‘Just like Mimi’s, but a bit cheaper’: Promenade Bondi Beach gets a hat

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Bondi needs more cushy dining spots with ocean views like the CBD needs brasseries. Icebergs. Topikos. Lola’s. Ikaria. Sean’s. North Bondi Fish. The suburb is a wellspring of vaguely Mediterranean joints in which to twirl a fork through spaghetti vongole while wearing linen shorts. So when restaurant group House Made Hospitality announced it would be opening a fancy “coastal dining destination” at Bondi Pavilion in March, I quietly suspected Promenade would be a coals-to-Newcastle pursuit that would struggle for customers.

It turns out, however, that I was wrong. Very wrong. We’re here on a drizzly Saturday afternoon and the place is heaving with extended families, attractive couples and at least three bridal showers.

A beige-on-cream dining room seats about 70 across stained timber chairs, leather banquettes and cushions that threaten to swallow you whole. There
are stone tiles and terracotta vases and I suspect some design inspiration may have come from Merivale’s even plusher Mimi’s at Coogee Pavilion.

“Just like Mimi’s, but a bit cheaper” could also describe the menu, a sprawling carte of more than 40 dishes, sorted by chilled and warm seafood, pasta, meat and sides.

These categories can be annoying to navigate. The warm seafood section, for example, groups Moreton Bay bug toast ($14 each) with larger courses, such as snapper curry ($42) and bass grouper fillet with salsa verde ($45).

The meat section lists lamb-neck turnovers ($10 each) next to wagyu tartare ($28) and a pork chop with agrodolce – sweet-sour – sauce ($42). Sometimes, I really miss the good old days of “Entrees”, “Mains” and “Desserts”.

In any case, you must order that bug toast. Imagine sesame-spangled prawn toast, but made with brioche fried to a gnarled crunch and stuffed with sweet hunks of bug meat. It’s more umami-intensive than anything I can recall eating in my local Australian-Chinese, while a gingery tangle of shallots on top lifts the flavour further.

Buttery-fleshed toothfish skewers ($19 each) are just as assertive, punched up with a prawn oil and lemongrass sambal.

From the chilled seafood list, a little pile of picked mud crab is sharpened with green mango and served ready to wrap on a big, floppy perilla leaf ($10 each). Very good.

I’m beginning to sense that culinary director Stephen Seckold is as bored with all the “Mediterranean-inspired” cooking around these parts as I am. The lamb turnover is a fun surprise, too, all flaky pastry and soft, spiced filling to dip in a confident mango chutney.

If someone can’t find a dish they want to eat here, there’s a fair chance they just don’t like food.

House Made Hospitality also runs Circular Quay’s smart-casual Italian eatery Grana, which supplies Promenade’s pasta. Silky goat’s curd-stuffed agnolotti are sweetened with honey-tinged brown butter for a fine but forgettable way to spend $28.

Three submissive tranches of potato galette with mustard beurre blanc ($16) are a more satisfying way to get your carbohydrates in. We team them with a whole John dory ($90) of firm, meaty flesh beneath craggy, crisp skin.

There’s more fish-and-chips-style action via bronzed kipfler scallops accompanying crumbed trevalla ($39) that disintegrates into pearly white flakes with a herby sauce gribiche of requisite tang. It’s a dish for lazy afternoons spent beneath the red-and-white umbrellas of an ocean-facing terrace, enjoying a Swinging Bridge gamay from Orange ($17/$83).

The only real disappointment is a grilled sirloin on the bone with chimichurri ($59). It’s a tough bit of steak with a ribbon of fat in need of more gentle rendering.

Desserts get things back on track, especially a vacherin boasting coconut sago and pandan ice-cream ($17), which tastes like a Thai holiday, and a molten-hot lemon delicious pudding tempered by chantilly cream ($20).

Promenade’s service team, at the moment, is quick and slick. Let’s hope things stay the course when House Made launches its inevitable next venture.

The kitchen, at least, is in promising hands with Chris Benedet joining Seckold at the helm. (He comes to Bondi from Barangaroo’s Cirrus.) I’ll be returning for a lobster and to see where Benedet takes things once he settles in (fingers crossed for ferments and dry-aged meats).

Promenade is a nifty option for a family meal, too. If someone can’t find a dish they want to eat here, there’s a fair chance they just don’t like food.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine