gratin dish with a garnish of fried kale and a mattress of Middle Eastern-ish spiced eggplant pimped with pomegranate.

It's a lovely - $40 - dish. Similarly, the "wood fired carrots" with a skordalia-like cream, almond dukkah and tea-soaked currants is a lovely, complex, $16 side.

I couldn't help wonder what it might have been like if the boss chef had been on. As it was, we talked to the waiter a lot about getting the most out of our Mercado experience. I don't think it worked.