Sydney
ACME
A restaurant run by a pasta purist
with a preference for Asian flavours,
Acme burned bright and fast, with
Mitch Orr’s creative streak seeing
him make signatures of Jatz, baloney
sandwiches and pig’s-head macaroni.
Find him at Ciccia Bella frying mini
mortadella calzone, and partner
Cam Fairbairn at a freshly renovated
Bathers’ Pavilion at Balmoral Beach.EST
When Peter Doyle finished at Est
last year, Jacob Davey stayed the
course, but Est’s closure, due at
Christmas, shows even timeless
restaurants have an end. A place
of linen, Champagne trolleys and
business lunches, Est represented
unapologetic classicism. Expecta renovation of this grand space,
and a fresh approach with sympathy
for the spirit of an institution.BODEGA
Bodega isn’t gone, rather, reshaped
and shued into bar-bottle shop
Wyno. But it was the original that,
13 years ago, helped usher in a new
style of dining for the city – loud,
immediate, snack-sized – and start
a mini movement that led to Porteño,
Continental, LP’s, Stanbuli, Bodega
1904 and Bella Brutta. Bodega is
dead. Long live Bodega.BILLY KWONG
The restaurant Kylie Kwong closed
this year looked very dierent to the
one she opened on Crown Street
in 2000. What started as a modest
hole in the wall serving modern
Cantonese food transformed intoa truly Australian restaurant, tying
together threads from dierent
cultures and grounding them in
place. All eyes are now on Kwong’s
next moves.PAPER BIRD
In Moon Park, Sydney mourned the
closure of one restaurant run by Ben
Sears, Eun Hee An and Ned Brooks.
With Paper Bird, it mourns another.
One that extended the brief to all day
and to dishes outside the Korean
grounding. Here’s hoping they, and
their shrimp-brined fried chicken,
make another comeback.OSCILLATE WILDLY
When it closed in August, Oscillate
had been serving Newtown for
15 years, with Karl Firla on board
for 10 of them. No mean feat. Fans
will remember a place where the
talent was deep (the seeds of
Sixpenny were sowed at Oscillate),
the menus clever, the value high
and the ethic strong. Expect a return.LONGRAIN
Opened in 1999 by Sam Christie and
Martin Boetz, Longrain set the tone
for dining as a night out, with loud
music, low lights, exciting cocktails,
and fragrant, refined food. Oshoots
in Melbourne and Tokyo speak to
a lasting influence, as do the chefs
who graced the kitchen, including
Dan Hong and Louis Tikaram.
Christie, meanwhile, is on the
look-out for new sites.THE BRIDGE ROOM
Ross and Sunny Lusted made their
name with a commitment to fine
produce enhanced by sure technique
and a personal, exacting approach
to aesthetics. Diners will remember
CBD dining at its best, with food
that set its own agenda rather
than blindly following fashion.
Expect a new venture in 2021.C
hange is afoot. It’s not so much the death of fine dining as a cosmic shift.
Starched tablecloths and stiff service do not a fine-diner make, but this
year has seen some of the longstanding restaurants that traded in the more
traditional trappings of dining close doors. What’s particularly striking
about 2019 is how many of them had clocked up 10, 15 or even 20 years – seminal
venues that were standard bearers of Australian dining from the early 2000s or even
earlier. Among them was a smattering of ambitious restaurants from younger chefs
and operators that may not have run as long, but whose significance will ripple long
into the future. The good news? The next project is always just around the corner.So long,
farewell
80 GOURMET TRAVELLER
WORDS MICHAEL HARDEN & DAVID MATTHEWS. PHOTOGRAPHY WILL HORNER.