2 weeks Ago By Terry Durack
Good Food hat 15 / 20 How we score Seafood $$ $$ The name gives you a clue. There’s an exuberant sense of Australiana running through this new CBD restaurant, inspired by a certain jolly swagman camped by a billabong. The menu’s focus on seafood, steak and the charcoal grill all evoke Australian barbecues and beachside holidays.
There’s even what you might call “Mum’s trifle” for dessert. What makes it more intriguing is that Tilda is one of four independently run venues to open in the newly refitted Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, the luxury hotel in Phillip Street built by Qantas in 1965. The ambitious, fast-moving House Made Hospitality group hasn’t opened a dull restaurant yet, with Lana, Grana and Martinez now joined by this virtual restaurant precinct.
The semicircular tower has always been magnificent, but now the Fender Katsalidis desert-toned interiors push back with their own brand of glamour. A mirrored and leather-clad lobby gives way to two creamily toned dining rooms, each with the buzz of a stand-alone restaurant. No snoozy, waiting-room ambience here.
Floor staff are chatty and informed, and there’s many a flourish built in for fun, like the signature bread and butter service ($39), inspired by the trolley “beurre garni” service of Quality Bistro in New York. A.P.
Bakery’s saltbush focaccia comes on a butler’s tray, with Dinosaur Design bowls filled with chive and mountain pepper Pepe Saya butter, whipped macadamia cream and seared Jersey milk cheese with wildflower honey. It’s a lot, so maybe save it for a table of three or four rather than two. Or not.
This appears to be a place that encourages excess. Executive chef Elliott Pinn and head chef Nathanael Merchant perform on a raised kitchen stage that links the two dog-legged dining rooms. There’s a grand seafood tower, market-priced lobster and mud crab, and you’ll be pleased to hear that potatoes get a listing all of their own.
Crab toast ($18) hits a high note right from the start, the crunchy finger loaded with spanner crab meat, seaweed butter, avocado and N25 Kaluga caviar. When in doubt, this kitchen goes rich, with well-made sauces, nut butters or creams. Coral trout tartare is cut with cucumber, trout roe, verjus and dill ($29) made creamy with roasted fennel puree.
Whole eastern rock lobster ($110 for 1kg, which isn’t bad) can be salt-and-pepper fried, steamed with ginger and chilli, or tossed through mafaldine pasta with plenty of shellfish butter and basil. The pasta is good to share (or fight over), the hunks of lobster meat sensitively cooked, the sauce rich and bisquey. A simple dish of grilled southern calamari ($34) is my favourite, slashed and scorch-grilled over charcoal and served on a punchy puddle of aioli, scattered with crisp little nuggets of pancetta.
Whole, butterflied rock flathead ($40) is crisp-skinned from the grill, and by now it’s a relief to have a bright, non-creamy chimichurri-style sauce made with warrigal greens. Mind you, if you want more richness, order a creamy potato gratin ($17) that is trying for the title of Sydney’s longest cheese-pull (that’s a thing), with its molten smoked mozzarella, reinforced with cheddar and parmesan. Then add the lemon and cheesecake layered trifle ($25), spooned from a vast glass bowl at the table to show off the layers of lemon curd, cheesecake cream, lemon jelly and light almond sponge cake.
The citrus and jelly save it from being too sweet and creamy (nah, not really, but all good). Tilda sommelier Paul Sadler and the group’s bev man, Christian Blair, have built a strong wine list. Their “House-Made” selections are sourced from interesting winemakers (Mercer, MJ Corbett), and are approachable (about $13 a glass) and appealing.
Or bliss out with the crisp elegance of a 2022 L&C Poitout Chablis ($29) from Burgundy. Tilda joins Luke’s Kitchen, Brasserie 1930 and James Viles at the Park Hyatt in bravely redefining the hotel dining room, which in its original form has pretty much carked it. Perhaps its ghost may be heard, as you pass by the billabong.
The low-down Vibe: Bringing hustle and bustle to a born-again hotel Go-to dish: Grilled southern calamari, preserved lemon, pancetta, aioli, $34 Drinks: Classic cocktails, impressive local whisky selection and a dynamic wine list with good-value house wines Cost: $200 for two, plus drinks.
