2 Mitchell St
North Bondi
SydneyShuk is a multi-faceted place with a bakery, delicatessen, cafe and restaurant all grouped together. As it starts the day as a cafe for breakfasts and your early morning coffee and goes on into morning tea then lunch and on into the afternoon and evening - it's a place that operates long hours - and even longer on the days it's open for dinner.
Shuk is a light airy place with plenty of indoor seating and even more space outside. On cooler nights they have heaters going to keep you toasty if you still want to dine al fresco.
We were there to try their evening fare and decided to eat indoors. The tables were well spaced and as Shuk isn't in a busy area there's plenty of on street parking.
While we were perusing the menu and struggling with what to choose from the varied options available, a plate of soft and fresh house made bread arrived.It was great bread but it was even nicer to be able to dip it into a lovely fruity spicy mix of olive oil sprinkled with zaatar. We've both had zaatar quite a few times and love the taste!
So on to the food. Our first choice was the sauteed prawns with borlotti bean salad and avocado. It sounded like a dish with plenty of flavours and colour - and we weren't disappointed. Prawns always go well with avocado but the beans created some added depth. Fortunately, all the ingredients still complemented each other.They didn't skimp on the prawns either - there were about eight or nine of them.
Soup is not normally my first choice when dining, but the pumpkin soup was recommended so we decided to give it a go.It came with crisps floating on top and on this was a generous mound of goat cheese mousse. It looked and smelled great.
This was great soup and surprisingly I ate more of it than Mlady did.
We both like ceviche - but probably in truth I like it a bit more than Mlady does, even though she does enjoy it. The kingfish ceviche was certainly colourful. The citrus juices gave it bite and tang - but of course you expect this from a ceviche.
As with the other dishes here at Shuk, there was plenty of it!
Mlady does love her salmon - so again no surprises here that she spotted it on the menu and instantly ordered it. The Atlantic salmon arrived on a bed of potato, zucchini and asparagus and drizzled with lemon emulsion.
Mlady loved it.
It was a cool evening and the comfort food of the house made gnocchi just sounded so ideal and matched to the climate!It came with a combination wild mushroom and Parmesan sauce.
The gnocchi was nicely cooked and again so plentiful. The mushrooms added an earthiness that went nicely and it again all came together well.
We were pretty full by this stage of the evening but the lamb fillet sounded so good that I just had to try it! It was actually the pomegranate molasses that caught my eye - I really wanted to see how this went with the perfectly pink lamb.
Fortunately I wasn't disappointed - it tasted great.
The dish also came with eggplant, tahini and crunchy greens.
We'll rarely miss the opportunity to finish a meal with dessert - as we both have a sweet tooth!Mlady chose the chocolate mousse cake with Chantilly cream - which isn't unusual as she's a bit of a chocoholic.
It was light and fluffy and Mlady devoured it all - not even giving me a taste (which means it must have been good)!
I went for the panna cotta with dulce de leche, coconut and pistachios. It came nicely presented in its own jar with a generous topping of coconut and pistachios.
It was smooth and creamy underneath with a lovely crunchy top making a nice contrast.
Shuk is an interesting restaurant with a very diverse range of tasty food available. It is certainly worth trying.Sir and Mlady dined as guests of Shuk. Special thanks to Zoja and Miquel for looking after us on our visit. Thanks also to chefs German Sanchez and Jonathan Symonds for their lovely food. Special thanks to Sophie Foster of SBPR for arranging our visit.
