Rocker
There's a lot to love about Rocker, Darren Robertson's new Bondi eatery. The beachy casual vibe, the cleverly put together space, utilising materials such as plywood and timber pallets, and the fact that you'd be happy popping in straight from the surf.
It does, however, feel a little like a place in search of an identity. Is it a café or a restaurant? When we sit down for weekend lunch at 1.30pm – for which we'd booked – we're offered coffee rather than wine. The brunch menu ranges from breakfast bircher, a bacon sarnie and things with eggs (blood sausage, green things, cobia) to two pastas, a steak and a fish. Dinner loses the eggs and gains five small plates. There's a separate kids' menu which includes fish cakes and a delectable meat pie.
The orecchiette with clams and urchin is actually conchiglie, cooked just the wrong side of al dente. The sea urchin-infused sauce, however, is gloriously complex, the clams fat and meaty. Flat-iron steak is served as four medium-rare slices on a bed of blackened, burnt leeks.
The John Dory on the bone is tiny, the width of the fish roughly the same as the length of the tines of my fork. My husband reckons he'd have thrown that one back. It's served with nothing but the pan juices it was cooked in, a scattering of sea succulents and a few salty capers. The buttery, lemony sauce is superb but there's barely enough fish to enjoy it, and at $36 it feels a bit mean. We quickly order some bread for mopping up – it would be a crime to leave these juices – and a green salad with pickled grapes, to round out the meal. The wine list is a cracker, featuring boutique Aussie producers with a range of grape varieties. It's a bit quirky – a rosé made from pinot noir, gewurtz and sauv blanc, for example – with a good offering by the glass.
Robertson wears many hats: celebrity cook; wunderkind chef of the hipster surfer generation; co-owner of mega-successful, multi-locational Three Blue Ducks; author and recipe columnist. As a former head chef of Tetsuya's, he's got serious cooking credentials. But it's Brit Stuart Toon, direct from working with Jamie Oliver, behind the burners here. It would be wonderful to see what Robertson would do with more time in his own kitchen. There'd be even more to love.
-Sally Webb
5/39-53 Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach; (02) 8057 8086. rockerbondi.com.au.
Kisumé
Chris Lucas' Flinders Lane Japanese restaurant, Kisume. Photo: Bonnie Savage
Given Chris Lucas's track record for shaking the dining scene off its hinges (see Chin Chin, Kong and Hawker Hall), it should come as no surprise that his latest project, Kisumé – three levels of Japanese-inspired food and quirky art on Flinders Lane – is causing a dining ruckus. So much is going on here, you almost need to dissect the package rather than view it as a whole. There's a chablis bar, a set of private dining rooms, a premium chef's table (open in August), and two lower floors where menus are served either in booths or at a long, luminous sushi bar.
The chablis bar is an entity in its own right, all glowing tables and bondage pics from Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki, with a quirky, sometimes quiet drinksat-the-Four-Seasons vibe. Sitting here, dropping $18 a glass on iterations of William Fèvre and Louis Michel chablis – including complimentary olives and truffled pastry twists – you could be forgiven for thinking Kisumé is all premium, all the time. But if this is a step up for Lucas in design (charcoal walls, plush pink drapes, the chef's table hewn from pure bamboo) and service (drinkers with intent can pick Grange from an open cellar or order through a sommelier imported from Eleven Madison Park), the menus below deck hit all points of the dining spectrum.
The lunch crowd can start and end with Kisumé's mixed boxes of salmon or tuna sushi and sashimi for $28.50. It's a tidy deal for some very good all-Aussie fish. If you want to kick things up a gear, deluxe boxes in a nouveau sushi style go for $88. Here, mackerel, otoro (rich, fatty tuna belly) and wagyu beef nigiri might be embellished with gold leaf, purple crisps and avruga caviar.
Purists who don't dig the bling can go straight to omakase. Here you see the best of Kisumé, as chef Moon Kyung Soo presents a dozen nigiri, one piece at a time, the warm, nutty and supple rice packs crowned with meticulously textured and embellished pieces of squid, sea urchin or perhaps bluefin tuna if it's just come in.
My advice would almost be to do this and forget everything else. The broader menu has highs: supple crab dumplings crowned with quail yolks; a whole grilled mackerel that's a riot of fatty oils, spice and ginger; and chilled limey dashi with soba noodles and a cool, refreshing kick. But sushi is to Kisumé as steak is to Rockpool Bar & Grill: it's the beating heart. Consider the rest trimming.
- Gemima Cody
175 Flinders Lane, Melbourne; (03) 9671 4888. kisume.com.au.