Mike McEnearney has traded his sorely missed queue-up and serve-yourself canteen business model in Rosebery for a "proper" restaurant on the bent part of Bent Street. Yet there's something subversive going on here, a Helen of Troy approach to sneaking real-food credentials into the cold commercial heart of the CBD. It's there in the open kitchen, the wood-fired oven, the uncompromising sourcing, and the mighty six-metre long communal dining tables fashioned from the blackwood planks salvaged from an old Canberra bridge.
1 Bent St, Sydney, 02 9252 5550, onebentstreet.com.au
Welcome to flavour town, population, you. Grilled lettuce is covered in shavings of roast venison liver swiftly followed by raw plums in dressed in fermented juice and mustard oil covered in nasturtium leaves. An explosion of stracciatella sees shreds bound in a verdant oil, capers and fine strands of preserved lemon. A piece of hapuka, the protein just-set, is probably the best-cooked piece of fish we've seen since Steve Hodges closed the doors to Fish Face.
5 Kensington St, Chippendale, 02 8277 8555, automata.com.au
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