B
entley isn’t the one with
the views. That’s Cirrus,
the fish place. And it’s
not the wild one. That’s
the wine bar, Monopole. And
it isn’t the one that’s all about
vegetables. That’s Yellow. Bentley
is the one that started it all.
Word on the street is that
Bentley has the hardest-working
kitchen in town. If you’re an
ambitious chef looking to test your
mettle in Sydney, this place will
take everything you can throw at
it and more. Brent Savage has
his people fermenting saltbush
and pickling muntries to garnish
slow-cooked beef tongue. They
make curd from camel’s milk (yes,
the milk of camels) to complement
watermelon radish, and place tiny
Mexican cucamelons on pistachio
butter and linseed crackers for a
bar snack. Figs on a plate it ain’t.
Why settle for regular butter,
they reason, when you can spreadyour house-baked rye with a glossy
ebony mixture of butter and black
sesame? Why merely savour the
textural rhyme of blacklip abalone
and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms
when you could get the SEAL
Team Six of Sydney kitchens to
make you a mayonnaise flavoured
with roast-chicken juices to take
things up a notch?
But this isn’t one of those
restaurants that’s just about the
food. From day one Bentley has
been a partnership between a
sommelier and a chef, both
co-owners. That means it’s about
what’s in the glass as much as
what’s on the plate, what happens
on the floor as much as in the
kitchen. Lots of chef-driven
restaurants are great places to
eat, but at Bentley you can dine.
It’s also not one of those
places where you’ll have a dud
night if those co-owners, Brent
Savage and Nick Hildebrandt,aren’t there shaking the pans
and pulling the corks in person.
The talent here (and at all their
restaurants for that matter) runs
several layers deep. The place has
substance on its side.
The darkly glamorous room
has a sort of punk-luxe glow. It was
renovated earlier this year, but the
essence of Pascale Gomes-McNabb’s
design remains the same, the
classical lines of the 1920s
sandstone building contrasted
with crazy brushstrokes of paint
and a wild jangle of jutting steel
rods that delineate the mezzanine
dining room from the superb bar.Clockwise from
top left: chef
Brent Savage
(left) and
sommelier Nick
Hildebrandt;
Bentley’s
entrance;
(clockwise from
left) parmesan
tart with
tomatillo, oyster
with finger lime
and scampi roe,
cucamelon with
pistachio butter,
and kingfish
with Cape
gooseberries.Newly refreshed, Bentley consolidates its position
as the rare restaurant where wine and food
meet on an equal footing, writes PAT NOURSE.
Joi nt
forces
34 GOURMET TRAVELLER