Balcon by Taparino

Sydney NSW 2000 Wine bar/ Spanish

Restaurant	Balcon by Tapavino
Street address	17 Bligh Street
Suburb	Sydney
State	NSW
Postcode	2000
Phone	02 9223 6176
Website	tapavino.com.au/balcon-by-tapavino
Style	Wine bar/Spanish
Awards Fairfax Good Food Guides
Awards Gourmet Guide
The Australian Top 50
Restaurant & Catering Awards
Other Awards
Reviews & Notes	"Balcon is about Spanish wine first, and Spanish food second; about relaxing over Rioja, nibbling almonds, not giving a damn about fat, salt and cholesterol, and staying too long over lunch on the vast al fresco balcon to the rear. In other words, it's just as it should be."
Reviewer	Terry Durack - SMH 21/7/16 14.5/20
Reviews & Notes
Reviewer
Reviews & Notes
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Owner's note

Food is, or is not, art? Eating at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

When they designed a restaurant at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, they set out to bring together "a revolving collection of culinary influencers, innovators, and icons to make their contributions accessible for greater public engagement." And according to a review in The New York Times this week they succeeded magnificently.

By avoiding originality, In Situ is the most original new restaurant in the country.
The restaurant opened a month ago inside the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in a space off the lobby that was built during the museum’s transformative recent expansion. Inside, the chef, Corey Lee, faithfully replicates dishes dreamed up by Sean Brock, Alice Waters and other innovators. None of the recipes are his own.

The Latin phrase “in situ” is used when a work of art is embedded in its original location. This is just what In Situ’s dishes are not. The menu, folded and fastened with a metal museum admissions tag, looks like a guide to a gallery exhibition of works on temporary loan. One side shows a map of the world on a tilted axis — “a dislocation that hints at the shift from a recipe’s origin to its new situation at In Situ,” says a note from Andrea Lenardin Madden, an architect who designed the menu, the table settings, the server’s uniforms and other details.

Neal Benezra, SFMOMA's Director, describes chef Lee as "our curator of food" as he sets out to make In Situ an exhibition restaurant and collaborative project featuring chefs from around the globe.
What a brilliant idea for an art gallery restaurant.
As the NY Times concludes:

One thing In Situ proves, just by existing, is that certain chefs are now cultural figures in a sense that once applied only to practitioners of what used to be called high culture: literature, concert music, avant-garde painting.

A little dash of ginseng in the beef

Never Mind Grass-Fed, How About Elixir-Fed Meats? - The New York Times:

"Forget grass-fed beef and free-range poultry. China’s farmers say they have found the next big health-food craze: cows, pigs and ducks raised on a steady diet of ancient Chinese medicine.

 Practitioners in China have prescribed bitter blends of medicinal plants and herbs for centuries to ward off disease in humans.

Now, farmers are adapting the age-old elixirs — a dash of ginseng here, a speck of licorice there — for use on livestock.

They’re hoping to tap into the growing popularity of traditional medicine and health food in Chinese society.

The results, they promise, are not only delicious but healthy: lean, juicy meats that can protect against colds, arthritis and other illnesses. (The science is less resounding, though one study did find that cows that were fed Chinese medicines performed better in hot weather.)"



'via Blog this'

Another gem from "Cut and Paste" - In praise of the long lunch

My admiration for The Australian's "Cut and Paste" keeps growing. This morning's gem (with due acknowledgement to the Financial Review):

A restaurant reviewer's words of the week - an olive bowl designed around the concept of sharing

My restaurant review quote of the week comes from A.A.Gill in London's Sunday Times.
Writing of a visit to the recently opened Switch House, Level 9, Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG:

The menu is one of those lists put together by a committee to include edible cultural signifiers, trendy favourites and politically neutral ingredients. A note at the bottom says that the steak knives are hand-finished in Peckham, which doesn’t make the steak taste different, and that the olive bowl is designed around the concept of sharing. I love a bowl with a concept. The salt cellars reflect the exterior of the building, apparently, with a velvety roughness, and all the staff are paid a London living wage.

Restaurants becoming a less difficult place to work - out with the machismo kitchen culture

From behind the paywall at the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday 17 July 2016:

Ask almost any restaurant industry veteran about her early days on the job, and she’ll regale you with tales of screaming chefs, flying hot pans and countless slammed fists. The restaurant kitchen has long been, literally and figuratively, a heated place, heightened further by chefs’ egos and a hierarchical machismo culture that prides itself on instilling fear in those at the bottom rungs.
Today, particularly in the Bay Area, things are changing. Such stories certainly still exist, but the industry is beginning to experience a shift as it catches up to a more tolerant and enlightened general workforce.
Many believe it’s the direct result of a severe staff shortage, a problem that’s made it increasingly difficult for restaurants to operate the way they once did. The culinary field has become a much broader one, too, with tech companies and other big businesses luring cooks out of the kitchen, promising more humane hours, higher pay and enticing perks. Plus, organizations devoted to labor equality have shined a spotlight on issues that historically have made the restaurant a difficult place to work.
Yet a sexual harassment case this spring highlighted that not all restaurant employees feel as if progress has been made. Celebrity chef Michael Chiarello was sued by members of his Coqueta staff for alleged explicit advances and failure to pay wages, among other accusations. This served as a wake-up call for others to focus on safe, gentler workplace environments.

A cheap night's eating out in Sydney

It's no wonder Millennials can't afford Sydney house prices. All explained here. 1 side of mozzarella~$26.00.Jeebus. pic.twitter.com/lRZkraql2J

— Josh Bornstein (@JoshBBornstein) July 17, 2016