Cured & Cultured Bar @ Bennelong, Sydney Opera House

So it was my birthday last month and I finally booked in for lunch at the Cured and Cultured Bar in Bennelong restaurant inside the Opera House cos you know, a girl’s gotta treat herself The Cured and Cultured bar is perfect for those not wanting to do the 3 course menu or have issues with super fine dining atmosphere *cough* Noods *cough*

We start with the Red claw yabby ($36) which I coo over for a good minute because I mean, LOOK AT THEM YABBIES! So perfect! This dish is a DIY affair, and I was grateful that each yabbie had been split and pre-shelled before being served in its shell. Grab a warm buckwheat pikelet (that’s cooked to order), whack on a yabbie and it’s up to you to control how much lemon jam and cultured cream you want. Personally I was quite happy not to slather too much of either as I enjoyed the slightly nutty flavour from the pikelet with the natural sweetness of the yabbie.

The Tart of raw ocean trout with golden trout roe, lemon ($14) is picture perfect in terms of presentation and also taste but be warned it’s on the small side and I could’ve easily smashed 5. The tart is buttery, flaky and crisp, the perfect vessel to hold the ribbons of ocean trout and briny baubles of trout roe.

We liked the Seared tartare of purebred Wagyu ($28) with dollops of horseradish cream and a sprinkle of capers and used the crispy beef tendon shards to scoop up everything but we kinda wished there was an egg on top to mix everything together? I dunno maybe we’ve just become accustomed to expecting an egg and missing out on the pleasure of stabbing the yolk.

There happened to be a function happening on that day and we stared lustfully at platters of the Suckling pig sausage rolls with black garlic ($24) being plated up and then died a little on the inside when the edges were cut off and dumped unceremoniously into the bin. I mean, that’s a 24 smackerooney sausage roll! We had a moment of silence for the sausage roll edges that were lost to the void before diving hungrily into our sliced up fanceh sausage roll. I loved the buttery, flakey pastry wrapped around the tender, 8 hour slow cooked suckling pig meat innards but wished there was more of the black garlic sauce which amped up the umami factor.

I’m not usually one for cherry desserts. Or coconut. BUT I loved the Cherry jam lamington ($28)! Yes it’s a bit steep for dessert but it is perfection. The shiny chocolate ganache mirror glaze envelopes a perfect cube of light sponge with coconut cream and a layer of tart cherry jam. And it’s nestled amongst frozen curls of coconut milk parfait that just melt on the tongue! Definitely a must order.

Innards!

Cured and Cultured Bar at Bennelong
Sydney Opera House
Bennelong Point
Sydney

Lunch
Fri – Sun: 12pm – 2.30pm

Dinner
Sun – Weds: 5.30pm – 10pm
Thurs – Sat: 5.30pm – 11pm

The post Cured & Cultured Bar @ Bennelong, Sydney Opera House appeared first on ChocolateSuze.