The Cut Bar & Grill

The Cut is a blokey, businessy affair, particularly at lunchtime. That's reflected in the decor of meat-cleaver door handles and butcher's block tables, all in a dark sandstone cellar with exposed beams that signals its heritage location in The Rocks. A starter of steak tartare means business, too - uniform pearls of soft flesh teamed with a tangy mix of capers, herbs, cornichons and red onion, topped with a petite quail's egg and man-sized crispbread shards. Also good is a mini smorgasbord of roast quail, smoked eel, duck, celeriac and goat's cheese. But a steakhouse is about the meat, and a visually mouth-watering T-bone was disappointing, being a little too resistant to the knife. Better is pan-fried snapper with pancetta, asparagus and fennel salad, with plenty of gutsy, up-front flavour. A dessert of lemon curd brulee, lemon poppy seed ice-cream, brown butter, fennel and passionfruit seems almost too dainty for such a macho feast but delivers plenty of delicate contrasts.