Gastro Park revisited: Antipodean is as trans-Tasman as a pavlova

Everything is antipodean at Antipodean, including the owner-chef. Grant King was born in New Zealand, cooked in Queenstown, came to Sydney, head-cheffed at Pier in Rose Bay right up to its three-hat status, then opened his own high-end Gastro Park in 2012. He's as trans-Tasman as a pavlova. And now he's going back – not to New Zealand, but to his roots, rebooting Gastro Park into a simpler and more casual restaurant with an emphasis on all things Australian and New Zealand.

Down have come the filmy curtains, and on the bare tables are some deliciously hand-thrown, organically shaped, saggar-fired plates from Byron Bay's Made of Australia. Back windows have been blackboard-painted for the monthly changing menu and a smaller, more focused wine list.

Here, you'll find things like New Zealand's Cloudy Bay clams with smoked bacon vinaigrette; South Australian jamon (the full leg proudly displayed as a feature) served with pickled muntries, and raw Paroo kangaroo with local pecorino and Manjimup truffle.

You might have gathered that when King says his cooking is simpler, it's a relative term from someone who used to float liquid butternut gnocchi in mushroom consomme.

Fans of blood pudding should go for the lush, fresh-tasting version here ($22), cleverly counterpointed by quandong and pickled shallots.

Mount Cook salmon is beautifully cured (with native pepperberry) and served with the fresh pop of finger lime ($24) but it needs toast, or something crisp.

If you call for bread – sourdough and great butter is just $2 – then splash another $3 on a bowl of bisque-like crab sauce for dipping – yowzers.

Or slip into something comfortable with tiny agnolotti ($26), teamed with slippery jack mushrooms and buffalo milk feta in a dense mushroom broth. No gimmicks, just sharp technique and distinct flavours.

Antipodean's roast flathead with house bacon ($27) isn't exactly simple, either. The fish is poached at 52 degrees in clarified brown butter, giving the flesh a cushiony softness. For the bacon, pork belly is cured for two days, hung for five, glazed in Tasmanian chickpea miso and cold-smoked for six hours. The sauce is all about red wine and fish bones, reduced, reduced, until the result tastes like a lovely, wintry, coq au vin – with the bacon of your dreams.

Pud is predictably unpredictable: marigold ice-cream with torched and freeze-dried mandarin ($15) that's super cool.

King is gung-ho for his new weekend brunch, and all I can say is that bacon had better be on it or there will be hell to pay.

The wine-loving chef has whittled down the former 240 bottle list to around 40 antipodean labels. A. Rodda's 2015 tempranillo from Beechworth in Victoria ($14/$70) is succulent, savoury and spicy, a good match for the brunch menu's duck with persimmon.

The Cross has a great history of gastronomic antipodean-ness – the seminal Bayswater Brasserie of the 1980s and '90s came from a bunch of New Zealanders – and King and his business partner Johanne Stanton have a kitchen and dining room that has a similarly anarchic, cheeky, I-did-it-my-way attitude.

So while Antipodean is more casual, better-priced and more accessible than Gastro Park, a driven, obsessive, independent thinker like Grant King is never going to just grill a steak and put fries on the side. Even if he would make a fortune doing it.

The lowdown

Best bit: The Kings Cross back-street vibe.

Worst bit: It's a room that needs people to come alive.

Go-to dish: Fresh blood pudding, quandong, pickled shallot ($22).

Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for the Good Food Guide. This rating is based on the Good Food Guide scoring system.