Bentley Restaurant & Bar: Restaurant review

Ever since their earliest model, the Bentley crew has steadily stayed ahead of the pack. From the Surry Hills original (Bentley) where casual but clever drinking came with anything but casual food, to today's modest empire of seafood with a view (Cirrus), fine dining without meat (Yellow) and good food-with-wine or the other way around (Monopole), this city is all the better for their work. Under a black-splashed ceiling laced with intersecting steel frames, their flagship restaurant and bar is an unlikely hotel dining room except for the city folk at many of its dark wood tables. They're here for Hildebrandt's seamless wine list and pairing flair, and Savage's determinedly modern menu made up mostly of prime seafood and often curious vegetables: scallop tartare with plum, almond and lemon verbena, say, or apple cucumber with green kohlrabi, hazelnut and camel's milk curd. Fresh, herbal, astringent flavours are offset cleverly – with the likes of a creamy smoked pil-pil sauce (with just-cooked bass groper), perhaps, or a deeply meat-like onion broth (served with WA marron). And it's all mighty pleasurable. Right through to soft cones of pumpkin curled around sweet pumpkin curd with faintly bitter brown-butter ice-cream alongside.

Phone:
(02) 8214 0505

Bookings:
Bookings recommended

Chef:
Brent Savage and Aiden Stevens