Parlour Burger: The Black Widow strikes

With a rush of casual but gourmet burger joints opening last year, Sydney’s burger craze has possibly turned into a burger habit.

It's more than possible to have a different gourmet burger every night of the week, if one were so inclined, but few are as striking as Parlour Burger's Black Widow burger.

The Black Widow burger - charcoal bun with ground beef and extra hot sauce
from Parlour Burger, George Street, Sydney

The Black Widow is the creation of chef Sean Connolly, of the adjoining The Morrison and Auckland's The Grill by Sean Connolly and formerly of Astral.

The enchanting, inky black hue of the burger bun comes from vegetable-based charcoal incorporated into the bread dough and its novelty alone warrants an order. It sandwiches a thick, pink-centred ground beef patty with decent fat and flavour, and is accompanied by tomato and an iceberg lettuce leaf.

The menu lists the Black Widow with an "extra hot sauce" but I would barely call the dollop of creamy, orange-hued sauce hot (let alone extra hot), giving a small but good kick to the beef.

Sparkling wine

Parlour Burger is super casual: order and pay at the bar from a menu of five burgers and sides, and grab a number and a drink. The space is a little dark and dingy, with a pub sports bar feel remaining from its former life as the Brooklyn Hotel.

Chicken and quinoa burger with caesar dressing

The chicken burger featured a quinoa crumbed fillet that verged on a little dry, propped up with creamy Caesar dressing and lettuce on a well-sized, undramatically-coloured brioche bun (it's probably a bit on the smaller side, especially for guys with big appetites).

Deep fried pickles

It's almost a must to complement your burger order with a side or two. I eschewed chef Connolly's signature duck fat chips in favour of deep-fried pickles, and what a great decision that was.

An old-fashioned, thick and crunchy (beer?) batter encased sweet gherkin pickles and, surprisingly, it was a beautiful albeit oily side that needed no condiment.

Cabbage and parmesan slaw

The slaw side was somewhat underwhelming in comparison, but at least healthy with a light, vinegary dressing over shredded cabbage and Spanish onion, all topped with grated parmesan cheese.

Well located for CBD rat racers, Parlour Burger is a good, quick, cheap option for when that burger craving strikes – and the Black Widow is well worth hitting up.

Food, booze and shoes dined at Parlour Burger as a guest, with thanks to Savannah PR.

Nomad: Wander in and lust

I was smitten by Nomad on first appearances alone. Drawn into the restaurant the first time by familiar faces in the Foster Street window counter seats, it was a joy to marvel at such an ambitious set-up: a bustling and welcoming open kitchen; a dedicated cheese and charcuterie room on one side; and multi-faceted dining arrangements spread around the former warehouse space.

Charcuterie and cheese room

On return another night to the luxuriously vast restaurant, filled with covetable furniture and pretty crockery, we nabbed one of the last seats for two, sans booking, before a walk-in waitlist formed.

Sitting at the wide drinks bar, a full section away from the kitchen counter seats, it was some of the most ample tabletop space I've ever experienced – for dining tables generally, let alone a countertop.

It's also a good perch to watch the happenings of the bar, front dining space, walk-in crowd, and yonder kitchen with a glimpse of the long group tables around the side.

Wine and water

There are many reasons to like, or at least be interested, in Nomad. The owner is a former Toko owner; the young gun chef has worked with Neil Perry and Heston Blumenthal; there's a wood-fire oven in the kitchen; and the offering is billed as 'food, wine and cellar door'.

The wine focus is obvious in the menu which commences with a full-page winemaker feature then two pages of wines – all offered by the glass and listed with their respective winemakers. Bar staff will happily provide tastings before you order a glass even, although the full cellar door concept is yet to come to fruition.

We had water – iced, not the "ambient" option – and the McLaren Vale Dowie Doole 2013 Chenin Blanc which was just a little too young with acidic green fruity notes.

Nomad pickles and olives

Much has been made about the fact that a lot of the menu at Nomad comprises house-made produce: the pickles, vinegar, charcuterie and bread for starters.

The bowl of pickles included cabbage, ribbons of carrot, whole radishes, skinned cucumber, very sour and seemingly de-coloured beetroot, and my favourite, the turmeric-tinged cauliflower.

The accompanying dish of olives held a range of olives in the full range of sizes, most of them the tiny ones.

House made Nomad charcuterie 

I get pretty excited about charcuterie generally but both the artisanal and local qualities of the Nomad charcuterie selection has no peer in Sydney.

We had a selection of six cured meats on, basically, a treated slice of a tree. There was sausage-y mortadella in the middle, pale pink fennel salami, sensational bastourma cured beef, another peppercorn-studded salami which I didn't quite catch in the waitress' spiel, chilli salami and fatty lardo.

I jealously spied nduja salami paste on another platter later in the evening, so there must be a rotating, dynamic range of charcuterie on offer at any point in the day.

Woodfired sourdough, black salt butter

Awkwardly, the charcuterie does not come with bread but a single order of soft house-made sourdough bread, served as half a slice, comes quickly enough along with a circle of house-churned butter "inoculated" with black salt from Cyprus.

Foie gras and chicken liver parfait, radish, Iranian plum

The parfait, however, does arrive with toasted and unnecessarily buttered sourdough. The single parfait quenelle, at $26, is served with pickled radish and tiny chillies, and a dab of jammy Iranian plum conserve.

The parfait combining foie gras and chicken liver was stellar – so creamy and rich in mouthfeel, impeccably smooth and a dish that's turning around my opinion of liver, albeit at a high cost.

Smoked wagyu tongue, mojo verde

Still from the smalls menu, we were keen to see how the wagyu tongue would be served. Unexpectedly, it was presented on a single skewer with thin, folded slices pierced and served with a peppy sauce of what seemed to be chopped pickled chillies and coriander.

The smoked tongue was grilled for crisp surfaces and was deliciously, if not astoundingly, tender; basted with a sweet sauce not unlike barbeque sauce. In fact, my initial thought after having a piece of tongue reminded me of pizza of a barbeque 'meat lovers' style – and I loved it; the tongue, that is.

BBQ carrots, almond dukkah, labne

From the menu of larger plates, we had barbeque carrots – whole baby ones and squat, little, almost-round ones, garnished with their own green tops and a nutty dukkah.

The carrots were great – soft and earthily sweet – but I was enamoured with the piped labne strained yoghurt cheese. It was really a match made in food heaven, though for me it became more a labne dish with carrots than the other way around.

Wood roasted pork, silver beet, mojo potatoes

We went for the wood roasted pork belly as a shared main, which arrived in two parts: four thin slices of pork with wilted silverbeet and a bowl of fried kipfler potatoes with a spiced capsicum-like red sauce.

The pork had a fair bit of fat and delightful crackling, and was seasoned with salt, pepper and olive oil so simply so as to almost verge on plain, especially compared to the spirited, thick sauce on the potatoes.

Roundstone 2012 Gamay Noir

The Vinoque Roundstone 2012 Gamay Noir (from the De Bortoli winery) was an interesting, self-selected match to the pork, with spicy notes in the medium-bodied red against the fat of the pork.

I had really wanted to try one of the house-made cheeses as dessert, though my eating capacity had other ideas, and so I'm sensibly leaving that for next time. And there most certainly will be next times.

Pickles in jars

Nomad is the whole package. It's the restaurant, food and wine experience I look for when I eat out with a bit of money to spend. The space and crowd are both very Sydney-right-now and perhaps a little pretentiously so.

But the food is interestingly clever yet heart warming and belly lining, and comes out from the kitchen super fast. You'll probably never see more wines offered by the glass in a restaurant and once the cellar door comes in, it will bring a new dimension to city dining.

I adored sitting at the bar where we weren't at all rushed (though it seems there are set sitting times for certain bookings) and honestly, I may have settled in for the night were there not a queue at the door. Wander in to Nomad, and see if you lust it like I do.

Vapiano: Globalised Italian cuisine reaches Sydney

Sydney hasn't really seen anything like Vapiano, with its cook-to-order Italian food stations and smart-card billing and payment system.

Originating from Germany, Vapiano is a global franchise chain of "fresh casual" Italian restaurants that has some impressive reach around the world: more than 120 outlets in 26 countries on four continents.

Vapiano Sydney, Grace Hotel, corner York and King Streets, Sydney

In Australia since 2009, having opened initially in Brisbane, Gold Coast and then Melbourne, the Vapiano Sydney restaurant opened in December 2013 in the gorgeous art deco styled Grace Hotel in the CBD; a good 11 years since the first-ever Vapiano opened in Hamburg, Germany.

Enter from the corner of York and King Streets, and be greeted by signature pale wood furnishings and pots of fresh basil throughout the venue, and the Vapianisti – as employees of the restaurant are called – who provide smart-cards and seat diners.

Pasta kitchen stations

The Vapiano smart-card is essentially an electronic bill that totals up orders as diners move, order and collect food from a number of kitchen stations in the centre of the restaurant: for antipasti and salads, pizza, pasta, drinks and desserts.

Swipe your card as you order and pay a collective bill at the end. It's almost like the casual dining version of Asian hawker stalls, with no waiters or runners, and cooked-to-order Italian offerings instead.

Bar

The ground floor is an amazing space with lots of natural light, high ceilings and art deco features from its Grace Hotel corner home. There’s plenty of seating: an entire upstairs dining area, low tables and high stools surrounding the kitchens, and even basil pot-laden tables outside on the sectioned-off footpath.

Inside, the tall table with stools was a little awkward with mushroom lamps and pots of basil down the middle of the table obscuring views of your fellow diner across (perhaps designed for that specific reason).

Downstairs dining space

Meanwhile the table space was not friendly to the numerous, long-handled, wooden boards that various antipasti are served upon.

The Vapiano food concept is the same the world over: fresh Italian cuisine, made onsite and in most instances, prepared or cooked to order – fast and in front of you.

Pasta and desserts are made fresh daily in the restaurant while pizza dough, sauces and dressings are all prepared in-house. Produce is sourced locally, and wherever possible, within 150 kilometres from each restaurant.

Antipasti plate (small)

We started with a small antipasti board; a generous platter featuring a rounded offering of cured meats, vegetables, cheese and bread. Both the prosciutto and fat-studded salami were winners, while there were no complaints about the buffalo mozzarella and parmesan – which are not often seen together.

The tomato and basil bruschetta, green olives, sun-dried tomatoes and extra bread rounded out the platter which is ideal for sharing among at least three people.

Insalata Caprese

We also had the Caprese salad of the same buffalo mozzarella (never quite as good as when in Italy), not the ripest tomato slices and basil with more thick-sliced bread on the side.

Bruschetta pizza

A hearing/ordering mistake saw us with the simple bruschetta pizza (instead of prosciutto pizza). It featured classic bruschetta toppings and rocket on a traditional tomato base with melted mozzarella cheese.

The pizza had a decent crust and base, but I would recommend much more exciting toppings than simply diced tomato, garlic, rocket and parmesan cheese.

Pasta menu

There's a great range of in-house made pasta on offer, with two spelt varieties too. All pasta dishes also come with a slice of bread for that carb-on-carb action.

A good Bolognese sauce is the hallmark of any quality Italian eatery (or home cook) and so I ordered Vapiano's rendition with my selection of linguine.

Pasta cooked to order

You can actually stay and watch as your chosen sauce gets heated on wok-like pans on the stove, with the Vapiano chefs adding ingredients, seasonings of choice and finally, pasta which is firstly cooked alongside.

Linguine bolognaise

Garnished with a line of parmesan cheese and a basil leaf, the Bolognese was surprisingly lacking in depth, as if it was made only minutes ago. It also seemed to feature diced carrot and cherry tomatoes over anything else in the sweet ragu.

It was a little bit sad, especially as the just over al dente linguine cooled and started to stick together in large clumps.

Ravioli con carne

Much better was the ravioli with a Bolognese meat filling. There was better seasoning and flavour to both the pasta parcels and the sauce which had cream in addition to classic tomato-based sauce ingredients.

Innocent Bystander moscato 

It was pleasing to see Australian drops like the cult-favourite Innocent Bystander moscato on offer by the glass (in two sizes, too), while the cocktail menu probably needs a bit of help to compete with any nearby bars.

Cheesecake

From the dessert bar we opted for the jar-contained cheesecake with mango jelly on top; a generously sized sweet treat with minimal biscuit crumb base.

Strawberry pannacotta

The vanilla bean speckled pannacotta was more a creamy than wobbly version, with a lightness that was quite appropriate after a fair bit of cheese and carbohydrates.

Vapiano pasta station

Vapiano undeniably has a fast food feeling, albeit a fresh one, but one which I would have thought is a little at odds with the Grace Hotel offering (back in 2012, the guys behind the acclaimed Bentley Restaurant were slated to take over the space).

I couldn't shake the feeling of being at a Sizzler or a back-in-the-day Pizza Hut style restaurant, where you grab food from different stations (though not all-you-can-eat in this instance). The panels promoting the menu and ingredients above the cooking stations add to the franchise feel, although the many, many pots of basil help greatly with the general feeling of freshness and greenness.

As we left a tourist couple walked in, sharing that they were familiar with the concept from their home of Sweden; comfortably grabbing their smart-card in preparation for an almost self-serve lunch.

Vapiano's European roots obviously run deeper than their Australian offshoots so far, but in an increasingly globalised world there seems to be a place for franchised, fast and fresh food – for global customers at the very least.

Food, booze and shoes dined at Vapiano as a guest, with thanks to Open Haus.