Newly refreshed, Bentley consolidates its position as the rare restaurant where wine and food meet on an equal footing.
Bentley isn’t the one with the views. That’s Cirrus, the fish place. And it’s not the wild one. That’s the wine bar, Monopole. And it isn’t the one that’s all about vegetables. That’s Yellow. Bentley is the one that started it all.
Word on the street is that Bentley has the hardest-working kitchen in town. If you’re an ambitious chef looking to test your mettle in Sydney, this place will take everything you can throw at it and more. Brent Savage has his people fermenting saltbush and pickling muntries to garnish slow-cooked beef tongue. They make curd from camel’s milk (yes, the milk of camels) to complement watermelon radish, and place tiny Mexican cucamelons on pistachio butter and linseed crackers for a bar snack. Figs on a plate it ain’t.
Why settle for regular butter, they reason, when you can spread your house-baked rye with a glossy ebony mixture of butter and black sesame? Why merely savour the textural rhyme of blacklip abalone and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms when you could get the SEAL Team Six of Sydney kitchens to make you a mayonnaise flavoured with roast-chicken juices to take things up a notch?
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Not a vegetable but rather a flower bud that rises on a thistle, the artichoke is a complex delight. Its rewards are hard won; first you must get past the armour of petals and remove the hairy choke. Those who step up are rewarded with sweet and savoury creaminess and the elusive flavour of spring. Many of the recipes here begin with the same Provençal braise. Others call on the nuttiness of artichokes in their raw form. The results make pasta lighter and chicken brighter or can be fried to become a vessel for bold flavours all of which capture the levity of the season.
