Short black

New York bagel purist fills a hole in the market
Sydney-based, New York-raised food writer Michael Shafran doesn't want to be remembered as a whinging American. ''After complaining for 12 years that you can't get a decent bagel in Sydney, I'm finally putting my money where my mouth is,'' he says. After months of bagel-making at home and training with ''new-school'' artisan bagel-makers in the US, he's found a commercial kitchen and will have a ''soft'' launch of his product this Sunday at Darlie Laundromatic. ''Being a native New Yorker, I already know what the real thing is supposed to taste like ... I'm not boasting when I say they will be the best bagels to appear in Sydney. We do round bread in this town, not real bagels, with their beautiful chewy texture and malty flavour,'' Shafran says. If Sydney agrees, he'll be back at Darlie Laundromatic (304Palmer Street, Darlinghurst) on Sundays between 10am and 2pm.

Still good money in Steel
Steel Bar & Grill, the city-centre restaurant with an extravagant Michael McCann design, has been sold. Departing co-owner Damian Heads, a winner of the Josephine Pignolet Best Young Chef award, says he and his partners will concentrate on the expansion of their Pony restaurant empire. With restaurant investment on the nose in many quarters, who is behind the sale? David Wallace is one of Steel's new owners. The Sydney restaurant consultant has been quietly placing his chips on the Sydney food table; he is the businessman behind the clever Opera Kitchen development at the Sydney Opera House and a shareholder in Cloudy Bay Fish Co at Westfield Sydney. ''David will oversee [Steel],'' says his partner at Steel, David Tracy. ''He's pointing the ship.'' Tracy has had his own curious route into restaurants. A cattle farmer in the Hunter Valley, he says pollution caused by coalmining in the area made him consider a career change. ''I didn't see a future in the land,'' Tracy says. However, he'll put some of that knowledge of raising beef to use: ''We'll offer a greater selection of steaks.''

Year of the named and shamed
Chinese New Year kicks off at the weekend but Sydney's Chinatown image has been shaken by some of its biggest eateries being fined for failing to comply with the food standards code. Golden Century Seafood Restaurant and Marigold are two restaurants in the precinct to appear on the NSW Food Authority's ''Name and Shame'' list.

Big Apple with added Turkish delight
New Yorkers will soon be tucking into modern Turkish concocted by a Sydney chef. Rumours that Efendy chef Somer Sivrioglu is to open a mezze bar in the Big Apple (Short Black, October 30) have proved on the money. Sivrioglu flew over to the US at the end of 2012, and he has found a potential site for the project in Greenwich Village. ''It looks like it is going to happen around November,'' the chef says.

Mugshot
Anthony Svilicich is punting on Ashfield as the next Surry Hills for cafe culture. He's certainly in at the ground floor. ''There's nothing around here, everyone just thinks of Asian restaurants when they think of Ashfield,'' he says. Svilicich, the former owner of busy Surry Hills cafe Le Monde, has teamed up with former colleague James Naylor to open Excelsior Jones. Taking up residence in the former site of a convenience store at 139A Queen Street, the cafe serves a custom blend from Five Senses Coffee and tea from Tea Craft. ''I live in the area and the great thing about Ashfield is its diversity,'' Svilicich says. ''There are lots of Greeks, and my neighbours are Lebanese, Portuguese and Indian.''

No shuck tactics as oysters disappear
Pacific oyster mortality syndrome has wiped out millions of oysters in the Hawkesbury River but it won't have a major impact on the consumer's hip pocket, according to seafood industry heavyweights. ''It's a significant and sad loss for the oyster growers but the volume coming out of there is small compared to the overall market. We'll just get them from other areas,'' says the owner of De Costi Seafoods, George Costi. Seafood consultant John Susman agrees: ''The Hawkesbury has never recovered its place as the powerhouse of oyster supply it had in the 1970s and '80s. It's more of a tragedy for the oyster farmers."

Set a crackling pace
Sydney's crackling obsession has taken another giant trotter forward this summer, even adding some pulse to food-deprived Oxford Street. Mr Crackles has opened at No.155, its takeaway roll of slow-cooked five-spice pork belly ''with crispy crackling'' adding a new scent to the footpaths of the busy eastern arterial. ''Texture'' is chef Robert Marchetti's one-word answer to crackling's appeal. Marchetti's panino of freshly carved pork roll at his Bondi Beach butcher shop, La Macelleria, has become a beachside hit this summer. ''We cook the crackling separately, then cut it into chunks and sprinkle it over the pork. I tried to make a pork belly version but it didn't work for me. It was like fat city.''

Deli delights
Good news for anyone who has been hanging out for a New York-style deli in Sydney. Tony Gibson hasn’t had a lot of luck with his recent restaurant gigs. The talented chef departed Smith’s on Bayswater before the Kingsley Smith venture closed, only to jump into the kitchen at Manly Pavilion, which went down in flames. Gibson has gone back to basics, selling his Reuben sandwiches at The Sydney Morning Herald Growers’ Market, a passion he’s set to turn into a full-time business. ‘‘I’m opening a classic New York-style Jewish deli selling Reubens and chopped liver,’’ Gibson says. The deli will also include a French Canadian twist, with the Quebec specialty poutine (French fries topped with curd cheese and gravy) on the menu. Gibson will sign on at one of the two sites he has scouted, in either Darlinghurst or East Sydney, in the next week and open in early April. ‘‘Then I’d like to [expand into] some holes in the wall in the city,’’ he says.