Smoke and Mirrors

I have never had to sit my parents down and say to them “Mum, Dad… I’m heterosexual.” I have never had to explain my sex life or my preferences of one the most intimate of human acts to friends and family, or prove that it is not ‘just a phase’. It baffles me that homosexuality is something that must be confessed to and justified.

Two years ago when travelling through Africa, I met an Israeli guy called Yotam and girl called Yael who were camping through Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique and beyond. Carrying one tent and all their supplies on their backs, they trekked, bussed and climbed through the bustling dirt roads, cliff-lined coasts and rocky mountains of their journey. Every traveller I had met in Africa had a purpose for their adventure – whether it be to sit with the gorillas in the Ugandan jungle, swim with the whale shark of Mozambique, or climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Not until two years on, when my conversation with Yotam has now moved from the maze-like paths of a village in Mozambique, to a digital Skype call over our laptops, did I realise that there were some travellers with destinations that had no geographical coordinates.

“When I travelled to Africa, I had a goal to reinvent myself – to find myself and to be complete with who I am. I went to discover if I’m gay or if I’m straight, And if I’m gay, the plan was then to come out and to admit it and come back as a different person.”

‘Coming out’ seems to have its own journey. Whilst the rest of us are following the norms of boy meets girl, others are having to keep up a façade, or strain their eyes to see through the smoke to who they are, and why they don’t fit with the majority.

Over this Skype call that stretches our voices 14,000 kilometres from a small town in Northern Israel to Sydney, Yotam explains the wrestling of his hazy sexuality. Taunts at school for ‘being gay’ hadn’t made sense when sexuality wasn’t of interest. As life progressed, boys had seemed less threatening, less fickle, and easier to approach. But being dragged into a group of experimental acquaintances, his experiences with homosexuality were drenched in guilt. “The first time when I did it, I felt really bad… like I have to take a shower and I have to wash everything all over me – I was disgusted by myself.”

But with time the dates became more regular, and his life more disjointed between the two roles he would play. “Around my parents and my close friends I had to hide my real me … It was very… it wasn’t true. And to my mother if I went out on Friday and she used to ask me ‘Where are you going?’ And I would put up some lies and… it was very… uncomfortable - lying to my mother. I felt like I had to be ashamed of what I’m doing. And when I met those strangers it wasn’t really me either because it was just like sexual content. There was nothing else.”

The trip through Africa became an escape from one world to define who he would be when he returned. “We met some Israeli guys and they ask me ‘How is it to share a tent with a girl?’ and I said ‘Well it’s like sharing a tent with a guy.’ I didn’t really [think] about what’s behind the meaning of sharing a tent with a girl or what can happen, because it was never there …”

Then comes this need for admission. This ‘confession’ that has to be made not only personally, but to friends and family – the explanation having to be repeated over and over. There is a need to justify sexuality to the people whose opinion matters the most – but who should care the least.

“I look at myself now, and looking back and it’s two different personalities … I felt trapped in the world in which people think I’m straight and I have to act and behave along those behavioural codes.

And trapped in the world in which I’m meeting some complete stranger just to have sex and then go away and have to deal with this in the other world … I didn’t choose it... It’s like a bomb that fell on
me … Nobody would choose this. No body wants to be a minority … But I’m done justifying myself.

I have a boyfriend who I love deeply and it’s good for me. Because right now, when it’s out there and I feel comfortable having my boyfriend in my house - at my parents house next to the table… it’s…
it’s pure joy.”

The Cut Bar & Grill

Perhaps it is the age-old sandstone and cobblestone paths that make The Rocks the perfect place for French cooking to be pared back to its brilliant basics. At the new addition to the historic area, The Cut Bar & Grill returns to the cuisine’s elegant bistro-style steaks defined by their natural flavours. Each is accentuated only by the hardwood and charcoal grill, and a Montague steakhouse broiler that harnesses the meat’s character through intense heat. James Privett is known for his strong background in French bistro fare and is responsible for the grill-focused menu, including sustainable seafood features and sides that could easily stand on their own.

A glamorous edge has been added to The Cut’s rustic aesthetic, based on a bold palette of marble table tops, magenta curtains and turquoise banquettes. Cow hide-lined lounges and feather-embellished lampshades create flirtation between masculine and feminine styles, whilst a huge candelabra and exposed bricks whisper a subtle medieval touch. Dry-aged meats from the glassed-in charcuterie are showcased on wooden platters, while small plates are another option for those coming first and foremost for the wine.

Delicate grilled quail breast is served beside a bone marrow dumpling with a knob of sage butter melting around them, whilst subtle, seared white scallops contrast with robust veal sweetbreads. The size of the 500g 150-day grain fed Riverine T-bone takes the stage at the table and, whilst we gawk at its glistening mass, the waitress smiles, “Everyone has the same reaction”. The medium-rare meat is framed in a caramelised crust formed in that magical 650°C broiler, the flesh instilled with earthy flavour from the beechwood. Crisp skin of seared yellowfin tuna clings to its delicate white flesh presented on a bright bed of carrot purée and a moat of cider beurre blanc. Glossy chunks of Jerusalem artichoke lie amongst the rubble of mature goat’s cheese, crunchy hazlenuts and bright radicchio, while soft cubes of eggplant and blooming celery hearts speckled with chickpeas soak up herb and mustard vinaigrette. Feminine florals finish the meal with rose petal and pistachio-crusted meringue balanced atop a curl of passionfruit curd. Accompanying pearls of rose-pink Campari are like edible raindrops that melt the accompanying goat’s cheese snow.

The Cut Bar & Grill redefines the steakhouse experience with sophisticated dishes that harness the technique of classic French bistro cuisine.

Edwina Storie

Whispers That Wont Wait

Mark’s* secret stole his emotion from him when he was four replacing it with indifference. His secret constantly threatens to reveal itself whilst it could also simultaneously end his life.

Keeping it in the dark means never having to explain the pills or the regular tests, nor the web of other secrets that have sprouted from it. He’s spent years avoiding the strange reactions and faded friendships that explaining the secret has caused. “I think people would think differently about me once they knew, and while this isn't true for the few friends … I need a great deal of trust in someone before I want to tell them about what feels like my dark side.”

His secret is the paroxysmal dyskinesias that sporadically takes control of his body. The rare condition unexpectedly consumes his muscles with convulsions or episodes of involuntary movement. It blocks him off from control while creating intense waves of pleasure. “It feels better than an orgasm,” he explains. “It happens whenever I try something new that my body isn’t used to – like swimming. And it can become dangerous because I cannot lift my head above water, but while I’m suffocating the feeling is so amazing that I don’t care if I die,” he smiles.

The medication that works to prevent the life-threatening spasms numbs out his ability to feel emotional changes. It fences him off from the heart-fluttering love that engulfs you in waves of yearning, the nervousness that sends cement to your stomach, or the anger that burns so hot through your bones it could make your skin peel. He spent a majority of his childhood and teen years clinically depressed, never being able to appreciate the balance of moving between different feelings. Instead he is impassive, perhaps as though life were a silent movie played out in grayscale – somewhat enthusing but not as engaging.

In the back of his mind itches the question of who he would be without his secret condition. “One of the side effects of [the medication] is that it can limit your creativity and stunt your intelligence … To think that I might have permanently stunted creativity and intelligence because of the drug due to the condition has a great effect on my identity. I'm hypercritical of myself because I'm trying to push through boundaries both mental and physical that were created outside my control.”

While his disorder is the foundation of his secret, hiding it has sprouted more. “The acting out of emotions is certainly a secret that stems from the condition,” he confesses. His friends don’t know that the emotions he shows are only borrowed and not owned. No one finds a relationship fulfilling with someone who doesn’t receive the same satisfaction, so he learnt to mirror the reactions of those he was with. He laughed when they laughed, listened intently to their news with a façade of interest, and even shed tears on demand. “I was hanging out with the theatrical crowd and I became a brilliant actor. I learnt everything I know from them,” he grimaces. “While I couldn’t feel what the other person was feeling, I learnt to simulate or act out the reaction and the body language I knew they were expecting.”

The specialist who had medicated him for his entire life was diagnosed with cancer when Mark was 15. For the few months before his death he taught Mark how to self medicate. Once he was moderating his own medicine he began to flirt with the idea of experiencing the naturally changing mental states that everyone else had the luxury of. He stopped taking the tablets and the world opened up to something he’d never known before.

“For the three months when I went off my medication the world literally looked more colourful and shiny. You are so lucky to see the world like that.” But he was thrown into the uncontrollable wrath of caring intensely. Feeling the waves of uncensored emotion for the first time became nearly as intense as his now far more frequent convulsions. He was opened up to the multicoloured spectrum of feeling. Crushes became obsessions, disinterest turned to hatred and disappointments became tragedies.

But as the life-threatening episodes continued to snowball he had to return to the medication. “I think that the acting out of emotions was at its worse just after I had to go back onto the medication in 2008. Now I'm stuck in a situation where I'm not sure what's really me and what I might have copied [from the acting]. So I guess it just becomes easier to keep it secret and not think about it.”

* Name has been changed

The Devonshire

While this year’s class of Sydney restaurants have been a bit too-cool-for-school with their slates instead of plates and deconstructed, recreated, new-school dishes, the Devonshire is a more mature student to have just enrolled. The restaurant’s menu needn’t strive for culinary trends of the moment, instead comfortable in its classic fine-dining skin. And so it should be, with chef Jeremy Bentley’s experience at London’s two Michelin-starred restaurant, The Square.

Fashion fades, but style is eternal, and the Devonshire is stylishly simple. Dressed elegantly with one wall embellished in a pretty range of ornate mirrors, while dishes show off a creative and quirky edge. The very cute quail birds nest salad serves potato strings delicately woven into a fried nest that holds crumbed quail eggs and pieces of the sweet meat, while wispy frisée and bois boudrin sauce complement the entrée. Deliciously simple in comparison is the steamed mulloway accompanied by a subtly salty sardine vinaigrette and two savoury mussel beignets. Puffy pillows of potato gnocchi are woven with pine mushrooms and peas, while sharp parmesan gives the comforting dish a nice bite. Afternoon tea is recreated into a night-time affair with Devonshire tea-infused crème brûlée served in dainty teacups with scone-ribboned ice cream on a bed of biscuity crumbs, and some blissfully blobby cherry jam.

Despite being the new kid on the block, the Devonshire has effortless style and grace, and needn’t evade its well-executed classics to prove itself among fellow Sydney diners.

Edwina Storie

Ms. G's

Take the industries of cool – fashion, music, food and art – sew together all their latest obsessions with some wit and humour, spread it over five split levels and you have Ms. G’s. The mash-up sees twisted ropes hanging from the ceiling, beer crates used as bar stools, ‘stoner food’ served as share plates, and cocktails heat-sealed in slushy cups and spiked with pearls of flavoured jelly. Tropical tapioca beads float through the Pina Pearls Colada mix of yoghurt sorbet, Appleton VX and Havana Rum for a pre-packaged holiday feeling. Traditional unpackaged cocktails are no less interesting. Liquefied Aloe Vera tastes like Tinker Bell in a cocktail – the pastel green mix of limoncello, Absolute vanilla and crushed lemons is topped with a creamy white aloe vera foam that brings back flashbacks of fairy floss.

The culinary concoction of stoner style, Asian street foods and some creative thinking results in indulgent dishes spruced up to the deliciously inventive level of chef Dan Hong and Jowett Yu. Pocket-sized bánh mì burgers hold crispy chicken or pork belly with tangy mayonnaise and fresh coriander between the bitty buns. Crunchy prawn toast is piled high with mint, coriander and a citrusy yuzu aioli that make a moreish accompaniment with quirky those packaged cocktails. Deep-fried chicken drumsticks with a peppery coating hint at finger-licking junkfood, but aren’t greasy or overly salty, instead having a delicious crunchy edge and tender meat ratio to be dipped in kimchi mayonnaise. A neat pile of noodles topped with shreds of soft braised duck and a poached egg becomes a tangled mess with streaks of yolk and XO sauce. All elaborate nights end with equally indulgent food and the Stoner’s Delight plates up all your late-night weaknesses. A honey-coloured scoop of caramelised banana ice cream is surrounded by a sticky chocolate rice bubble slice, broken pretzels, shards of peanut brittle and goey squares of toasted passionfruit marshmallow.

The restaurant’s tongue-in-cheek name that hints to the enhancing chemical MSG completes its ultra edginess. With so much flavour, Ms. G’s is sure to stay the coolest kid on the Merivale block for a long time.

Edwina Storie

Death has been on my mind a lot lately. I have decided to do my thesis on its representations on screen and how that impacts the audience. One particular text which inspired this is the television show Six Feet Under. I am a huge fan of this show after my mother introduced it to me a few years ago. It is gritty and raw and painfully funny, it shows the reality you would never talk about with your friends. I have posted below a review on the first series that I did last year. Now that I look back on it, there are a few things I would change. I was reading a powerfully emotional novel at the time and I think this shows through my almost melodramatic dark writing. Anyway - to all the people who dont read this blog - I hope you like it

Death.

It's the one word which will never become desensitised. The one moment your whole life has been leading up to. When you're voice is silenced and there's things left unsaid. The ultimate full stop.  

Now of course there's the afterlife. Heaven and hell depending on your relationship with God. Dust and dirt for the realists. But death is the full stop to a tangible existence. And when you're six feet under; when you're scattered across the Earth or sitting in an earn, your life-once-lived tears apart the lives of the people you once knew. It cripples them with grief, because once someone you love dies, a part of you is stolen and your whole existence is uprooted. Most of us are fortunate to be touched by the potency of loss only a few times in our life. But what about the people who swallow the poison everyday? The people whose life is death. Whose weekly wage relies on car crashes and heart attacks and cancer. The funeral directors who we pay to deal with death for us.

The screen has seemed to shy away from revealing such an intimate world to the audience for fear of it being too drab, too morbid, and too pessimistic to our preferred genres of politically correct comedy and canned laughter. Or is it just that it's shying away from reality? American Beauty's creator Allan Ball explores this uncharted territory through Six Feet Under, hosted by HBO. Based in the family run funeral home Fisher & Sons the series uses the Fisher couple and their three children to explore what it's like to grow up around death. What it's like for a child to have dead bodies in their basement and mourners in their lounge room. Nate the eldest in denial of his age, David the heavily closeted homosexual, and Claire the aggravated teenager, all dealt with the bizarre childhood in their own way. And whilst each character deals with death all the time, whilst they have to go through the motions of it everyday, when their own father Nathaniel dies they still don't know how to cope.

Meeting the family as they are told about the news of their husband and father's death allows the audience to know them intimately from the very first episode. The moment that you're told someone you love died you remember the time and place and what you were doing in that minute, which resonates as a final memory of them. But Ball pushes the trauma of this further into reality when the characters are doing things they don't want to remember.

Nathaniel dies in that quiet time in the afternoon, just as the dust is beginning to settle, while Claire is in a smoky room high on Crystal Meth with her friends, and Nate is having sex in the airport janitor's closet with Brenda, whom he just met on the flight back home. Ball writes the characters without the sugar coating. We see every flaw they cover up, and watch what they do while they are away from each other. Showing the secret lives they keep from their family makes them brutally honest, easy to laugh at, relatable, and affectionately addictive. And these imperfect personalities set the tone for the rest of the series.

Yet each episode delves much further than just the flaws we hide from each other to avoid judgment to the things which would make our family look at us differently. Or to the aspects of our lives they would never understand. It digs into the secrets we would take to the grave. After Nathaniel's death, his wife Ruth is overwhelmed with the guilt of her adultery. Her face red-hot with tears, she gasps for breathe in panic. 

“No I'm not fine,” she screams to her two sons at Nathaniel's funeral. 

“I'm a whore! I was unfaithful to your father. With my hairdresser. And now he knows. He knows!” 

Perhaps it is the routine of the funeral home, of constantly making up dead bodies to look like sleeping relatives; of constantly covering the present with the past which pushes each member of the Fisher family to hide so much from each other.

Secrecy causes that stinging regret that comes with death. The regret of not knowing them better, of wasted chances and lost time. It is regret which causes Nate to uncover his father's secrecy while attempting to build the relationship-that-might-have-been through the deceased man's possessions. 

Throughout series one Nate discovers things he could have never imagined about his father Nathaniel. He finds that the man swapped funerals for oil changes, marijuana and a secret room above a shabby Indian restaurant to escape the family. But with every discovery he only finds more questions -  the questions that instantly flood your mind, and never stop floating to the surface of your conscience; the questions of what they did away from you, why they hid it, and why they never felt they could tell you. And the dreaded question of if you ever really knew them at all. 

But a show with no suspense,which reveals all the answers straight away would be unrealistic. Through his series Ball says life doesn't give answers. Life is the suspense that happens while you're trying to find out. And death is the curtain in front of the unpredictable ending.

The audience has never been confronted with death so candidly in the same way as Six Feet Under. They are forced to face it with each episode as it opens with the final scene in someones life. We are invited to watch their intimate last moments whether it be a man cut up in a dow mixer, a porn star electrocuted while having a bath, or a newborn taken by SIDS. The soul of each dead body which comes through the Fisher home detaches itself from its body and comes to life in the imagination of the characters. We see these souls with gory proof of their death bruised across their faces and bodies, but speaking to the characters like they are alive. They become the main characters' suppressed thoughts; the little voice that you push to the back of your mind. That voice that says the things you are afraid to think.

The soul of a young gay man who was bashed to death on the street comes alive in David's imagination and verses his faith in God and his homosexuality together. The soul looks onto his own lifeless body as David covers up the gashes and prepares it for viewing. 

“I never should have liked men,” he says, his face pink and purple with bruises. “I could have had a nice life, I could have had a normal family. You could have too.” As if it were a normal conversation David answers back, “That life would have been a lie, and completely unfair to your wife and children who would have hated you.” 

The soul smirks at David and leans close into his ear,“ Not if I never looked back. Not if I had faith. God challenges us like this so we'll chose good. So we'll triumph over evil. Only thing is so few of us do... No matter how nice you fix me up I'm going to hell, and you know it. 'Cause you're going too.” 

David pulls the sheet over the body's face in anger and backs away to lean against the wall, glaring at it. That camera corners him against the wall, allowing the audience to see David as the dead man does – cowering in a corner.

The concept of the dead body which looks and talks as if it were still alive hints that everybody has something to say. Everybody has something to teach, whether it be in this life, or beyond the grave. Like Nate's constant discoveries about his deceased father, it says that you never stop thinking about or understanding someone once they are gone. Even though they're not physically there, you still learn from as if they were.

We live in a culture that wants to deny death exists. On the screen characters only ever die at the end, and we never see the agony of loss that the other characters have to face. And yet we also trivialise death through slasher films which make it seem more like a fantasy. But Six Feet Under shows the discomfort we have with grieving. Finally the audience can see it clearly in a detached view while they look over Ruth's shoulder as she gazes at her husband in his coffin at his funeral. She begins whimpering, her lip quivering at the little strength she has to hold back the tears. She turns away covering her mouth with her handkerchief and David ushers her into a small room behind a curtain so the other attendees don't see her mourning. Nate watches in disbelief that her mother has to be hidden when showing any emotion.

“What? She's sad so he has to get her out of sight? Why? Why does it have to be such a secret? It's nothing to be ashamed of. He was our father. The only father we're ever gonna have and he's gone. Forever. And that sucks, but it's a God-damned part of life, and you can't really accept it without getting your hands dirty. Well I do accept it and I intend to honor the old bastard by letting the whole world see just how how fucked up and shitty I feel that he's dead.”

Six Feet Under is about that paralysing grief. That inescapable grief. That grief that freezes through you into your bones. It doesn't take the reality away and hide it behind a curtain so it's not too confronting for the viewers. It makes them uncomfortable because its raw. Its inflamed. Its naked. It forces the audience to face their mortality. To not be afraid of it. And to understand that “people have to die, to make life important."

When Your Life is Death

Death.

It's one word which will never become desensitised. The one experience your whole life has been leading up to. When your voice is silenced and there are words left unsaid. It’s the closing curtain. The ultimate fullstop.

Now of course there's the afterlife. Heaven and Hell depending on your relationship with God. Dust and dirt for the realists. But death is the full stop to a tangible existence. And when you're six feet under; when you're scattered across the Earth or sitting in an earn, your life-once-lived tears apart the lives of the people you once knew. Death cripples us with grief, because once someone you love dies, a part of you is stolen, and your whole existence is uprooted.

Most of us are fortunate to be touched by the potency of loss only a few times in our life. But what about the people who swallow the poison every day? The people whose life is death? Whose weekly wage relies on car crashes, and heart attacks, and cancer? The funeral directors who we pay to deal with death for us.

Sabbaba

Where do you look to find a Middle Eastern, vegan, fast food joint with a liquor licence? Why, Newtown of course. New addition Sabbaba brings age-old falafel recipes together with Corona beers and graffiti. Having started in Bondi, this quirky eatery is sharing the tabouli throughout Sydney with new siblings soon to open in Darlinghurst and Bondi Junction.

Starry-eyed faces are scrawled across the walls of the Newtown digs in splashes of blue and red, while glowing menus trumpet home-made hummus, freshly baked pita pockets and a kaleidoscope of salads. The menu mixes earthy elements like mustard seeds, pomegranate jewels, sweet honey and coarsely chopped herbs with red cabbage, sautéed eggplant, crisp salad leaves and textural haloumi. Meats and fish are grilled to form juicy slices while all vegetables - from fresh tomatoes to vegetarian falafels - never come in contact with animal products.

Bite-sized falafel balls flecked with sesame seeds become a crunchy satisfying mix of crumbling morsels and herbs. Colourful plates come piled with an array of tabouli, baba ghanoush, salad and hummus. The vibrant mix is ready to be stuffed into warm pita pockets along with succulent meat, haloumi or more falafels. There are even plump dolmades, grilled haloumi plates and 100% vegan hot chips wrapped in recycled paper to take away.

But before stepping out the door, a gleaming cabinet bestowing sweet, honey-soaked baklava cannot be resisted. It presents the sticky sweet in a million different variations – stuffed with pistachios, lined with sultanas, or folded into charming little flaky packages.

Sabbaba collides the humble flavours of the Middle East with some Sydney street cred to offer much-welcomed grab-on-the-go, healthy meal options.

Edwina Storie

Neutral Bay Bar & Dining

There is a quirky character to Neutral Bay Bar and Dining that makes you feel you have taken a step back in time to a 1940s New York diner with the subtle retro style of the slick interior. Waitresses in chic tailored dresses, pearls and styled up-do’s liaise between the nostalgic, tall booths that line the restaurant. Eco design edge echoes through the timber features and the vines that crawl across the wall in an eye-catching artwork. The booths give jovial groups a feeling of privacy as if they are chatting in the comfort of their own apartments. Huddled together, they giggle as they fill thier glasses with Yarra Valley Mayer Bloody Hill chardonnay and unite them in a toast.

The relaxed atmosphere allows diners to enjoy the food of fine dining quality as waiters happily bring extra plates for parties to share their meals, divvying up organic meats and bountiful vegetable dishes. Half way through their meals, a couple exchange their grilled Snowy River trout and Coorong Angus scotch fillets with each other to enjoy both choices, while curious fingers of a group of women pick at the salumi board of prosciutto, salumi conte, and capicollo.

The kitchen is open to admire the chefs’ expertise and allows floating scents to entice appetites. The environmental focus is carried through the menu of organic and sustainable ingredients that are accentuated with long and slow cooking. Charcoal and organic wood burn in the pit grill, emphasising the earthy characters of the toasted meats. The extensive wine list is unpretentious and supports boutique and innovative wineries. Organic and biodynamic drops pepper the list and complement executive chef Alex Kearns’ cuisine concept. The old-school booths of art deco décor, and the organically harmonising flavours of the menu contribute to the contagious charisma, life, and quirky personality of Neutral Bay Bar and Dining that is sure to become a fond friend of Sydney diners.

District Dining

District Dining is brimming with corporates so relaxed, they could be in their own dining room. Except this one happens to be catered by award-winning chef Warren Turnbull of Assiette fame, and its bar is abundant with brilliant boutique wines and international beers. Turnbull casualises his fine dining talents and serves a more relaxed, after-hours atmosphere at this new venture.

District Dining sits amongst the spiderweb of streets in Surry Hills, its metropolitan surroundings characterised by the grey shades of the city concrete, and the constant coming and going of trains in the distance. The urban jungle buzzes below, as the restaurant overlooks the corner of Randle and Chalmers Streets. Green-tinted light peeps through trees outside and softly reflects into the restaurant, brightening its cool and moody tones.

International influences weave through the menu from French-cooking techniques to exotic Middle Eastern spices. Some dishes keep Turnbull’s fine dining presentation with informal yet calculated garnishes, such as the honey-bound walnuts over spiced pumpkin and marinated fetta, whilst others like the cluster of crispy school prawns with lime mayo are presented casually on wooden boards. The eclectic menu offers share-plates and larger dishes making it perfect for indecisive diners and relaxed gatherings. A quick snack may start with a glass or two of wine shared over crispy quail eggs with anchovy mayonnaise and tarragon; and soft slices of veal tongue arranged over aromatic salsa verde; the flavours cut by pickled turnip and rounded by almonds.

When a glass leads into a bottle, curious eyes ponder over mains such as lamb shoulder; gently falling apart; the rich meat accentuated by the flavours of cumin and sweet, honey-glazed baby carrots. For dessert, a cluster of meringue pieces is sprinkled with freeze-dried raspberries and slices of fresh strawberries and cloaked with a billowing layer of glossy vanilla cream - mouthfuls of the softly crunchy meringue dissolve amongst the cool cream, finishing with tiny burst of sweetness from the raspberry seeds.

District Dining contrasts between inner-city style and a casual character that is sure to have the corporate crowd leaving work early for their soon-to-be second home.

Berta Restaurant & Bar

Berta is to restaurants what the dapper suited man is to gentlemen – made of masculinity and refined style. Hidden amongst Alberta Street’s grey shades of tarmac and concrete, Berta is a culinary cocoon lined with natural elements of wooden floorboards, brown leather banquettes and marble-top tables stitched together with brass features. Large jars of pickled vegetables whose fate will later take them to the antipasti platter line the shelf above the theatrical open kitchen. Two huge glass windows open the restaurant onto a view of a cement wall webbed with cracks, while a tiny carpark framed by tangled razor wire can be seen to one corner. This concrete ‘artwork’ seems to chide at restaurants that boast glittering skylines as their strongest asset – who needs a view when you have Sunday-style roasted lamb, slow cooked for 36 hours? The slices flecked with parsley are layered atop creamy cauliflower puree and surrounded by a moat of jus, rich with rosemary and the meat’s flavours. The deeply roasted meats and full-bodied reds make it nearly appropriate to pull out a cigar.

The menu changes daily, the selection scrawled across a large blackboard that faces the lengthy wine list on the opposite wall. On this late lunch date a group of gentlemen laugh together and toast a Friday corporate gathering that will run well past office hours – the menu of share plates and glorious mains, the perfect excuse. They debate and solve the woes of the world as their table is graced with bountiful wooden charcuterie platters featuring slabs of cheese and rippling layers of cold meats. They later enjoy ravioli bound with roast-garlic ricotta, bejewelled with peas and ribboned with mint, and pick at a mound of crisp squid which swipes up house-made aioli.

Berta is where you go when you’re sick of stuffy fine dining and you want to enjoy dishes rich in classic and comforting flavours. The exposed brass pipes and concrete view make Berta seductively rough around the edges, which is all part of the masculine charm.

The Wine Library

If the wine at Woollahra’s Wine Library told its own story, you could sit by the bar and enjoy a tale of rocky glens, dramatic mountains, hot summer storms and frost crusted vines; of winemakers in India and growers in Barcelona. Each of the 400 wines has been carefully selected like the books of a personal library and the catalogue explains the story of seasons behind each vineyard or winemaker.

The Wine Library is a cocoon enjoyed by the unique personalities here for the boutique drops and casual-cool atmosphere. Glossy bottles line the shelves of the bar like volumes ordered by author, shining with an orange-gleam from the backlight of the bar. The syncopated jazz tunes that flow through the restaurant are punctuated by the chinks of glasses toasting the weekend’s beginning. Afternoon snacks and pre-dinner drinks are spent here as charcuterie plates are presented between elbows that rest gracefully on the generous zinc bar. The bar leads past the clear charcuterie coolroom to the low-lit dining room and the secluded outdoor oasis that beckons diners to a quiet escape of slate tiles and dappled sunlight.

Woollahra and Paddington residents drift in and out of the bar coming for an afternoon aperitif. Some order a drop that is the perfect equivalent of their identity while others dabble with alternate characters. The wine list, like a library, harbours creations from around the world. A glass of 2009 Granbazan ‘Etiqueta Ambar’ could be the equivalent of a travel novel. Its albarino grapes drawn from the coast-hugging region of Spain’s Rias Biaxas whisper dry and crisp oceanic characters, and this afternoon are enjoyed by a group of young women for after-work drinks. They’re served plates of cluttered cabernet and vinegar oysters; grappa cured ocean trout; and pork and veal meatballs dusted with parmesan and sitting in thick tomato-based sauce. The dusty old hardcover from a past century – 1989 Domaine Leroy ‘les Beaux Monts’ is shared by some old friends who’ve come to catch up on a year lost to the business of life. The Glenguin Estate’s 2007 Stoneybroke Shiraz has a smooth body with a flirtatious spice making it alike an old love story, and ordered by a pair perhaps starting their own as they toast their first date. A group of gentlemen settle down to the dark wooden tables of the dining room to explore the seasons’ influences on a region by trying a glass from each vintage - like working their way through a series. At the Wine Library, ‘quick afternoon drinks’ will meld into shared dishes and orders for a second bottle, before conceding to make a night with dessert in favour of prior plans.

Edwina Storie, October 2010

... At Perry Lane

Perry Lane café, hidden behind Oxford Street, is the daytime equivalent of the perfect date-space and is made of urban cool without the ego. Smooth coffee, inspiring artwork and organic-edged dishes make it a café kept to a secret by its Paddington following. Lose your thoughts ...At Perry Lane.

…At Perry Lane is where you take last night’s date for this morning’s breakfast. It is also where you spend the day ‘working from home’ or where you take your best friend in between the hunt for vintage treasures. Muted purple walls enclose the private hideaway keeping it to a whispered secret of creatives, cappuccino connoisseurs, bookworms and young couples. A black beaded chandelier set with melted candles hangs high above the heads of the guests, and the green and pink colours of the bougainvillea tumble down from the retractable roof, scattering sunlight across the tiles. A melodic cocktail of retro lounge and jazz tunes drifts between the three split levels and makes every moment feel like a Sunday morning. Organic-edge dishes, quirky quotes, and offbeat artworks characterise the café tucked behind the limelight of Oxford Street. The tiny door down the laneway opens only on Fridays and weekends as the eager loyal following sometimes even cues up the alley when it reaches its capacity.

Today, as the fuchsia pink flowers brighten in the spring sunlight, a Paddington mother pleasantly sits enthralled in the pages of her book. Her puffy black poodle sits politely beside her feet as he is served a pup-a-cino and plate of liver flakes. Two runners satisfy a hunger from their Sunday morning slog with soy lattes and organic maple-nut wood-fired granola. Poached pink lady apple and raisins stream sweetness through the dollop of yoghurt that tops the oats. A mother and daughter duo on a break from a day’s shopping share a meze plate. They spread thick crusts of fresh bread with hommus and tzatziki, then adding prosciutto, roasted red capsicum, grilled halloumi and sundried tomatoes as they discuss the day’s purchases. Natural light streams through the skylight of the upstairs studio where guests sit among and the creations of a local artist while they sip on herbal tea.

Our Moroccan poached eggs are presented on a bountiful bed of wilted spinach, red cumin lentils and tomato relish that tops a thick cut of toasted rye sourdough. The plate of the ‘Vegetarians do it Better’ breakfast is a palette of poached eggs and grilled tomato with slices of avocado, roasted capsicum and balsamic mushrooms served beside toasted sourdough and rocket salad. The only remains of the breakfast are ribbons of yolk swiped across the plate and crumbs along the Sunday paper. The multiplicities of wonderful personalities who come here are as brilliant and interesting as the as the café itself.

Spitpress

Being a freelance writer (or trying to be whilst composing a thesis) I am constantly keeping track of what’s going on in the print journalism industry as I watch the rise of digital magazines. When each new media has been established there has been concern that it will be the death of the last; the radio of the newspaper, the television of the radio, the Internet of everything! In the past, each medium has managed to find its niche, and I am hoping the newspaper and magazine industry will manage to do this yet again. However, I am discouraged with the constant folding of publications such as TIME South Pacific which is now replaced by the distribution of the American issue through Australia. TIME editor Richard Stengel this month herald the iPad as the "new reading experience" to "showcase the very best in journalism". It could indeed be the possible savior of journalism because it will ‘revolutionize’ the ways in which we receive and consume our news and print. Stengel reveals that they are racing to design a format for the TIME iPad edition which will delivere the entire magazine in digital to your latest apple gadget for a paid subscription. I suspect it might be in a similar format to the digital magazine PagesDigital, and Groupie, with many links and interactive advertisements. Either way, I eagerly await it..

That said, it is because of this rise of the digital publication this that I highly encourage a new (tagible!) publication I found at uni the other day. It's not just another niche or health magazine banking on lifestyle trends, but something useful to the community that supports freelance creatives (like me!). Introducing Spitpress. Spitpress is a ‘creative newspaper’ distributed bimonthly for free throughout Sydney. Not only is it starting in a period when the newspaper industry is less than stable, but when the digital magazines are stealing our short attentions spans. However, even from its first issue you can tell it is a brilliant text full of the vibrancy of the young Sydney creative community, and it is filling a gap in the industry that truly is needed!