Amy McNeilage restaurant reviews for Sydney Morning Herald

2015
31 July 2015 Chef's Palette - "The savoury food is good, but it is the sweets we will remember." Our summary HERE

Chef's Palette

Strathfield NSW 2135 Modern Australian cafe

Restaurant	Chef's Palette
Street address	Shops 3-4, 12 Churchill Avenue
Suburb	Strathfield
State	NSW
Postcode	2135
Phone	02 9267 2003
Website	facebook.com/mysweetmemorystrathfield
Style	Modern Australian
Awards 2014 Fairfax Good Food Guides
Awards Gourmet Guide
The Australian Top 50
Restaurant & Catering Awards
Other Awards
Reviews & Notes	"The savoury food is good, but it is the sweets we will remember."
Reviewer	Amy McNeilage - Sydney Morning Herald 31/7/15
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Owner's note

Mure's Upper Deck

Hobart TAS 7000 Seafood - Just three months after receiving a scathing review - extract below - the restaurant received the Tasmanian Hospitality Association’s Awards for Excellence. Will Mure and his wife Jude told The Mercury they are determined to prove The Australian reviewer wrong. “We’re on a trajectory, we’ve got a vision and we know where we want to go,” he said. We’re definitely heading in the right direction and Monday night’s award was a reflection of that.” The restaurant picked up the Best Specialty Restaurant award and was runner-up in two other categories. 

Mr Mure said since the review in May the decor and diningware had been modernised, staff trained extensively and new people recruited. New chef Shannon Pearce is about to introduce a summer menu and says, “It’s about letting the fresh food tell its own story on the plate, not over-garnishing and losing the element, which is the fish.”

Restaurant	Mure's Upper Deck
Street address	Upper Deck, Victoria Dock
Suburb	Hobart
State	TAS
Postcode	7000
Phone	03 6231 1999
Website	mures.com.au
Style	Seafood
Awards 2014 Fairfax Good Food Guides
Awards Gourmet Guide
The Australian Top 50
Restaurant & Catering Awards
Other Awards
Reviews & Notes	"From the indifferent food - a kind of expensive form of fry and shred pub grub - to the less than indifferent wait staff who hover in clusters at the front of this barn-like pine-lined space, hoping not to catch anyone's eye ... it's quite difficult to see where Mure's Upper Deck fits into the modern hospitality matrix. Other than servicing tourists ... By the standards of its industry, Mure's Upper Deck is a restaurant dinosaur. Bring on tyhe ice age. Or the meteor. Whatever it was that changed things forever,"
Reviewer	John Lethlean - The Australian 16/5/2015
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Owner's note

Cured and Cultured Bar

Sydney NSW 2000 - luxury without the linen is how the Sydney Morning Herald described this section of the Opera House's Bennelong.

Restaurant	Cured and Cultured Bar
Street address	Sydney Opera House, 2a Macquarie Street
Suburb	Sydney
State	NSW
Postcode	2000
Phone	02 9240 8000
Website	http://www.bennelong.com.au/dining
Style	Contemporary Australian
Awards 2014 Fairfax Good Food Guides
Awards Gourmet Guide
The Australian Top 50
Restaurant & Catering Awards
Other Awards
Reviews & Notes	"Methodical, light and gentle are the catch cries here. ... Come back again and again - we will. This is a one-of-a-kind experience."
Reviewer	Myffy Rigby - Sydney Morning Herald 14/7/15
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Owner's note

What's the point of most newspaper restaurant reviews?

A delightful and thought provoking piece in The Guardian this week on restaurant critics and what we readers should make of them. Media writer Peter Preston looks at how two of London's leading food writers, AA Gill and Giles Coren, disagree over a swanky Indian restaurant. While it is, as Preston writes, good entertainment, it does raise a serious question – where’s the solid advice on where to go for dinner?

Is the poshest new restaurant in town “a dismal experience” or a glowing “testament to a lifetime of forensic appetite and experience”? Do you think it has “far and away the nicest dining room in St James’s” or a “terrible” one, “too big, too modern, no soul … properly catastrophic?” In short, what happens when the critics you hire, the experts who ride high on your menu advising readers, can’t agree? About anything.

After giving some examples of such recent differences of opinion, Preston turns to the serious question of what’s the point of most newspaper reviews?

To tell you, the reader, where’s good to go. Reviewing is, in part, a consumer service. Of course different critics have different favourites, and you learn to follow those among them who fit your own. That’s an essential of film- or theatre-going. But food, with big bills attached, isn’t a smörgåsbord of opportunities: the reader needs solid advice (often distilled from a whole sheaf of reviews).

See what happens when one gastro guru disappoints another. The whole feeding chain becomes TripAdvisor with added adjectives. Coren made the point himself last week when, in true introvert fashion, he reported what a “senior restaurant critic” of his acquaintance had told a restaurateur he knows. She wasn’t going to review his new place because “it isn’t interesting enough”. And Coren only disagrees mildly: “I do not expect restaurants to be interesting. It’s a restaurant’s job to serve food and wine. It is my job to be interesting.”

Which is where “the Blonde” and “Esther” and sundry minor characters make their review bit-part appearances, along with witty essays on the future of the world, kiwi fruit and the northern powerhouse.

Of course there’s a load of experience and expertise on show here. Of course you can follow your favourite writer from Durham to Dover if you’ve the time and inclination. But restaurant reviewing has also become a series of elegant essays too frail to chomp.

Cutler and Co

Fitzroy VIC 3065 Contemporary - A long time occupant on Melbourne's best restaurant lists.

Restaurant	Cutler & Co
Street address	55-57 Gertrude Street
Suburb	Fitzroy
State	VIC
Postcode	3065
Phone	03 9419 4888
Website	cutlerandco.com.au
Style	Contemporary
Awards Fairfax Good Food Guides	2016 GFG 2 hats; 2015 GFG 2 hats
Awards Gourmet Guide	3 stars
The Australian Top 50
Restaurant & Catering Awards
Other Awards
Reviews & Notes	"A fine restaurant still but capable of more."
Reviewer	John Lethlean - The Australian 4/7/15 4 maps
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Owner's note

Lucky Chan's Laundry

Northbridge WA 6003 Asian noodle house - Looks like and old-fashioned Chinese takeaway but filled with quirky stuff that speaks to the laundry theme. (John Lethlean's description)

Restaurant	Lucky Chan's Laundry
Street address	311 William Street
Suburb	Northbridge
State	WA
Postcode	6003
Phone	08 9227 8921
Website	luckychans.com.au
Style	Asian
Awards 2014 Fairfax Good Food Guides
Awards Gourmet Guide
The Australian Top 50
Restaurant & Catering Awards
Other Awards
Reviews & Notes	"... a grab-bag of ideas and flavours that work together well enough to sell booze and give folks a good time."
Reviewer	John Lethlean - The Australian 18 July 2 1/2 maps
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Owner's note