Sydney - quest for authentic Australian eats

[ibericoham]

I am travelling soon to Sydney for about 1 week
Can someone please steer me to some authentic & "local" Aussie specialties?
I hear there's great Asian food in town - which I am inclined to skip since I get so much here in California.
Pardon my ignorance but I wouldn't recognize Australian cuisine if it landed on me... so all recommeds are most appreciated - thanks!
Also I'll be solo on this business trip - so I'll probably gravitate to the solo-friendly casual type dining venues.

[Beach Chick]

Love Lord Nelson's Pub & Brewery (food and drink) in the rocks and Fortune of War (pint) are my fav's and the oldest in Sydney..all great places to go solo.
Thai food is a notch or two above California..Sailor Thai is a fav.
Foster's is like Bud over there.
Have a great time.

[klyeoh]

The meatpies from Harry's Cafe de Wheels.

[PhilD]

It really depends what you mean by "authentic". I would say there are three main types of authentic Australian food.

First there is the indigenous food or "bush tucker" that was eaten by aboriginal people. Many of these ingredients are unique to Australia and so it will be the only chance you get to try them. However, the one restaurant in Sydney I would have recommended was "Ednas Table" but I fear it has closed, they used to do modern food using a lot of these indigenous flavours (others may know of other restaurants in Sydney). I know it isn't in Sydney but "Red Ochre Restaurant" in Adelaide has a good website that shows you the type of food. http://www.redochre.com.au/setup.htm

The second style of authentic food is the British based/influenced food that fueled Australia up until the relatively recent past - meat pies, lammingtons, pavlova, jaffles, vegemite, anzac biscuits, iced vovos, melting moments etc etc. In Sydney Harry's Cafe de Wheels is good for the pies, and many old bakeries and grocery shops will have the cakes like lammingtons and biscuits. It was never really a restaurant food, more of a home food.

Finally, there is what I consider to be true Australian food. Australia has undergone a food revolution in the last 20 or so years with lots of new chefs going back to their roots (i.e. the waves of immigration since the '40's) and taking these influences to create very innovative, fresh modern cuisine.

Some are renowned for their fusion cuisines like Tetsuya (of Tetsuya's) who combines French and Japanese techniques are now work famous, other like Neil Perry of "Rockpool" have travelled a journey to come back to modern classics, this journey launched another famous chef Kylie Kwong from his Asian restaurant "Wockpool" (since closed), Kylie also worked for Bill Grainger of "Bills" the man who put breakfast into Australia, before she launched her own restaurant "Billy Kwong".

Billie Kwong is Asian and is a good example of modern Australian, that may seem contradictory. But the way Kylie has taken the food back to her roots, her home style cooking, has interestingly moved the restaurant experience forward. Probably a style of Asian food it is difficult to find elsewhere.

These are some examples of classic Australian restaurants, there are many others and especially new chefs coming through with their own restaurants (Dave Pegrum at "Forbes & Burton" or Serif Kaya at "Ottoman cuisine", or Justin North at "Becasse") . They have taken influences from all over the world, but the essence of Australian food is how the chefs have used the influences from their heritage to create a new vibrant Australian cuisine. Lots to try.

[kmh]

what he said...

add on top of that Australian bistro fare - Bird Cow Fish, Bistro Moncur (more french influence), Fishface and Bistrode spring to mind.

If you look at our geography you're going to realise that asian culture has a strong influence on our cuisine (perhap's the most lauded thai chef in the world is an aussie) and so similar to Billie Kwong for Chinese I would give Longrain a mention for Thai food (spice i am is much lauded for thai food, but i speak in reference to the aussie thing).

[Tsar_Pushka]

"(perhap's the most lauded thai chef in the world is an aussie)"

Who? Martin Boetz? Or David Thompson?

[klyeoh]

I'm guessing it's David Thompson. He's a true-blue Aussie, but was engaged by the Thai Government to compile all possible Thai recipes he could find in the kingdom into "Aharn Thai" (Thai Food).

David Thompson's Darley Street Thai in Sydney (back in the mid-90s) raised the bar for Thai cooking in Australia. David's Nahm restaurant in the Halkin Hotel, London, is the world's first Thai (1)-Michelin-starred restaurant.

David was also the mentor to Martin Boetz (the latter is German). Martin first became interested in Thai food when he worked in David's Darley St Thai, and he later went on to helm David's other venture, Sailor's Thai. Those were the days before Martin started Longrain with Sam Christie.

When Martin Boetz launched his first cookbook "Longrain Modern Thai Food" in 2003, he invited David Thompson as the guest of honour.

[kmh]

david thompson

[MaestroSid]

There are still a couple of places in Sydney that serve "bush tucker":

* Deep Blue Bistro (Coogee)
* Wolfie's Grill (The Rocks)

I haven't dined at either, but Deep Blue Bistro is reportedly the better of the two, and much better value. Wolfie's tends to be a bit of a tourist trap. As others have said, Australia doesn't really have its own native cuisine. "Bush tucker" is essentially a novelty type of cuisine invented for tourists. Since we're a very young country, and multicultural as well, we've tended to take the best of every other nation's cuisine to form what is usually called Modern Australian. If you're eating solo, the best places in Syd for "Mod Oz" are probably:

* Pier Tasting Room (Rose Bay)
* Pony Lounge and Dining (The Rocks)
* Bills (Surry Hills)
* Lotus (Potts Point)
* Element Bistro (City)
* Moncur Terrace (Woollahra)
* Fish Face (Darlinghurst)
* Strangers with Candy (Redfern)

Many pubs now also have good Mod Oz dining rooms attached, where it's quite common to see solo diners. You could try the Tilbury Hotel, the Centennial or the Bellevue.