I ate Neil Perry’s $72 pigeon and it was like something from a Game of Thrones episode: review

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Address: 11 Bridge St, Sydney

Phone: 9252 1888

Web: rockpool.com

Food: Contemporary

Score: 18/20

If the purpose of contemporary high-end dining is to transport you out of the drudgery of ordinary life into some other realm, then I am having a Game Of Thrones moment.

We are sitting in the sparkling, all-black dining room that was Rockpool but is now Eleven Bridge and we have slowly eaten our way through a menagerie of exotica. There’s been spanner crab and mud crab, kingfish and bass grouper and, well, pigeon. Yes, pigeon.

And then out comes a trolley pushed by no less than head chef Phil Wood himself on which sits a partridge that has been cooked whole in casing of bread.

Wood wields a pair of scissors that he uses to cut through the brioche-like loaf and into the tiny bird that has been steamed inside in its own breaded oven. Its small breast and legs are placed on to plates already delivered and set with butter-basted turnips. A feast fit for a Medieval king or queen. That’s how it feels.

Something exhilarating occurs when dining takes a leap out of the average into the miraculous. People say fine dining is dead. Not so at Eleven Bridge, where the fine-dining experience may as well be heralded with horns at the heavily carved front doors.

Eleven Bridge has taken the reins from the Neil Perry-owned and led venue that was at the forefront of Sydney dining for 27 years.

Perry sent out mixed messages when he announced Eleven Bridge would replace Rockpool, citing confusion between it and his nearby Hunter St steakhouse, Rockpool Bar + Grill, and that he wanted Eleven Bridge to be more casual than the degustation-only Rockpool.

So is Eleven Bridge more casual? Much has already been said about its prices, which soar to $54 for an entree of hand-picked mud crab salad with salted duck egg mayonnaise, a dish that’s lovely, fresh and light, if on the small size for the price, and $72 for a main of the Chinese roast pigeon with native tamarind, shark’s fin melon and hot sweet and sour sauce.

But there are cheaper options. You can dine enormously well for three courses for less than $100 if you order the less tropical offerings. One vegetarian entree of tagliolini with goat’s curd is a mere $26.

But would you? Perhaps at a business lunch. At dinner, however, let yourself go. How many times in your life will you be carved and served partridge ($59) at a table laid with a damask tablecloth and studded with fine crystal ware by the most skilled staff in the land?

So, to the cooking. It must be said that Wood is at the top of his game, producing beautifully crafted dishes that sing with full-bodied flavour wrought from the Rockpool of old’s signature east-meets-west philosophy.

His food is daring, not fussy, not always pretty, and a win of substance over style. See this in light but sumptuous dishes of Hiramasa kingfish sashimi dressed with rice and aged dashi ($36), or layered chocolate cake ($25) that’s a study in perfection.

As for the pigeon? Well, if I never eat that bird again my life will not be the poorer. But I did rather feel like a queen while eating it. And that is the magical power of an incredible restaurant.