Dimly lit, discreet, and acoustically optimised, this is dining with a difference.
While most restaurants conceal their sound systems, playing a laidback soundtrack of background music, here the duo of speakers built and installed by Sydney-based Translate Sound is a celebrated feature. The soundscape verges, at points, on the cinematic. It’s anything but quiet, but conversation still flows easily at this 25-seater entered through a sliding door at the back of Chinatown listening bar, Astral Weeks. Beyond aesthetics and vibe, chef Branden Scott is working a minimalistic menu that feels wholly appropriate for this pint-sized dining room. There are oysters, and the snap, crackle and pop of prawn crackers with a beef tartare bound with kanzuri, a traditional Japanese fermented chilli paste – a piquant, left-of-centre rendition of an ever-popular dish. Crisp pomme dauphine, essentially bite-sized potato puffs with Ossau-Iraty (Basque sheep’s milk cheese), could have you hitting repeat. Grass-fed sirloin takes you in another direction thanks to judicious use of curry leaf. Though the concept could seem muddled or pretentious – the arduous-to-pronounce name coming from the 1959 jazz album from composer Charles Mingus – it works. It’s imbued with charm, and a level of thinking beyond just food. An experience in the best possible sense.
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