Sydney Summer 98

In Sydney some of the best dining views are not of the water.

Take MG Garage, the trendiest place this summer. Not a shimmer of blue water or sunlight in sight The room is all soft browns, greys and whites. It is shuttered from the street and super smart. The view is of gorgeous gleaming MG's. Sitting on the soft brown banquettes, the silvery blinds and the brown louvres distract you from the rather dreary streetscape outside. Or if you sit at the long bar you can look directly into the busy super-charged kitchen. Then there's always the mirrors for those who prefer their own view.

There are lots of familiar and friendly faces amongst the staff. Front of house manager, Darren Pearce, was once at Bennelong as, of course was chef and part owner, Janni Kyritsis.

MG Garage is Janni's first restaurant after working for Stephanie Alexander in Melbourne and then, for 14 years, with Gay Bilson at Berowra Waters and at Bennelong.

Opening your first restaurant is a big step to take, especially at the age of 50. Janni jokes that "everyone is retiring when I am starting." But he seems to relish the challenge of paying back the $700,000 bank loan required to get going. Talking about the business, about setting up the kitchen, about recruiting the staff, about the new equipment, he is like a kid with a new toy and the odd MG to drive in.

And Sydney is loving it. The restaurant has been busy for lunch and dinner since opening mid November last. Even when the offices are closed and the city deserted for summer, it is still hard to get a booking.

Once there you are faced with a simply worded menu with some real choices on it. Some of the splendid dishes which Janni developed with Gay Bilson and the classic Rockpool which he did at Stephanie's. Served in a fine white deep bowl set on an underplate with its own linen square, the fish consomme had set to a quivering jelly containing shellfish and seaweed. Less exotically named but delicious and well presented were the "Sauteed Prawns in a Tomato and Bread Soup" as were the "Baked Veal Shanks in Parchment with Garlic, Lemon, Green Olives & Skordalia" which were served from the paper parcel for you at the table. "Quail Bisteeya with Pungent Pomegranate Salad" is a sweet starter, much preferred was the "Red Mullet Escabeche, Borlotti Bean Salad & Grilled Broadbean Cake". These are dishes requiring a lot of preparation and skill. They are coming out fast from Janni's new kitchen and, for Sydney, are reasonably priced. Entrees are from $16-22 and Mains from $26-29. Elsewhere we found menus with Mains up to $40 and side dishes still being sold to accompany. We are blessed in Melbourne with places like The Point where skilfully executed main courses come out at $22 and one of the best calamari entrees I've eaten is yours for $12.50. Wine mark ups are also much higher in Sydney than in Melbourne. But even at those higher prices you are still paying much, much less for quality food and wine than you would pay in London, New York, Paris and Tokyo.

In the heart of the city, in Martin Place, Banc, also recently opened, is attracting a lot of attention.

Banc which must be pronounced "bank" (not, as the French would say, "bonk") in what once was a bank in Martin Place. Confusion about how to say the name gets even more complicated when you meet the restaurant's wine supremo, Remi Bancal, who worked with us for many years at Mietta's. Remi's not phased by any of this nonsense, he is too busy assembling Sydney's finest cellar and training the staff in its service. He started working on the project three months before its opening last August and helped to design the bars for the restaurant and for WineBanc which opened later in December.

It's a big enterprise and one in which Stan Sarris and his partner Rodney Adler have invested substantially. Stan, whose restaurant career started in 1989 with Rogues and Streetons, followed by a chain of coffee shops and then some upmarket city cafes, has had his eye on the site for some time. After finally persuading the owners that a "wet use" for the building would work he then had to defeat a large field of tenders to secure the lease in September '96. The first part of last year was spent planning and travelling to look at other operations. One of the major hurdles with the site was acquiring a suitable licence and it took some $250,000 to get a "hotel" licence so that WineBanc could operate as a wine bar. Here a substantial menu is available but it is the wines which reign supreme. As well as the full cellar list of bottles which runs to 20 pages, there are more than 20 premium wines available by the glass or, by a taste ( 7cl) and an even rarer wine available each day, for e.g. on Wednesdays you can have a glass (15cl) of 1989 Leeuwin Estate, Museum Release, Cabernet Sauvignon for $17.50. With this you could have a Charcuterie Plate with Picalilli (for two persons) at $30 or you could hoe in on your own into a Rib of Beef Bordelaise for $24.

Upstairs in the restaurant a Fillet of Beef Rossini, with Foie Gras and Truffle is $37, other mains range from $28-30, first courses from $16-24. It's an elegant room, the old bank pillars and the banquettes give a most Manhattan feel. The brass framed windows let in a lot of light which is reflected off the limestone paved floor. It's a room to be seen in and Sydney has been doing just that, particularly at lunches. The menu is wine food, Stan Sarris says that he is "fed up with Italian, think there is too much Asian mix, so it has to be French." He chose the partnership of French classic trained Chef Liam Neeson, originally from Ireland and Remi Bancal whom Mietta's originally brought out from the Ritz in Paris.

Sydney like Melbourne may be embracing things classic and particularly things French more than ever before but it's in Sydney that you can experience some seriously fine Italian food.

The Manfredi's belmondo has a menu of amazingly good main courses. In Italy it is often hard to get excited beyond the pasta and primi but Stefano and Franca Manfredi have developed a fantastic range of meats, poultry and fish dishes. Their pastas, notably the "Stracci Verdi with Tasmanian Vongole, tomato and basil sauce" and any version of Franca's gnocchi are always good, but remember to keep room for one of the "secondi", main courses. Leave room in your budget too because these are priced $32.50-38.50.

Visiting belmondo is an exciting experience. There are three completely different areas within this one, hugely generous space. You enter to the AntiBar, a sinuous shallow and long oval bar with lots of tempting stools, crisp grissini and a great list of Antipasti and drinks. There are tables close to the bar where you can sit down and order a good range of dishes from a soup at $10.50 to a Roast Lamb with braised leeks and potatoes for $18.50.

Go on past the elegant staircase and the kitchen "stage", raised above the dining floor, where the show all happens and sit in the proper dining section with its damask cloths and napkins, solid cutlery and the soft white light from the individual diamond lamps on each table. They create a focus and a sense of your own island of privacy in this busy space. There is lots to look at, the roof line, a mass of pipes, the steel pillars, the exposed steel beam over the windows, the rounded corners, all give a wonderfully airy feel Then there's a great menu to choose from and if the service is running to form you should receive a small bowl of olives and some delicious little cheese biscuits whilst you decide.

The third experience you can have at belmondo is to sit outside, completely removed from the bustle of the waiters, from the kitchen performance and from the buzz of the bar. There's seating outside for about 30 with a view over the Rocks and glimpses of the Harbour.

If it's Harbour views you want, there's no better place than Bilson's (now, 2002, Quay sans Brahami) where French chef, Guillaume Brahimi, has been gaining all sorts of accolades from critics and from his peers. We missed out on eating there but were able to eat with Gay Bilson at Bennelong. Gay chose a delicious series of tastes for us, starting with her classic Oysters Rockfeller, juicy oysters coated with a fine spinach puree, all iron and steel and green; a cup of crab soup; a wonderful combination of textures of sauteed veal sweetbreads, crisp fried yabby tails and soft and slippery shitakes; Red Emperor skillfully broken out of its clay baking case with the aromas of sweet and sour eggplant and Roast Pigeon with potato and sweet corn pancakes.

As the Opera House and Bennelong are quintessential Sydney experiences, then in its own scruffy and sunny way, so is Bondi.

Great for a walk, a swim, a coffee but for serious food? A drink on the balcony at Ravesi's is still super smart but now that Martin Teplitsky (ex Berowra Waters) has taken over the kitchen, it's being recommended for a meal. Also on the list is Onzain above the Bondi Diggers Club not far from the unique Seans Panorama as unpretentious and popular as ever, though prices for mains are now up to $22.

But you know Bondi's really changing when you see First Floor a sharp triangle shaped white marble box with a balcony overlooking Bondi. It's part of the Bayswater Brasserie management stable which also includes the much talked about Boathouse at Glebe. Inside First Floor it's hard to imagine you are in Bondi. No sand, no thongs amongst the very dressed customers sitting at closely set linen clothed tables on contrasting white and black chairs. For those who can't get one of the window tables there's an artfully lit glassware nook or the display kitchen to view. When it really gets going and the place is full it could be very claustrophic if you were seated in the middle of the room..

Outside on the balcony there are long bench tables also with tablecloths which really seemed too dressed up for Bondi. Oysters are the go here, from $2.50-2.80 each Other starters are $16-18. Most of the mains are $26. Crayfish, tomato and cardamom pilaf $40.

We didn't feel comfortable, so after two entrees decided to finish our meal at The Balkan in Oxford St. Nothing to talk about here in terms of fashion, decor or view, though the grill chef in the window did provide some interest. Our fellow customers were certainly a cheerier lot and understandably, a large fresh grilled schnapper at $19 left no room for complaint. Paper napkins, heavy glassware, sliced brown sandwich loaf notwithstanding.

And if it's good bread you crave, finally Sydney has a decent bakery. Phillip Searle and Brent Hersee, opened Infinity Sour Dough Bakery last November in Victoria Street Darlinghurst. Phillip had the famous Oasis Seros before "retiring" to Blackheath where he's since opened Vulcans. Brent has a long career in baking (including Poilane in Paris) and his Blackheath Bakery is renowned in the Blue Mountains. Now the two blackheathens have teamed up to try and educate Sydney palates to the delights of real bread. Brent says that Melbourne is so much further advanced than Sydney in baking. In Darlinghurst they are making an organic range which includes oatmeal polenta, guinness beer rye, five grain, walnut, potato, wholewheat sunflower as well as a some commercial yeast and flour breads in the form of baguettes, dinner rolls, fruit loaves and croissants which they are selling to restaurants around Sydney. Best to buy one of the organic range from the bakery, described by Phillip as "real food". They last for days and priced at $4 for a 900 g loaf, they are good value.