The Sardine Room31 Challis Ave
Potts Point, Sydney
The Sardine Room is an intimate place that has a seafood influenced menu, whilst catering for a broader range of tastes as well.
It's been busy doing what it does so well for nearly a decade now too - in fact it's been here 8 and a half years to be precise.
Longevity says something about a restaurant in the tough Sydney market, and the rapidly expanding restaurant hub of Potts Point is no exception.The Sardine Room is of course a unique name. When owners Rodney and Angela first opened their doors here it clearly wasn't too big and Angela said, we'll need to pack them in like sardines.
The name stuck.
We of course started with some drinks. They have a great range of choices here too. We chose an espresso martini made from vodka, Kahlua, triple sec and of course espresso coffee. It was a big flavoured drink and perfect for the end of a busy week. We also had a much lighter aperol spritzer simply made from aperol, prosecco and soda.
Our first real dish, a starter, was the popcorn prawns. While you could use a fork to eat them, they're really made for eating by hand.Our lovely waitress Marina said jokingly it gets spoiled if you use the fork.
Everything here is also cooked in Cottonseed oil, so it's very light!
Next a lovely squid ink ravioli arrived made with organic egg yolk wrapped in pasta. Angelo, first chef in the first year of trading created this dish. The secret is in the poaching (to not overcook the dish). Angelo kept it to 3 ingredients and didn't over complicate things. Then we had amazing scallops on a bed of cauliflower puree topped with beetroot chips and prosciutto! The beetroot chips give it a lift.
Then it was on to some lovely wines - as you'd probably expect from a place like this! We had a nice full Turners Crossing Shiraz and a lovely Pinot from Ballarat.
We've had quite a few moussaka's in our life but not a fish one.
Count N hadn't either, even though he's from Greek stock.
This version consisted of potato, onion, orange raffi and a lovely Bechamel sauce made without flour.
It was all topped with bread crumbs and was totally delicious.
The next dish was a crowd stopper. It was an amazing whole snapper cooked in Thai sauce, soy and honey. The sauce is a specialty of the chef.
He coats the fish in the sauce, f;lours it, lets it sit in the pan then fries it. Whole cooking process is about 30 minutes. It looks spectacular and tastes just as good.
We then moved on to a dish that was such a simple one but again so very good.
It was grilled haloumi. It looked so lovely with its delightfully golden brown outer layer.
It came with a tasty and tangy basil pesto too that went really well with the salty cheese.
The pannacotta was a work of art. It looked incredible with its crowned dome of toffee lattice. The pannacotta itself was made from rose water and had a lovely taste. It was dotted with pomegranate and tasted great. The crumble dessert came with pear and ice cream. The crumbs resembled the traditional Greek honey biscuit, 'melomakarona'. This was a melt in your mouth experience.
A few quite delicious dessert wines went perfectly with our sweet finale to this lovely meal.
The Sardine Room is intimate but so worth the visit for some great food and drinks. It's fully licensed but also BYO for wine, so it's perfect to bring a favourite that might not be on the wine list. It's open Tuesday to Sunday for dinner.Sir and Count N dined as guests of The Sardine room. Special thanks to owners Angela and Rodney, and to Marina for looking after us so well. Big thanks also to talented chef Masaki.
