15/20
Contemporary$$$
Everything is antipodean at Antipodean,including the owner-chef. Grant King was born in New Zealand,cooked in Queenstown,came to Sydney,head-cheffed at Pier in Rose Bay right up to its three-hat status,then opened his own high-end Gastro Park in 2012. He's as trans-Tasman as a pavlova. And now he's going back – not to New Zealand,but to his roots,rebooting Gastro Park into a simpler and more casual restaurant with an emphasis on all things Australian and New Zealand.
Down have come the filmy curtains,and on the bare tables are some deliciously hand-thrown,organically shaped,saggar-fired plates from Byron Bay's Made of Australia. Back windows have been blackboard-painted for the monthly changing menu and a smaller,more focused wine list.
Here,you'll find things like New Zealand's Cloudy Bay clams with smoked bacon vinaigrette;South Australian jamon (the full leg proudly displayed as a feature) served with pickled muntries,and raw Paroo kangaroo with local pecorino and Manjimup truffle.
You might have gathered that when King says his cooking is simpler,it's a relative term from someone who used to float liquid butternut gnocchi in mushroom consomme.
Fans of blood pudding should go for the lush,fresh-tasting version here ($22),cleverly counterpointed by quandong and pickled shallots.
Mount Cook salmon is beautifully cured (with native pepperberry) and served with the fresh pop of finger lime ($24) but it needs toast,or something crisp.
If you call for bread – sourdough and great butter is just $2 – then splash another $3 on a bowl of bisque-like crab sauce for dipping – yowzers.
Or slip into something comfortable with tiny agnolotti ($26),teamed with slippery jack mushrooms and buffalo milk feta in a dense mushroom broth. No gimmicks,just sharp technique and distinct flavours.
Antipodean's roast flathead with house bacon ($27) isn't exactly simple,either. The fish is poached at 52 degrees in clarified brown butter,giving the flesh a cushiony softness. For the bacon,pork belly is cured for two days,hung for five,glazed in Tasmanian chickpea miso and cold-smoked for six hours. The sauce is all about red wine and fish bones,reduced,reduced,until the result tastes like a lovely,wintry,coq au vin – with the bacon of your dreams.
Pud is predictably unpredictable:marigold ice-cream with torched and freeze-dried mandarin ($15) that's super cool.
King is gung-ho for his new weekend brunch,and all I can say is that bacon had better be on it or there will be hell to pay.
The wine-loving chef has whittled down the former 240 bottle list to around 40 antipodean labels. A. Rodda's 2015 tempranillo from Beechworth in Victoria ($14/$70) is succulent,savoury and spicy,a good match for the brunch menu's duck with persimmon.
The Cross has a great history of gastronomic antipodean-ness – the seminal Bayswater Brasserie of the 1980s and'90s came from a bunch of New Zealanders – and King and his business partner Johanne Stanton have a kitchen and dining room that has a similarly anarchic,cheeky,I-did-it-my-way attitude.
So while Antipodean is more casual,better-priced and more accessible than Gastro Park,a driven,obsessive,independent thinker like Grant King is never going to just grill a steak and put fries on the side. Even if he would make a fortune doing it.
The lowdown
Best bit:The Kings Cross back-street vibe.
Worst bit: It's a room that needs people to come alive.
Go-to dish: Fresh blood pudding,quandong,pickled shallot ($22).
Terry Durack is chief restaurant critic forThe Sydney Morning Herald and senior reviewer for theGood Food Guide. This rating is based on theGood Food Guide scoring system.