This used to be the best value progressive dining in Sydney: a BYO with three incredible courses for just $55. But recently the menu was changed to an eight-course degustation and the price jacked to $95 which alters the dynamic and the hook markedly.
The idea behind the change is, one presumes, to better showcase/show off the considerable talents of chef Dan Puskas. And there is no doubting that he has the culinary skills to more than justify the bigger bills. But those who loved the place for what it was may be disappointed by what it has become. Don't get us wrong: this is still a great dining experience. It's just not quite as great.
The new menu is infused with the signature Puskas molecular inventiveness. Tomato snow with cottage cheese, cucumber and beetroot is interesting texture-wise, in that the sweet beetroot soil (picture, um, a pile of purple soil) is uplifted by the tangy tomato snow (like a very fine granita) while the cottage cheese smear adds body. Eat it as recommended, getting a little bit of everything on your spoon. It's like a little midnight salad made by pixies. The flavours are bright and powerful and they lose nothing in the translation. It's gone in seconds and explodes in the mouth like a tripwire but leaves the palate feeling empty afterwards.
Dish of the night, though, goes to the superb cuttlefish with black rice. The cuttlefish, says the waitress, has been frozen into a block then sliced on a deli slicer. The end result is tender, wide, thin ribbons resting in folds on top of two little cubes of rice cake and has a slight chew to it, like a muesli bar. Cuttlelicious.
The lighting is muted to a first-date dim but with food this visual, the lights need to be up enough so everything can be truly appreciated. Especially when a few of the dishes are quite dark in hue, like beef cheek with pickled watermelon and turtle bean puree. It falls apart beautifully in rich striations of braised meat, the vinegary watermelon giving the flavour profile a life as it cuts the richness.
Technically, the food here's good - Puskas puts intriguing ingredients together and cooks them well. And yet... it just doesn't quite ring true. Perhaps it's the amount of soils, snows and smears on the menu or the way he chooses to combine his flavours. But the fact that he's doing it all out of a kitchen the size of a Barbie dream home is an amazing feat in itself. You have to walk through the kitchen to get to the toilets. (By the way, what's with the urinating samurai swordsman painted on the wall out there?) So you'll marvel at the economical way that galley kitchen works.
The tiny dining room with its black and white chequered floor, pressed ceilings and clutter of tables combined with down-to-earth, friendly and efficient service and Puskas' wild menu makes dining here the fascinating experience it is. And hey, it's still BYO so even though you pay more for the food than you used to, you're still saving money on the booze.
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