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Better late than never, Nick Dent discovers one of the top tapas experiences in town.
Let’s talk eggs for a moment. While a Fabergé egg would be just the ticket for me this year (and the Easter Bunny has been ignoring my letters on that score for some time now), there’s another Easter treat that I can’t resist, and that’s Darrell Lea’s famous Soft Nougat Egg ($7.25).
It’s basically a mound of fluffy coconut nougat with a thin shell of milk chocolate. It has a flat bottom, so it’s not really an egg at all, more of a dumpling, but semantic niceties can go hang when you bite on this thing. It’s way yummier than any mere chocolate egg could ever be, no matter how many Smarties you care to hide inside it.
Darrell Lea has been selling these 150g goodies, wrapped in pink foil with a cute, fluffy chick sitting on top, every Easter since I was a kid. And such is their appeal that I will probably go out and buy myself one again this week, even though the Christian symbolism is quite abhorrent to me. So much for my Richard Dawkins principles. Just egg me up, baby.
On the other hand, one pleasure I have been denying myself with an almost Catholic forbearance is Bentley Restaurant & Bar (open, incidentally, this Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Sunday).
The Bentley was once a decaying dive bar populated by aging drunks and dealers. These days it’s crowded with pretty moneyed folk, chattering away and enjoying modern cuisine matched with fine wines. The eatery turns two years old this month, but for some reason I’d never gotten around to a visit.
Then last week I was with a group of nearest and dearest looking for a Saturday night nibble.
Chancing past Bentley, we find it booked out – but what do you know? Those outdoor tables can be nabbed by walk-ins if their timing is right, and ours is perfect. Sommelier Nick Hildebrandt, who has won every award going, could not be more helpful and charming as we’re corralled onto one of those streetside metal tables.
The tapas menu allows you to enjoy chef Brent Savage’s mastery of taste combinations and visual flourishes without committing to a full meal. Four white anchovy sticks in a rack ($16) look like the skewered carcasses of tiny vanquished foes (just call him Brent the Impaler). The tangy acidity of the fish is balanced by a dusty coating of pistachio praline.
Cod and potato crostini ($8) also have a pleasing verticality, the fresh crostini sticking out of a moreish mash of potato and cod that is quickly scraped up and devoured.
Underneath a zingy coating of Szechuan pepper, the soft shell crab ($16) is fat with flesh (a sharp reproach to the anorexic soft-shellers you often find around town), while mushrooms on brioche with hazelnut ($4) surprise with flavours as assertive as the funghi are soft and silky.
I’ve barely scraped the surface of what Bentley has to offer and I can’t wait to go back.
This place is the bunny’s whiskers – but you probably knew that already.
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