Ready to fly: The new restaurant bringing smart South American flavours to Wembley
The ancient Romans believed that birds were messengers from the gods. Human have fetishised our avian friends ever since.
We tattoo swallows on our hands. We erect metal roosters on roofs to help us read the wind. And we put birds on our flags.
There's a bird-of-paradise on the Papau New Guinea flag. The predominantly green Dominican flag stars a parrot. Eagles feature on flags flying high above Mexico, Egypt, Serbia and the homes of loyal West Coast fans who, during the team's current rebuilding period, self-medicate with replays of the 2018 AFL grand final.
Like the eagle, the condor is another multinational mascot. In addition to lending flair to the Bolivian and Ecuadorian flags, it's also the unofficial spokesbird for the Andes: the continent-defining mountain range running along South America's west coast.
Condor is also the name of a shiny restaurant in Wembley that opened in May.
While I never visited this split-level space when it was P&M Cafe and Wine Bar, its present fit-out – richly lacquered surfaces, the warm glow of naked Edison globes, big windows opening out onto Cambridge Street – gives Condor an air of quiet sophistication. If you wanted to get dressed up and celebrate an occasion, this would be a fine place to do so: as proven by the loved-up guy and girl at the table over from ours.
This story includes another duo I'd like you to meet: the young Argentinian couple that own the place. (She's the restaurant manager, he's the chef.) Unfortunately, that's pretty much all I can tell you. This couple kept shtum when quizzed about their backgrounds and backstories. All the better, they tell me, to keep the focus on Condor rather than its owners. In this age of storyteller restaurants and dishes, this seems odd.
Equally unusual is Condor's broadly 'South American' menu: somewhat unexpected at a time when so many eateries focus on the cuisine of a specific country or even region. Having said that, the kitchen doesn't shy away from lesser-known Latin American dishes: dishes such as tequenos (fried Venezuelan cheese sticks) or Argentina's steamed, gift-wrapped cornmeal cakes, humita. Far-reaching menus don't fill me with confidence, but the things I've eaten suggest some quietly accomplished cooking takes place in this semi-open kitchen.
While barbecued meat and the asado are integral to Argentina's food identity – see also Francis Mallmann: widely regarded as the world's foremost expert in this cooking style and one of the headliners of this year's Pair'd Margaret River festival – keeping a traditional Argentine-style wood grill burning all-day requires money and time. Instead, kitchen smarts are used to recreate the smoke and char of this cooking style. Beef ribs are slowly braised in the oven and finished with a hard seared on a gas chargrill. To their side, some great chimichurri and a bright, zippy salsa criolla: finely diced onion, capsicum and tomato sharpened with vinegar.
Pinchos de carne (skewers of hefty – in a good way – beef) are presented alongside a lit sprig of rosemary whose wispy smoke perfumes the table. Chicken breast is a tough cut to make interesting, but Condor's version starred shredded chook meat cloaked by a mustard-coloured sauce fizzing with the citrus sting of Peruvian aji tamarillo chilli does a nice job of holding eaters' interest.
Across South America, empanadas come in different shapes, sizes and DNA make-ups. At Condor, Argentine is one of the possibilities: which is, moulding a fine wheat dough into a svelte, pastie-like shape. They're dainty, splendid things: maybe too dainty. The dough in the chicken empanada was too fragile to be picked up and eaten by hand: a KPI, I feel, for the genre.
I don't eat Tasmanian salmon, so I'm not the person to ask about what the tiraditos or causa – both made with the controversial farmed fish – taste like. What I can say is that the goldband snapper ceviche features similar brightness and zip as the ones I ate at market stalls and cevicherias in Lima: the presence of golden kernels of corn and fat crescents of red tomato denoting this cured seafood dish as Peruvian in style.
Dessert options are limited to either the chocotorta (think of it as an Argentine tiramisu) or flan: a robust, cooked custard pocked with bubbles that's presented with a rosette of lush dulce de leche caramel.
While there are many things to like about Condor, not everything is sweet-as. The amount of arable land on a table for two is wanting. While the caipirinha cocktail spiked with the grassy punch of cachaca speaks to an on-brand drinks list, it'd be great to see more South American wines on offer, especially by the glass.
I also get the impression that Condor is still working out whether it wants to be formal or friendly.
While a kitchen cooking daily from noon till close screams casual and approachable, standoffish service says otherwise. Staff interact with guests in a way that makes me wonder if showing emotion is frowned upon in Latin American circles. Yet when waiters are looking after friends, they move and talk with the kind of joyousness we all hope to find in good neighbourhood restaurants.
If team Condor can address these points, there's every chance that this cool South American debutant might really soar.
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