Let's rock, again

ROCKPOOL BAR & GRILL SYDNEY, REVIEW BY JOHN LETHLEAN  IN THE AUSTRALIAN

Is it a Sydney restaurant? A Melbourne restaurant, lost? Or a Sydney clone of a Melbourne restaurant, conceived in Sydney in the first place?  The answer, of course, is all three.

Rockpool Bar & Grill, Sydney, is the spin-off that just became the main game.  The monster threatening to eclipse the justifiably famous little place in The Rocks that gave Australia’s most recognisable chef, Neil Perry, his first bouncy springboard.

Ignoring myriad side-projects, it goes something like this.

In the beginning was Rockpool.  And Rockpool was good.  It was Modern Australian, and it indulged Perry’s talent for a broad range of cooking styles from East and West.  An important restaurant.

Then, with exquisite timing three years ago, he opened Rockpool Bar & Grill, Melbourne, a mega-bistro based largely on charcoal-grilling beef and other proteins, inspired by restaurants in the US.  It wasn’t much cheaper than (the original) Rockpool, but felt more accessible and reflected the mood of Melbourne (and the Crown Complex’s foreign visitors) particularly well.  Melbourne’s Rockpool rocked.

Then, Rockpool (the original) morphed into Rockpool (fish), a less structured, seafood-focused incarnation of the brand.  Reaction was tepid.  So it morphed back again.  To Rockpool.  Confused?  Amid all that, Perry concluded Sydney needed a Rockpool Bar & Grill, too.  And so it came to pass:  the city now has two Rockpools.

I’d like the Gruen Transfer to take a look at this one.  And if they need grand, inspiring surrounds for the pre-production lunch meeting, they might consider Rockpool.  Bar & Grill, that is.  Sydney.  With soaring ceilings, marble columns, bevelled glass windows in bronze frames and clever modern touches like “chandeliers” of wine glasses, this grandiose art deco site – The Assurance Chamber of the 1936 City Mutual Building – is unquestionably the most impressive dining room in Australia.  Simple.

If a sense of awe doesn’t clobber you passing through the magnificent glass and metal doors and into this cathedral of food, wine and the beau monde of Sydney, you’re quite possibly comatose.  The effect is profound.  And for now, at least, comparisons with Melbourne are redundant: with a number of different mezzanine dining platforms looking down on the open-chamber throng and a sexy little bar off to one side, the sense of warm grandeur here makes Melbourne look just a little pre-fab.

Without being in the slightest bit daunting, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Sydney, really does feel part of a powerful metropolis, despite straitened times.  And while Melbourne’s wine list is excellent (but, like all Crown restaurants, pricey), the collection here – reflecting part-owner/landlord/David Doyle’s rumoured $9 million wine interests in Bordeaux, Burgundy, Italy and California –  is stupefying.  There are pages, bound in leather, devoted to back vintages of the great wines of the world, some at $45,000 (and one at $89,000).  For the rest of us, wines by the glass – from the “regular” single page list – work just fine too.  At Sydney prices, of course.

But the shared lineage becomes more apparent on the floor, where football teams of waitstaff in white jackets and dark neckties busy themselves.  And as happened when Perry opened Melbourne, any number of different waiters may service your (big, black timer) table over the course of the meal, and some are a little wetter behind the ears than others.  Service is both great and gormless.

Then there’s the menu.  If you know Melbourne, it’s a case of same, same but different.  At a guess, 75 percent of it is identical.

But with chief lieutenant Khan Danis, who ran Melbourne before returning to this kitchen, Perry’s intentions for crossover between the two cities, with glammed-up versions of essentially rustic dishes with robust flavours, are obvious.

A cold selection of starters (including some exceptional raw fish dishes); interesting salads; hot starters; pasta dishes that are more starter than main; seafood from the char-grill; mains and inevitably, steaks with lots of side dishes.  Different cuts, origins, breeds, feeding regimens…governments could change while you choose beef here.  It’s the main game, really.

Appropriately, perhaps, the charred, dry-aged 350g rib eye on the bone from grass-fed Cape Grim Angus in northwestern Tasmania is quite possibly the best steak I’ve ever eaten in any restaurant.  A dark, carbon-crunchy crust from an aromatic, smoky wood grill (you can smell it in the air) revealing firm, red juicy-salty flesh with persistent, lean beefy flavour.  The condiments were almost redundant.

The sweet-and-sour combination of rare, “wood fire grilled pigeon” with radicchio, grilled red peppers, grapes and cabernet vinegar remains a highlight north of the Murray, too, and the same has to be said of the split king prawns in a zesty, coriander-dominant herb marinade cooked over charcoal and splashed with the marinade to serve.

Yes, any of us can do it, provided we have access to the crustaceans and the charcoal, but in the big city, well…that’s Perry’s shtick.

The “crispy leatherjacket fillets with crazy water” is merely perfect, lightly battered pieces of this ugly-duckling fish in a light, water-based tomato and fresh parsley juice.  And while a bitter leaf salad with grilled baby octopus, olives, cherry tomatoes and a subtle pesto works well enough, with a good balance of acid and oil, the menu’s description of “hand-pounded pesto” leave me wondering what else the chef’s hands have been pounding.

“Mac and cheese” is a rich and heady side dish, served in a sexy copper pan, that sells its socks off in Melbourne; expect the same here.  But another – mushy peas with slow-cooked egg – is sweet and off-balance, no real complement to a savoury main.

I’ve had some cracking desserts at Rockpool Bar & Grill, Melbourne, but here a kind of meringue-topped “pear and cane sugar ‘splice’”, served with fruit in syrup, was too sweet and insipid to have any serious end-of-evening impact.  But given the dessert chef is the same person responsible for my Melbourne memories, the lapse probably deserves the benefit of the doubt.  It certainly wouldn’t stop me coming back.

Steak aside, I didn’t think the food had quite the same magic I’ve experienced at the Melbourne progenitor.  Its early days.  And while some of the waitstaff seem ineffectual, others beam professionalism and charisma, including the wine guys.

Better than Melbourne?  It’s difficult not to be impressed.  It may be simple food, but Perry’s take on it is usually, special, too, living up to his “quality produce speaking for itself” mantra and, ultimately, this is a special restaurant experience.  Should you add it to our list of Sydney must-dos?  Afraid so.  If you like the original, you’re going to love the clone.

Tags: David Doyle, john lethlean, Neil Perry, reviews, Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne, Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney, Rockpool Sydney, the australian

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Bar & Grill Melbourne, Bar & Grill Sydney, Rockpool Sydney. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.