Yes way, Brosé
Such high expectations, fuelled by social media, would usually be an albatross around any chef's neck.
BAR BROSÉ
Sydney's street numbers can be infuriating. Take Bar Brose. It's at 231A Victoria Street in Darlinghurst, a locale that's played muse to many a songwriter. How hard can it be? But it's not next to 233: that's a bottle shop. Inexplicably, about 300m up the hill is where you'll find the site of one of the city's most talked-about openings this year.
The reason for the hype? It's a collaboration between a young chef, Analiese Gregory, whose training wheels have been bolted to some truly impressive bicycles, and the quartet behind Acme, a boisterous mould-breaker in Rushcutters Bay.
Such expectation, fuelled by social media, would be an albatross around any chef's neck, I'd imagine.
So it's reassuring to arrive, finally, and find not a spectacularly expensive fitout but an unpretentiously spruced-up old place with high tables and nice music that looks like the right abode for a chef doing it for herself the first time. As in, let's ease into this gently.
Brose feels welcoming, inclusive, which has much to do with the floor staff, some of whom I recognise from Acme. Indeed, if you like the progenitor, you'll probably like Gregory's iconoclastic, fun mashup of French and Asian flavours, too - maybe more than the mothership's.
Prices encourage experimentation and regular visits; the French-ish wine list, put together and serviced with style at the table by Gavin Wright and co-owner Ed Loveday, is pivotal to the restaurant's offer. I suspect some use the place purely to drink off-piste and snack.
Me, I'll remember a couple of dinner dishes a long time. Especially the pan-finished potato gnocchi - small, expertly made nuggets, swimming around in a chilli-spiked, umami-rich kombu butter with Chinese cabbage and slices of lap cheong, a sweet sausage you're more likely to find in sticky rice at yum cha than alongside a sexy gamay in Darlo. It works beautifully.
Another is the improbable, yet enormously successful combination of quince puree with creme fraiche, tablets of raw kingfish marinated in white soy and dashi, capers and baby nasturtium leaves with a splash of parsley oil: just the right bitter/ acidic counterpoint to the fish and fruit. It's undoubtedly more complex than that, but the result sings.
Roasted palm heart is a new experience for me; it's finished with caramelised butter, seasoned, cut, then dressed with preserved lemon, olive oil and basil salsa verde.
There's a crumbed and fried terrine of the week (ham hock) served with pickled red cabbage; a little goes a long way. And the dish that wraps up all this New World/ Old World, France/Asia thing just perfectly, the "Poulet au Vin Jaune d'Australie". You'd order it just for the name. It's chicken pieces pre-cooked and finished in a funky wine/onion/sherry/stock/foie gras butter sauce with shiitake and crisp chicken skin over the top to finish.
It's rich, fun, delicious. And almost certainly unique. It's also terrific value for money, at $34.
The combo of torched meringue, maraschino cherries and buffalo milk yoghurt sorbet, speckled with thyme (pictured), is sublime. On the flip side, a millefeuille-style dessert made of crisp potato wafers is filled with a brown butter mousse that's too one-dimensional, too rich, and screams for acidic relief. Swings, roundabouts. But to be fair, there are way more swings than roundabouts.
And Brose, for me, is at a very desirable four-way intersection itself: new and old, tried and true.
It's a happy place.
AT A GLANCE
ADDRESS:
231A Victoria St, Darlinghurst
CONTACT:
0450 307 117
barbrose.com.au
HOURS: Dinner Wed-Sun
TYPICAL PRICES:
Small $16; larger $22; dessert $12
SUMMARY:
Raising the bar
LIKE THIS? TRY...
Acme, Sydney;
Anchovy, Melbourne
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