The Owl House
292/294 Victoria St
Darlinghurst, Sydney
Location, Location, Location. The Owl House is in a great spot where you can sit in or sit outside watching the world go by whilst you enjoy a refreshing beverage or two and experience delicious food from a menu that has amazingly tasty dishes.
We both started with cocktails. Sir had Titanic. This was Champagne sorbet, Cîroc vodka, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, verjus, grapes and sparkling wine. A very interesting drink having the “iceberg” as Champagne. This was a lovely refreshing cocktail.
Mlady went with the Ruby Hendricks. Ruby grapefruit and cucumber, lime, Hendricks gin, Cointreau, tonic, It was a fresh glamorised G&T. Mlady enjoyed this and loving her veg – did not waste the cucumber.
To start with we had Freshly Shucked Oysters. Incredibly delicious! These really were divine oysters! They were mignonette granita/natural. Seriously – we considered these as some of the tastiest oysters we have had.
Next we had Croquettes. These had ox tail, smoked bone marrow and seeded mustard. A lovely crispness outside with an interesting tasty centre, sitting on equally tasty mustard based sauce.
Our next entrée – and as we love seafood - was the Crispy Calamari with pickled nashi pear, radish, baby spinach and pomegranate salad. What a great way for Sir to get his fruit in-take! The Crispy Calamari – oh my goodness, how tender was this! It was cooked perfectly and not at all rubbery like some can be. We loved the fresh salad with the very yummy pickled nashi pear and the pomegranate which added amazing colour and gave a wonderful crunch.
We had a lovely Pinot Noir that was nice and light on the palate. Other lovely reds that we savoured were a Beaujolais and a Tempranillo. We both favour reds and found that these complemented our meals nicely.
The Beef Tartare was such a pretty dish that it was a shame to eat it – but we did! It had capers, eschalot, parsley, chives, sherry vinegar, quail egg, mustard, and sourdough crisps. Use the sourdough crisps to lift the quail egg, gently place on top of the beef, mix through and voila! This was seriously good and so amazingly delicious. It had a lovely smooth consistency and you could taste the capers – lovely! Sir especially loved this.
Sir’s main was Pork Loin with pumpkin, fennel, apple and crackling. It was so tender and so soft with a great crackling. Apple goes so well with pork. The pumpkin and fennel gave this wonderful dish another great texture and taste.
Without sounding like a broken record, Mladys main which was the Snapper fillet was Divinely Delish! Mlady loves her fish so having this main was no surprise. The Snapper fillet had a lovely crunch on top and was perfectly cooked, being juicy and tender. Make sure you use your spoon to scoop up all of the yummy stock. Slurp slurp!
We did indulge in a lovely Pedro Ximenez and a Scarborough Semillon which went oh so well with our desserts.
Dessert was Pineapple three ways – grilled, caramelised and dehydrated pineapple coconut, pistachio ice cream. So refreshing and tropical with the mixture of coconut and pineapple textures. Really loved the pistachio ice cream which gave it another cool dimension.
The other dessert we managed to fit in was the Ricotta Doughnuts with salted caramel, popcorn ice cream. Light fluffy doughnuts with nice crunchy popcorn. Such a nice way to end an incredible meal.
The food at The Owl House is seriously good. The dishes we had, had wonderful combinations of flavours and textures. The menu is varied – so something for everyone.
Sir and Mlady dined as guests of The Owl House. Big thank you to sommelier and owner Amir Halpert for his wonderful recommendations which went so well with our meals and for taking time from his busy schedule to take care of us on the night. Thanks also to Owen Davies for looking after us and our compliments to the chef too - very tasty food!