Bentley Restaurant & Bar

Bentley is the bold rider of Sydney dining. Take a wildly inventive menu, add a revelatory wine list and wrap it all in an interior of mesh and leather like a feverish nocturnal dream: now you have a dining experience guaranteed to seduce and astonish. Even the most jaded of palates will be moved by dishes such as beef tartare with liquid wasabi spheres, and Balmain bugs paired amazingly with lamb sweetbreads, black bean and coconut curd. Other hits include jamon-poached tuna and a frozen goat's cheese mousse with violet, buckwheat, praline and passionfruit ice-cream. Everything else is merely delicious: poached mulloway with celeriac, cracked wheat and black sesame, and roast venison with hazelnut, cauliflower and salsify. Chef Brent Savage is a maestro of unexpected textural contrasts and weird flavour epiphanies, so be prepared to think, as much as taste, when you're here. Nothing and no one is stereotypical at Bentley - staff and customers included.