HONING THE CRAFT.

The latest swag of restaurant openings show that dining is sharpening its act. Don't cut yourself.

To hone is to use something abrasive in order to smooth or sharpen.

As I go about my business of dining in restaurants old and new, it feels as if that’s what’s happening at the moment. Chefs and restaurateurs honing their craft; not just hustling through the day and making a buck, but using the abrasive difficulties of the economy to smooth and sharpen their skills.

Like the Saint Peter Bar on a late Sunday afternoon. The drinks they make.

Like the burger they engineer at Joe’s Tavern, an architectural marvel.

And like the restaurants they build, such as Grill Americano.

WHAT IS CRAFT, ANYWAY?

When I started eating out, the old school guys were doing classic cuisine, which meant French, naturally. Stock-based sauces, pastry, the whole repertoire. If you didn’t know how to make an omelette, you weren’t hired. While I respect the skill of the practitioners of those days, I’m glad we have moved on.

In the 1980’s, the innovative nouvelle cuisine updated classic French with another revered cuisine; that of Japan. Absorbing (and sometimes forcing) an appreciation of Japanese technique and culinary philosophy into la belle France was a much-needed gear shift towards a more natural and seasonal approach.

What we know as craft has evolved ever since, driven by ephemeral and lasting trends and by technology bringing the world closer. These days, I think of honing a craft as working out how to do whatever it is you are doing, better. It’s putting the work in, with intent.

For some, that means a deep dive into the technique of cooking by fire; for others, it’s culinary activism, or going as far as they can go to hero their suppliers and producers. For many, it means exploring their own heritage and the craft of that culture’s national or regional cuisines, or deliberately returning to the days of the classic dishes in order to rethink them for today.

I’m not going to force this month’s dining choices into justifying my headline, but I think you’ll see where I’m drifting.

EAT AT JOE’S: JOE’S TAVERN, NEWTOWN.

Go early and you might catch Elvis Abrahanowicz behind the bar showing a young chef how to slice a tomato in three different ways for the tomato salad.

Or settle into one of the small booths and check out the black and white photographs of famous chefs that line the walls - everyone from Bourdain to Bocuse.

There’s a section on the shortish menu called Parts & Labour in which share dishes showcase different aspects of the pig, lamb or whatever, in different forms, be they sausage, grilled, braised, pickled or smoked.

It’s because they buy in whole animals and break them down themselves with old-fashioned butchery skills - something you can only do when you actually have those skills, and you want to pass them on and keep them alive. It’s harder, and it takes longer, so it’s a big choice to make, and one that should be properly valued.

That’s why there’s a section on offal as well, and left-over roast leg of lamb, served cold with anchovy mayonnaise. Typically, everyone just orders the burger, but that too, showcases craft with its 50/50 mix of beef and lamb.

The Pig Plate doesn’t beat around the bush. There’s a long, house-made pork sausage, crisp-skinned pork belly, and a crumbed chop stuffed with its own ham and provolone cheese, with another goodly chunk of ham from the very same beast.

Joe’s Tavern is named for Joe Valore, one of the founders of the Paisano and Daughters group, and tellingly replaces the group’s plant-based Flora, which failed to blossom.

They say Joe’s is “the familiar, cooked with skill”, which means prawn cocktail with sauce Marie Rose, duck liver parfait, and that tomato salad in a fabulous shellfish vanilla vinaigrette you should be able to buy by the bottle.

Drinks are well-produced and directed by Michael Nicolian, whiskeys and wines are serious, and dessert chef Lauren Eldridge has fun with a PB & J ice-cream sandwich and an heroic Knickerbocker Glory. Open late, with plenty of fill-you-up food, it has a good handle on how to dine in 2026. Eat at Joe’s.

NEWISH JEWISH-ISH: BISTRO BONDI

Start with challah (hallah) bread with caponata, freshly shucked Sydney Rock oysters, and smooth-talking house-made chicken liver pate with mustard fruits and bagel crisps.

Bagel? Challah? Yes, it’s Bistro Bondi, a new Warners Avenue diner from the Lox In A Box crew, with former Poly chef Isabelle Caulfield working with head chef Dan Anderson.

This isn’t glamour-by-the-sea like Icebergs; this is back street Bondi, and kids playing on the lawn, and queues next door for Lox in a Box staples. It’s an American diner feel, softened with European overtones and nice staff.

I did Sunday lunch there with a couple of mates over a bottle of Muscadet, sticking with oysters, snacks, gildas, and a smoky platter of charred Clarence River prawns with Café de Paris butter. There’s schnitzel, too, and steak frites, and rhubarb crepes with honey butter, but the soft, glossy, braided yeast bread is the best. It’s good to see different baking crafts coming back.

A cool little diner that mixes Bondi past and present.

STAKING A CLAIM: GRILL AMERICANO

Mmmm, never mind the prices, feel the luxury. In 2022, Melbourne restaurateur Chris Lucas opened Grill Americano in Little Collins Street, which quickly became the city banker go-to.

Now he has opened the same concept in Sydney and is getting a similar response. The space is quite magnificent; a slow curve of massively high glass windows – a full 90 metre frontage opposite Chifley Square in what was the old Qantas building.

The Venetian steakhouse theme, the blue velvet banquettes, the 30 metre-long marble bar, well-versed staff (especially the senior rankers) and the kitchen built around a Josper grill all add to the story. Yes, it’s pricey (my lunch for two hit $300), but nobody is going to sneer if you just sit up at the counter and have a glass of wine and some oysters, either.

Lucas has always spent the money to achieve what he wants – Maison Batard, Society, etc, and at a different level, Chin Chin - and I always ascribed that to his pride in Melbourne and its hospitality culture. Now I realise he just loves restaurants; he lives and breathes them; and in so doing, has become something of a patron of the art and craft behind restaurants as much as he is a proprietor.

Executive chef Vincenzo Ursini has moved from Melbourne for the opening, as has pasta specialist Simone Giorgianni - and pastry chef Michaela Kang, because Grill Americano is nothing without her famous tiramisu.

You could do worse than have a Bellini to start, then salumi misto, then fritto misto or pasta, before sinking into steaks and grills.

Lobster agnolotti is a nice way to go luxe without spending $350 (it’s $46). The pasta is stuffed high, the edges zig-zagged, the sauce a rich, heady Americaine that turns the whole thing into a red-wine dish.

Wines by the glass (go for the Chablis) move on quickly to Coravin samples and a massive, beautifully produced range of big-hitters - especially Burgundy, but everything is there.

The tiramisu, as I said, is mandatory. Kang has already made 48 of these giant bowls of deliciousness for the Sydney opening, and she can’t stop now. Not if you get it when it has sufficiently ripened to coalesce into one glorious mouthful of savoiardi biscuits, creaminess, bitter cocoa powder, with the surprise of a Magnum-like strata of chocolate through the middle that saves it all from collapsing. That’s craft for you.

Grill Americano was born to be in Sydney; it’s a great match. The splendour and spaciousness of the experience give it a big edge over its smaller, squeezier sibling in Melbourne. But then, Melbourne has Maison Batard and the chocolate mousse Trolley of Love, so fair’s fair.

NOSTALGIA ON TAP: SOUTH END

This place is pushing so many retro trends that it comes across as completely of the here and now. There’s the taking over of an old established café site on a street corner. The young chefs in the kitchen doing their first gig outside of serious restaurants, with the partner on the floor whose first gig it is not.

There’s the separation of the dining room and kitchen. The short menu with big personality. The return of the whole-main-course-to-myself instead of sharing everything (though there is one pretty nice share main course). The story-telling of the wine service. The character-laden wines. The can-do attitude. The list goes on.

Former Fred’s head chef Hussein Sahan (who worked at Spring with Australian-born chef Skye Gyngell, whose loss has been deeply felt), Ester’s Alex Tong, and Paul Guiney (AP Bread+Wine, Bentley Group, Embla) have joined forces to open South End, down the south end of King Street.

Jill and I had a very Provencal-leaning meal that evoked for us Robert Carrier’s love of the region, with a great little crushed black olive tapenade, with good bread and butter; a carefully composed bouillabaisse that could do with being a bit more rustic, and an enjoyable dish of lamb with a light, rich, well-made sauce and peas cooked the French way (slow).

The kitchen’s out the back; the loo is down the steps in the backyard and the floor staff are chatty in a nice way, delivering food they know you are going to enjoy. It’s how dining out in Sydney used to feel, before QR codes and chatbot reservation agents. A good place in which to spend your money.

EVERYTHING’S A CAFÉ NOW: CAFÉ MARGARET

Baker Bleu has now split from Perry World in Double Bay, and what was Margaret restaurant’s ‘Next Door’ bistro has morphed into Café Margaret, an indoor/outdoor diner that is now an all-day café, coffee bar, and sandwich grab-and-go.

For lunch, try Neil’s classic club sambo; for dinner, go for Copper Tree Farm steak frites. I went for breakfast, for the bacon, cheese and egg roll. It was good, if a bit squishy-soft, and there was SO much bacon. “It’s a bacon and egg roll,” says Neil, “not an egg and bacon roll.” Quite.

BIG DAY OUT FOR THE LITTLE ONES: THE GROUNDS

Going to the Grounds without a kid is like living in Potts Point without a dog - people view you with great suspicion. Especially now that Christmas is nearly upon us and the Grounds’ tartan-clad Christmas promotion is in full swing. It’s full-on crazy, but it’s also quite the miracle that they can fit so many people into their own entertainment precinct, AND keep up the standards (especially with baked goods), AND still have pockets of beauty.

’Tis a week for bacon and egg rolls, and there is a beauty here, well-engineered, good structure, all the good things. It doesn’t require the four solid polenta fingers that come with it, so I wrap them in a napkin and have them with a nice piece of fish for dinner. #zerowaste.

PDR STYLE: ARIA SYDNEY

PDR stands for Private Dining Room, and I am always fascinated by how a restaurant translates its food offering from public to private.

The best PDR experiences get as close as possible to replicating that of the main dining room; as happened at Aria this week, on a long table lined with fresh blooms from Grandiflora. There were some genuinely interesting and highly seasonal dishes that went beyond the usual safe-and-steady group dining options.

Buffalo curd agnolotti with broad beans, young garlic and lemon, and Jurassic quail with spring peas, morels and mustard were just two. Cheers to chef Thomas Gorringe and the crew (and Matt Moran, of course).

And thanks to Nicole, Wanda and Gillian of Explora Journeys and Philip and Laura of PEPR for such a graceful introduction to Explora’s ‘ocean state of mind’. www.explorajourneys.com

BARE BONES: BONES, DARLINGHURST

Ramen might have disappeared from the name, but Bones is still very much a Japanese proposition, with Orion beer on tap, sake galore, a small stone garden out the back, and a diverse range of ramen noodle soups.

In 2022, Farmhouse co-owner Mike Mu Sung opened Bones Ramen with partner, Jacob Riwaka (Rising Sun Workshop), in the back streets of Potts Point. Now it has joined the Stanley Street gang in Darlinghurst, bringing with it the signature prawn toast (Japanese milk bread toast wrapped around a giant prawn and prawn mousse, complete with head and tail), along with chicken karaage, trevally sashimi, niboshi shio made with chicken stock, noodle-like scallop silk and prawn balls, and Japanese cheesecake with marmalade.

Everyone gets into the Japanese swing of things, including the woman at the table next to mine, who ate her entire bavette steak and fries with chopsticks.

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Time to sign off for November; thanks for joining me. Thanks also to Hugh Stewart for my cutlery-clenching portrait, and to JD for the food pics, and Jason Loucas for (some) Grill Americano. As always, noted when hosted (private event at Aria). If it isn’t noted, I’ve paid my way ( all the rest).

Leave a comment below, but only if it’s nice. And hit the subscribe button below to get the next report in your inbox, last Friday of the month. Until then. Thanks, Terry.