SPINNING PLATES.

Dylan said it best. The times they are a-changin.

Yes, I’ve seen the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown.

Yes, Timothée Chalamet is very good, and the whole thing is beautifully crafted and not at all annoying, even to an old Dylan freak like myself.

Mind you, I’m only a freak for young Dylan, not old Dylan, so I was in my element. Much respect was paid to Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger (poignantly played by Ed Norton), and Joan Baez, and the story of the move from folk to rock (not chronologically correctly, but hey, artistic license).

It feels like an important story to know about, now that Bob’s 80 and there’s a generation who know bugger all about him and how he changed everything.

There’s a scene where Suze Rotolo (called Sylvie in the film), is leaving Bob and trying to explain why. She says something like “It’s like that guy spinning plates on sticks that you talk about from the carnival”.

And Bobothée says, “I always liked that guy”.

And Suze/Sylvie says “Yeah, because you’re the guy. I’m one of the plates.”

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Thanks for joining up, by the way, and welcome to this monthly report from a recovering restaurant critic. I’m hoping that each month you get something out of it – a couple of great new places to check out, reminders of good places flying under the radar, or just an update on the restaurants shaping and a-changin how we eat in 2025. I’ll cover off the odd hot new dish, share any intel I get, and poke a stick every now and then at evolving trends.

So here I go measuring February in bites; spinning the plates.

GOLDEN CENTURY IS BACK, WITH ITS CASINO FACE ON.

The original Golden Century in Chinatown closed its doors in 2021 and is sadly missed, in all its round table chaos and paper serviettes, and TV screens on the wall, big platters of Cantonese banquet food, and late-night feasts of abalone congee and roast duck. We thought it would always be there, until it wasn’t.

But wait until you see the new Golden Century, moved into the old Silks venue on the third floor of Crown Sydney. It’s a completely camera-ready, red-carpet make-over that can only be described as glamorous.

The dramatically black fish tanks are banked like rice terraces – nine metres of them, filled with fish, crab and lobster. GC regulars know the drill - XO pipis, ma po bean curd, roast duck, and sweet, steamed live prawns, and coral trout, beautifully steamed and simply dressed with soy, ginger and spring onions. And the salt-and-pepper lobster is unbelievably good. Scallop siu mai, tick. Nice and chunky inside.

Downside: It’s in a casino. Reality check: It’s the casino that has made it happen and brought back the Golden Century.

Great to see Eric and Linda Wong back in such style, and son Billy making it all happen. Thanks also to Guillaume Brahimi for the invite; we had a lot to catch up on when we didn’t have mouthfuls of lobster.

Level 3, Crown Sydney, 1 Barangaroo Ave, Barangaroo crownsydney.com.au

WHAT WAS BILL’S IS PHIL’S: CAFÉ CRESSIDA

Queen’s Court Terrace is about as Woollahra as Woollahra gets, and there’s been a good café in the lovely, sheltered courtyard there since Margie Agostini’s Caffe Agostini, back in the 1990s. The couple at the table next to me at the new Café Cressida were just back from a few weeks in St Moritz, and we got talking about Margie’s famous orange cake, which I used to run in to buy on a weekly basis.

At another point, the courtyard café was a Bill’s, but now it’s a Phil’s, owned by chef Phil Wood – once Neil Perry’s lifeline at Rockpool, now running the charming two-hatted Ursula’s in Paddington - and his wife Lis Davies. Named for their daughter Cressida, it’s casual and easy-going with a genuinely fun menu that tries for something for everyone, put through a Phil Wood filter.

That means breakfast porridge and eggs all ways, chicken sandwiches and chicken congee, house-made pasta and a cheeseburger. It also means a queue, as all of Woollahra tries for a table, so choose your times wisely.

Breakfast also delivers that rarest of rare things – a fruit platter in which the fruit is perfectly ripe (not sure that has ever happened before).

To drink, there’s Genovese coffee, Tea Drop teas, Champagne by the glass, and a house Negroni.

This is a perfect fit for Woollahra, and for this caring and conscientious hospitality power couple, who really know and understand the peculiarities of their market. PS. My next-door neighbours had the orange cake, which looked terrific, although more icing on the cake would, I think, be the icing on the cake. Queen’s Court Terrace, 118 Queen Street, Woollahra. cafecressida.com

PURPOSE-BUILT BREAD AND WINE: BRING YOUR TEETH

Sydney already had seven All Purpose bakeries and venues, thanks to coffee impresario Russell Beard, chef Mat Lindsay, Paramount House’s Ping Jin Ng and the beating hearth of the project, wheat-grower turned baker, Dougal Muffet.

Now there’s eight with the launch of AP’s first fully fledged diner, AP Bread & Wine, tucked away in a sandstone cottage that looks as if it were built when the Governor was Macquarie. Just up the hill from Crown Street, there are tables on the street, more tables on the front verandah, and more inside the big square room lined with bottles and breads.

I ordered drowned eggs in chicken stock just to find out what that meant. It was weirdly confronting and comforting all at once – a bowl of softly scrambled egg doused with a ladleful of deeply flavoured, savoury chicken stock, served with a flattened and slightly sweet toasted demi baguette.

I put my brain into French Dip gear and enjoyed it but it’s not an immediate winner. Which I’m not entirely sure they give a hoot about.

As a baker, Dougal pays attention to the quality of the wheat, the grains and the milling as much as he does the actual baking, which he pushes harder and further than most. You need your teeth, which is an unusual but a great thing to say about his breads and pastries. If you prefer pretty little moussey things with butterflies on top, do not enter.

Even a sugar-dusted umeboshi plum sourdough brioche bun is an almost savoury choice. Coffee is Reuben Hills and excellent. Good staff. They’ve just started doing dinner, too. Next week, maybe.

32 Burton Street, Darlinghurst www.apbakery.com.au

LANDED FULLY FORMED: ELEVEN BARRACK

Is Sydney getting more European? Or indeed, more Melburnian? Now that the Bentley team of Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt has moved into 11 Barrack Street, once an over-the-top Italian fine diner by name of Seta, it’s looking that way.

The interior space is still magnificent, but is now much warmer and artier, after long-time collaborator, interior designer Pascale Gomes-McNabb and Chris Grinham from H&E Architects have done their thing.

Eleven Barrack is clubby and comfortable, with trails of white-clothed tables running down to the front kitchen, alongside a full-on walk-in wine library that I imagine is the sole reason Hildebrandt voted to buy into the site.

Silk lanterns by artist Moya Delany hang from the ceiling, the space is measured in marble columns and there’s even a pianist on a vintage grand piano.

The kitchen, with its ultra-expensive Marrone wood-fired grill already there, probably got Savage’s vote over the line.

Billed as a steak and seafood grill, the opening menu runs from a racy spanner crab & fish pie with shellfish bisque to a Kurobuta pork tomahawk with blood plum glaze.

I like a big coil of girella pasta filled with duck confit, topped with an egg yolk and surrounded by a Romesco’ish sauce. Good little fried ricotta dumplings, and perfect little goujons of flathead, a masterly seafood boudin (sausage) made with Murray cod, and a very retro steamed John Dory with a chive-flecked butter sauce studded with trout roe.

It's pricey and pampering and accompanied by live piano; a crazy, optimistic, throw-our-hats-in-the-ring effort by the Bentley group that immediately recalibrates the top dining possibilities in town.

Which, as Good Food’s David Matthews noted in his smart review of The Grill at the International, are becoming very grill-centric. He cited Clam Bar, The Gidley, Woodcut, Shell House, and The Cut, but you could add Margaret in Double Bay, and all the Japanese and Korean offerings such as the excellent Ibushi in Prefecture 48, and Sydney is virtually charred.

I think Eleven Barrack brings something new, as well as old. It has more than just sizzle and smoke, it has warmth. 11 Barrack Street, Sydney. bentleyrestaurantgroup.com.au

PART-TIME LOVER, ADELAIDE: FULL-TIME LOVE.

Great name, great little place in a laneway in Adelaide. (All the good places in Adelaide are in laneways). PTL is like a glasshouse or greenhouse with a cool Sans-Arc Studio fit-out and a busy breakfast through coffees to no-fuss lunches and dinners of bright, simple dishes. It all feels very Adelaide, with a well-connected wine list, produce-driven plates, mix of high and low seating, stonework, blond wood, light, fresh air. From the team behind Pink Moon Saloon (excellent use of laneway), who have just opened another great-looking place called Sofia, which will have to wait until next time. They’re good at defining a space and a place, and the thinking is fresh.

The PTL Breaky Bun of bacon, fried egg, mortadella (more-tadella!), Swiss cheese and ranch dressing is a bit much for breakfast. Or so I was told. Several times. Good Five Senses coffee. And sorry Mr Dylan, but the name comes from a Stevie Wonder song. Loving the laneway name, also.

Paul Kelly Lane (formerly Pilgrim Lane), Adelaide parttimelover.com.au

LOTTIE’S DOES SYDNEY SUMMER.

I dipped a toe in the murky waters of media invitations from restaurants and their PR companies – a new world for me, and one I am still trying to navigate - and went along to a media night at Lottie’s, the latest addition from the Liquid & Larder group to the Wunderlich Lane precinct (see earlier report on Olympus Dining in TD Eats January).

It's a great position on the rooftop of the new boutique Eve Hotel (which looks very promising), and offers an untraditional take on Mexican food. There are some good things, but I wasn’t sold on the opening menu and felt I’d seen it all before. If you go, the best dish is the Murray cod, with a bright achiote sauce and lime, and there’s a good chocolate Mezcal tart.

To be fair, there had been a bit of a kerfuffle with chefs, and Alejandro Huerta has now come on board. The next menu will be more in his style, and possibly more Mexican. I like the very cute little goat salt cellar on the table, the Luis Barragan style architecture, the pink ochre, and the long lengths of bar and kitchen backed by windows, light, a cloudy sky, and the passing bats. It isn’t Sydney in summer without the bats.

To be clear: hosted. And to be well-mannered: thank you Stellar PR for the invitation. Rooftop, Eve Hotel, Wunderlich Lane, Redfern liquidandlarder.com.au

TROUBADOURS, DOGS AND BLTS IN THE PARK.

Got a dog? Take it for a walk in Rushcutters Bay Park along with the rest of Sydney, and stop at Scramble & Bean, a shady little café by the tennis courts, to a soundtrack of thwack, swear word, thwack. They do a decent BLT and good Little Marionette coffee, and you look out towards the marina through the trees, a breeze in your face; your hair blowin’ in the wind.

Sunday bonus: you get troubadour Lee Benari on guitar as well, which really is the icing on the cake. (A lot of music in this month’s blog. I blame Bob.)

Rushcutters Bay Park Tennis Centre, Rushcutters Bay Park, Sydney.

HOT NEW DISH

This month’s award goes to Bar Miette in Brisbane:

What’s better than mortadella? More-tadella, piled high in a milk bun with crunchy pistachios with salted butter and smoked maple syrup.

Andrew McConnell’s little terrace Bar Miette (which means a crumb, or a little piece) perches like a hat above Supernormal restaurant, with killer views towards Storey Bridge and over the river. It’s a good spot for breakfast if it’s not too windy, and great for after-work drinks with said mortadella milk bun and a rhubarb, blood orange, eau de vie and bitters in a Jasmine aperitivo. 443 Queen Street, Brisbane barmiette.com

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Time to stop spinning plates, and wrap it up. Thanks to everyone for joining me. Thanks again to Hugh Stewart for my portrait, I still like it. The jury’s still out on media invites, but I’ll make a point of noting if and when I was hosted. In the meantime, let me know any restaurants you think the wider world should know about, and I’ll try to get there under my own steam.

If you hit the subscribe button below, you’ll get the next report in your inbox, last Friday of next month. Until then. Thanks, Terry.