LP's Quality Meats

It's Friday night at LP's and the sun has just set over the inner west skyline. In between the nerd swagger of Beck and the Dixie-driving swamp rock of Creedence, a racing fanfare trumpets over the loudspeakers.

The bugle means it's meat raffle time and good golly, Miss Molly, I hope lucky door ticket orange 56 comes through.

LP's Quality Meats is a knee-slapping, rib-sticking, tooth-picking barbecue joint with mess-hall tables and very nice wine glasses. Head-chef and co-owner Luke Powell (Tetsuya's, Mary's) opened his monikered restaurant in August 2014, serving Flintstone ribs with Jetson's polish. (if you haven't sampled an LP's barbecue platter yet, you really must do so).

Now, you could hang out in the bier hall area and eat some next-level porchetta ($32). Or you could pull up a stool at the bar – a rocking zone to hang out in its own right.

At the top of a list of six house cocktails is the sausage bloody Mary ($18). Vodka spends two weeks in a jar getting acquainted with LP's house snag before being strained and mixed with a nostril-flaring spice blend and tomato juice. The sausage gifts the vodka a heavy-bottomed slickness and the drink is a meal and a half at any time of day.

There's a mint julep ($16) made with rye whiskey and orange granita. It's a beaut way to finish a feed if you're not keen for a snifter from LP's thumbs-up selection of spirits. Former bar manager Tom Sheer was a bit of whisky nut and his legacy remains. Keen for a 1969 Strathisla single malt?

"Not a problem, sir, and that will be $57 for the privilege."

Sheer left at Christmas time and the bar is now helmed with aplomb by Lyndsay Noyes (ex Eathouse Diner).

A solid wine list sails around Argentina, the States, The Cape of Good Hope, and Australia before a couple of jaunts across the Tasman for a thrill. A pinot blanc blend from Pyramid Valley in Central Otago ($95) is exactly what you want to drink with a plate of smoked manchego ($16) or a chicken roll ($16).  

Oh, mama, that chicken roll. The most attractive thing at LP's bar isn't the Boston ferns, white tiles, or timber panelling. It's a malted bun of slow-smoked chook, lettuce, tomato, and gravy so thick and delicious it could be siphoned from God's own grease trap.

The chicken roll is available to go as is a Rubenesque beef brisket sanga. Nursing a negroni while waiting for some takeaway is a terribly civilised way to start a night in listening to Serial podcasts by yourself (I, ahem, imagine).

Powell draws the winning raffle ticket. It's not orange ticket 56 and I don't mind. The anticipation of winning is half the fun. And who doesn't get too shickered after a raffle and forget to take their meat home anyway?

THE LOW-DOWN
Go for… the sandwiches.
Stay for… the Friday meat raffle.
Drink… the Sausage Bloody Mary.
And another thing… salt-boiled potatoes with chicken fat mayo are being added to the bar menu very soon. Chicken. Fat. Mayo.