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Just Open: Hunter & Barrel, Cockle Bay

Scott Bolles
Scott Bolles

Hunter & Barrel in Cockle Bay has plenty to offer meat lovers.
Hunter & Barrel in Cockle Bay has plenty to offer meat lovers.Michele Mossop

It's opening season for Hunter & Barrel, the restaurant concept with a twin city approach launching in Sydney and Melbourne. With antler-inspired design, Hunter & Barrel has swung open the gates at the former Cockle Bay home of Chinta Ria a month after a H&B opened in Melbourne. It's a high-risk strategy and a review last week of the Melbourne restaurant was wounding in its words, particularly of the service. It has given the Sydney venture time to hopefully iron out the creases and recruit local chef Andrew Prasad (ex The Falconer) to tweak the food for Harbour City clientele.

Hunter & Barrel, which is owned by the rapidly expanding Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group, has drafted in Jared Ingersoll​ as brand development chef and used Melbourne's One Design Office to rework the circular Cockle Bay space, mixing barrels and hopefully mock taxidermy where Chinta Ria's giant Buddha once resided.

The menu has more coal-grill-focused cooking than a weekend of glamping and features the Hunter's Feast – a farmyard dish of beef rump cap, chicken, pork belly and wagyu sausage. There's also plenty of soups and skewers, a couple of dishes for under-12-year-old "little hunters". The drinks menu includes barrel-aged cocktails.

Tenancy 303, Cockle Bay Wharf, 02 9246 9888, hunterandbarrel.com; Sun-Thurs noon-10pm; Fri-Sat noon-10.30pm

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Scott BollesScott Bolles writes the weekly Short Black column in Good Food.

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