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Farmhouse

Terry Durack
Terry Durack

Dinner party atmosphere: Farmhouse in Kings Cross.
Dinner party atmosphere: Farmhouse in Kings Cross.Edwina Pickles

14/20

Contemporary$$$

A curious paradox of contemporary life has been uncovered by food activist Michael Pollan in his new book, Cooked. How is it, he asks, that at the precise historical moment that we are spending less time cooking, we are spending so much of our time talking about cooking and watching people cook? Pollan suggests it's because our reliance on supermarkets and processed foods has replaced a deep sense of connection to the plant, the animal and the land. The more the disconnect between city and country grows, the more we crave the old-fashioned values of country life.

Cue the Farmhouse, a small, one-room restaurant in Kings Cross, with a single, 20-seat timber share table, wooden beamed ceilings, cowhide-draped benches and a freshly baked cake cooling on the window sill. Altogether now … awwww, shucks.

The urban barnhouse interior comes courtesy of the three owners - designer Nicholas Gurney and builders Aidan Thomas and Brodie Stewart - who used 150-year-old recycled pine floorboards, old Rozelle Wharf planks, and plenty of hinge-and-bracket charm.

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Go-to dish: Potato bread, potato skins and garlic aioli.
Go-to dish: Potato bread, potato skins and garlic aioli.Edwina Pickles

Through a stable door hatch at the back of the restaurant, promising new-gen chefs Mike Mu Sung (formerly of Sixpenny) and Tristan Rosier (formerly of Biota Dining) are preparing a four-course, one-size-fits-all menu of relatively simple, seasonally driven food that's served at two sittings, kicking off at 6.30pm and 8.30pm sharp. The menu is scrawled on the front window, although it stayed pretty much the same for the first two weeks.

No matter, not when the chefs appear at the table bearing darkly roasted and deep-fried potato skins that play off a whippy thyme-strewn aioli alongside slices of dense, just-baked potato bread. Potato skins might sound like a waste-not-want-not step too far, but they're wonderful, all gnarly and salty and minerally. After that comes a more delicate course, with furls of silky citrus-cured ocean trout cleverly lifted with crisp rye crumbs, a creamy hit of yoghurt and freshness from a perky, shaved fennel salad.

The drinks side of things is limited, in a good way, with a couple of Endeavour ales, pear and apple ciders from Small Acres in Orange, and a short but character-laden list of less than a dozen wines. A 2012 Lenton Brae South Side Chardonnay from Margaret River ($13/$50) is classy, rich and complex.

It's time to settle back and take stock. Note the detail: the fine linen napkins, the Laguiole knives, the Provencal platters, the way the table flips up to enable easy getting in and out. Note the playlist: the Strokes, Dead Sea, the Lumineers, Xavier Rudd, the Black Keys. It's these levels of detail, not to mention the over-the-top dinner-party generosity, that makes $55 a head terrific value.

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Some courses are shared, others are individual; something those with greedy partners will appreciate. The main course of a rough-and-tumble share plate of roast spatchcock, caramelised onions, wilted kale and way too much chunky, bready stuffing (there seems to be bread in every course) is a Gen Y Sunday roast. It's served with a sweet little salad of fresh and roasted heirloom tomatoes with house-made ricotta and horseradish gremolata.

Sitting down elbow-to-elbow with 18 people you've never met might sound a little daunting, but only until the first glass of wine kicks in. Before long, it's dinner party conversation across the table, and you almost feel as if you could wander into the kitchen clutching a glass of wine to see if they need a hand.

No need - the chefs turn up with bowls of roasted pears with crunchy meringue and a lovely spiced syrup that smells of cloves, ginger and cinnamon. It feels just like the sort of thing that you should be eating at this time of year.

As if to underline the sense of stuff-your-face country hospitality, Farmhouse then sends out a wedge of house-baked apple crumble cake that is ridiculously good.

The concept has strong precedents - Sydney's Table for 20; Daniel Rose's Spring, in Paris - but by sheer will and quirkiness, Farmhouse has made it its own. It's so spookily like a dinner party that it feels really weird having to ask for the bill. But joy of joys, no return invitations must be dispensed to come to dinner at your place, and there are no dishes to be done.

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Welcome to the big smoke, Farmhouse.

The low-down

Best bit

No decisions; you eat what you're given.

Worst bit

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Enforced eavesdropping.

Go-to dish

Potato bread, potato skins, garlic aioli.

 

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.

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Terry DurackTerry Durack is the chief restaurant critic for The Sydney Morning Herald and Good Food.

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