1 week Ago By Callan Boys
Good Food hat Good Food hat 16 / 20 How we score Chinese $$ $$ Oh, good. Finally. The portraits are gone.
If you’ve been to Spice Temple any time in the past 15 years, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The five sepia-toned photographs of striking Asian women along a rear wall installed, most likely, to add a touch of sensuality to the kung pao chicken, but coming across as more than a bit pervy in the context. For all its skill with dusty aromatics and live seafood, this is a Chinese restaurant run by white blokes.
Perhaps hang a few landscapes instead. Originally, those blokes were Neil Perry and one of his trusted Rockpool offsiders, Andy Evans. Perry departed to take over half of Double Bay four years ago, and now Evans wholly leads the chef team.
Spice Temple was closed for renovations through September, which also provided Evans and head chef Sehwa Kim with time to work on new dishes and give me a reason to revisit. Beauty. Any excuse for dinner in this dark, subterranean space.
Fetishising artworks excepted, Spice Temple has always been a cracker night out. If it’s been a few years between visits, you may not notice the renovations. Essentially, there are three new private dining rooms, more seats and a display wall of wine bottles that says, “Sommelier Justin Crawford is serious about fruit-driven riesling.
” The neon red-on-black colour scheme remains front and centre, offset by distressed metal and brass, plush chairs and plusher carpet. In other words, it still looks like a members club in Macau. A hot pot station has been installed between tables, and a chef will cook your steamboat to order, working the induction burners like some kind of soup DJ.
These hot pots are some of the best value in the city right now and can easily be split between a group of four. A seafood option is $89 for clean-tasting chicken broth tightly packed with Moreton Bay bug, squid, scallops, pipis, prawns and a generous amount of coral trout. The mushroom hot pot ($79) isn’t a for-the-vegetarians throwaway, but a complex soup layered with black and white fungi, enoki, oyster mushrooms, shiitake and shimeji.
Spice Temple’s menu was a game-changer for introducing a business-lunch clientele to Chinese cuisine beyond duck pancakes. Food from Hunan and Sichuan provinces in the People’s Republic gets the most attention, with dishes inspired by the Yunnan, Jiangxi and Guangxi regions bulking up the carte. This means lots of ways to experience the flavour of fermented, fresh and dried chillis in close-up.
Beef needles ($49), say, which isn’t a typo, but gnarly, numbing squiggles of twice-fried wagyu spangled with sesame seeds. “Hot, sweet, sour and numbing pork” ($47) is the biggest crowd-pleaser, driven by black vinegar and the lip-tingling zest of roasted and ground Sichuan peppercorns. It’s one of a dozen or so opening-day dishes that can’t be taken off the menu “because people would go ballistic”, Evans tells our table when dropping off a hot pot.
See, also, the fish (hunks of coral trout or bass grouper or whatever premium catch is currently in good nick) drowned in “heaven-facing” chilli oil and practically vibrating with more Sichuan pepper ($58). A proper Chinese meal requires balance and harmony across the whole order, not just each dish, so you’re going to want pickled cucumber with ginger, garlic and mint ($11) alongside the spice. Northern-style lamb and fennel dumplings (eight for $32) with crunchy, pot-sticker bottoms are nicely fatty and provide heat-free ballast.
A peak-season snowpea shoot and garlic chive omelette ($32) bridges the small plates and mains, its eggy, sunset-gold exterior doused in a deliciously balanced combination of sweet soy, brown sugar and chilli oil. With almost 60 items on the menu, I’m barely touching the sides here. Honourable mentions also go to the certified-fresh spanner crab tangled in refreshing mung bean noodles ($99), heavyweight-division bacon-enhanced prawn toast ($26) and fried rice ($21) transformed by a sweet-savoury undertow of conpoy (dried scallop).
From the new “Inspired by the ’80s” section of the carte, “Hong Kong chicken curry” ($48) ditches the traditional Clive of India powder for a citrusy top note of curry leaves. Tasty stuff. Meanwhile, general manager Alessia Votto has assembled an invested floor team, the wine service is extra sharp, and the bartenders will send out a properly stiff Manhattan on request ($28).
Indeed, the bar feels like it could be a lunch destination in itself, now with its own menu headlined by a power-coupling of Beijing noodles and David Blackmore wagyu ($25). Another excuse to visit is absolutely fine by me. The low-down Vibe: Clubby basement backdrop for razzle-dazzle flavours Go-to dish: Seafood hot pot ($89) Drinks: Top-shelf selection of riesling, chardonnay and pinot noir, with plenty of interest in the spirits and cocktail list, too Cost: About $160 for two, excluding live seafood and drinks This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine.
