Sixpenny: Restaurant review

Sixpenny's references to colonial Australian cookery have become more oblique in recent years, but this corner restaurant in sleepy Stanmore still manages sly nods. Gone are the pumpkin scallops and the mutton, but a kangaroo tartare, topped with a dainty sweet potato crisp and given oomph with dried cheese and malt, riffs on good old meat and potatoes in the most refined of ways. A piece of steak with onion plays on, well, steak and onions, but distils it to dark-crusted, pink-centred chuck-tail flap, charred pickled onion and a sticky mushroom-Marsala sauce. There's an ease here, and a willingness to update old favourites that rewards return visits, tomato butter coating spanner crab topped with salmon roe and purple daikon in the latest spin on a signature an example. Tomato reappears in a deep green broth where John Dory plays backup to zucchini and snow peas. Flavours are clear and bright, dishes realised with precision and delivered with enthusiasm by kitchen staff, who are ably supported by a front-of-house team that revel in pouring wine from a list that has scope, but above all emphasises quality over quantity, which, in this tiny spot, is pretty apt.

Phone:
(02) 9572 6666

Bookings:
Bookings essential

Chefs:
Daniel Puskas & Aaron Ward