Our critic doesn't like to eat out for brunch. This neighbourhood cafe changed his mind
Tables are spaced far enough apart that you won't hear couples spoiling the Good Weekend Quiz: 'Who puts bloody Worcestershire in prawn cocktail sauce? The answer's Tabasco! I'm writing a letter.' Speaking of, there's a ripper prawn roll here with happy iceberg lettuce and herby sauce ravigote. Fresh produce is a cut above across the board, and the gazpacho is not too acidic, not too cold, just right. Raw tuna is brightly plated with sesame oil-glossed soba, avocado, edamame and radish for what I suppose you'd call a 'health bowl'.
I never expected 'Woollahra cafe' and 'great breakfast congee' to be next to each other in a sentence, but here we are. Wood (who also runs two-hatted Ursula's in Paddington with Davies) is one of Sydney's most proficient cross-pollinators of cuisines. Rice is simmered in a chicken stock fragrant with ginger and five-spice, and garnished with shredded chook, jammy chilli sauce, fried peanuts and croutons. It's as punchy as it is stupidly soothing. Wood and head chef Federico Barbuto can be trusted to send the best version of eggs any way you like them, served with toasted Iggy's sourdough, for $19.
You can also have that sourdough with Charentes-Poitou butter, oysters and Laurent-Perrier champagne, which is what life's all about, really. That, and the Sicilian-style orange cake made famous by Margie Agostini when she ran her own cafe at the site in the 90s. Wood has revived its light buttery crumb for all morning tea needs.
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Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
This sun-splashed Mexican rooftop is perfect for long, margarita-charged lunches
Perched on the new Eve Hotel at Redfern's Wunderlich Lane precinct, Lottie is one of the swishest spots to sweet up guacamole, grilled Sinaloa-style chicken and pork jowl with a cola-flavoured mole. Previous SlideNext Slide I can't say if Lottie serves the best Mexican food in Australia, but it is, by some margin, the swishest spot to load up on guacamole I've encountered outside the Americas. Terrazzo floors. Textured, blush-pink travertine walls. Pops of red ochre and orange through the tabletops, banquette and coasters. Succulents frame the skyline and there's a retractable ceiling that can't welcome summer soon enough. It's on the rooftop of the equally swish Eve Hotel, which opened in February at Redfern's Wunderlich Lane precinct (that $500 million, mixed-use, brick development on the Surry Hills border). If you sit on the side of Lottie that has a view of Sydney Football Stadium, you'll also have a sight-line to the giant, Bond-villain doorway leading to Eve's rooftop pool. Only hotel guests can access the pool and, on a sunny winter afternoon, a few of them do. One patron forces a smile in our table's direction that reminds me of an old Jerry Seinfeld stand-up bit, the one about the stewardess giving a look to economy passengers while closing the first-class curtain. A look that says, 'Maybe if you had worked a little harder ...' Rooms cost upwards of $500 if you want the privilege of drinking one of Lottie's (very good) cocktails with your toes in the water. The rest of us will be at the bar. I'm not sure how I feel about such a luxury development operating in a suburb where longtime residents have been pushed out due to redevelopment and soaring rents. An essay for the Herald 's opinion pages some other time. For the purposes of this column, however, I'll say that I like many of Lottie's dishes an awful lot and Mexican-born chef Joe Valero is a talent. One of the best, three-bite snacks I've had all year is Valero's version of a sope (it's like a chubby, fried tortilla) made with featherlight potato rather than masa flour. He tops it with kangaroo tail cooked for six hours in a stock of its own bones and a combination of dried-chilli varieties to balance smoke, tang, sweetness and heat. Liquid & Larder is the hospitality business running Lottie, plus Bar Julius (classic drinks, all-day dining, beautiful fit-out, would recommend) on the Eve Hotel's ground floor. While the group's CBD steak joints, Bistecca and The Gidley, are invariably packed with blokes, the Lottie clientele was 90 per cent women the other week. Is there a law against men eating together in nice Mexican restaurants? What's going on, my dudes? There's steak here, too! Butter-soft rib-eye, specifically, topped with a herbal, charred salsa of tomatillo, jalapenos and shiso. It's one of six large plates designed to be eaten with warm, textured corn tortillas on the side ($1.50 each – load up). Grilled Sinaloa-style chicken is marinated in a spice paste fruity with ancho chillis and dressed in a coriander-heavy aji verde with burnt lime. Vibrant, citrusy stuff. Goat from a farm just outside Orange is marinated, cooked whole and shredded for the barbacoa, a submissive tangle of meat with caramelised crust and a soft punch from apple cider vinegar. Pair it one of the dozens of tequilas and mezcals on offer, or something red and earthy from the short-but-powerful wine list. There's usually someone on hand you can chat with about booze, and for the lighter dishes our waiter recommends a Chilean wine made from the moscatel de Alejandria grape he describes as 'like eucalyptus beurre blanc'. Sold. You'll also want a half-serve of the pork jowl with a cola-flavoured mole sauce deep enough to get lost in. It's one of the few dishes that remain from Lottie's opening menu (Valero was only appointed head chef in May), along with the ceviche-like aguachile with snappy, raw prawns and pickled carrots. I was half-tempted to shoot its laser-sharp, leftover liquor, dotted with prawn oil, like a 19th-century health tonic. Word to the wise: avoid the basement-level car park, at least on a Sunday afternoon. It was an epic poem to find a spot two weekends ago, a drawn-out battle with locals shopping at Wunderlich Lane's Harris Farm. Eve Hotel guests have their own parking spots, but again, that will be upwards of $500 for the privilege.
The Age
a day ago
- The Age
This sun-splashed Mexican rooftop is perfect for long, margarita-charged lunches
Perched on the new Eve Hotel at Redfern's Wunderlich Lane precinct, Lottie is one of the swishest spots to sweet up guacamole, grilled Sinaloa-style chicken and pork jowl with a cola-flavoured mole. Previous SlideNext Slide I can't say if Lottie serves the best Mexican food in Australia, but it is, by some margin, the swishest spot to load up on guacamole I've encountered outside the Americas. Terrazzo floors. Textured, blush-pink travertine walls. Pops of red ochre and orange through the tabletops, banquette and coasters. Succulents frame the skyline and there's a retractable ceiling that can't welcome summer soon enough. It's on the rooftop of the equally swish Eve Hotel, which opened in February at Redfern's Wunderlich Lane precinct (that $500 million, mixed-use, brick development on the Surry Hills border). If you sit on the side of Lottie that has a view of Sydney Football Stadium, you'll also have a sight-line to the giant, Bond-villain doorway leading to Eve's rooftop pool. Only hotel guests can access the pool and, on a sunny winter afternoon, a few of them do. One patron forces a smile in our table's direction that reminds me of an old Jerry Seinfeld stand-up bit, the one about the stewardess giving a look to economy passengers while closing the first-class curtain. A look that says, 'Maybe if you had worked a little harder ...' Rooms cost upwards of $500 if you want the privilege of drinking one of Lottie's (very good) cocktails with your toes in the water. The rest of us will be at the bar. I'm not sure how I feel about such a luxury development operating in a suburb where longtime residents have been pushed out due to redevelopment and soaring rents. An essay for the Herald 's opinion pages some other time. For the purposes of this column, however, I'll say that I like many of Lottie's dishes an awful lot and Mexican-born chef Joe Valero is a talent. One of the best, three-bite snacks I've had all year is Valero's version of a sope (it's like a chubby, fried tortilla) made with featherlight potato rather than masa flour. He tops it with kangaroo tail cooked for six hours in a stock of its own bones and a combination of dried-chilli varieties to balance smoke, tang, sweetness and heat. Liquid & Larder is the hospitality business running Lottie, plus Bar Julius (classic drinks, all-day dining, beautiful fit-out, would recommend) on the Eve Hotel's ground floor. While the group's CBD steak joints, Bistecca and The Gidley, are invariably packed with blokes, the Lottie clientele was 90 per cent women the other week. Is there a law against men eating together in nice Mexican restaurants? What's going on, my dudes? There's steak here, too! Butter-soft rib-eye, specifically, topped with a herbal, charred salsa of tomatillo, jalapenos and shiso. It's one of six large plates designed to be eaten with warm, textured corn tortillas on the side ($1.50 each – load up). Grilled Sinaloa-style chicken is marinated in a spice paste fruity with ancho chillis and dressed in a coriander-heavy aji verde with burnt lime. Vibrant, citrusy stuff. Goat from a farm just outside Orange is marinated, cooked whole and shredded for the barbacoa, a submissive tangle of meat with caramelised crust and a soft punch from apple cider vinegar. Pair it one of the dozens of tequilas and mezcals on offer, or something red and earthy from the short-but-powerful wine list. There's usually someone on hand you can chat with about booze, and for the lighter dishes our waiter recommends a Chilean wine made from the moscatel de Alejandria grape he describes as 'like eucalyptus beurre blanc'. Sold. You'll also want a half-serve of the pork jowl with a cola-flavoured mole sauce deep enough to get lost in. It's one of the few dishes that remain from Lottie's opening menu (Valero was only appointed head chef in May), along with the ceviche-like aguachile with snappy, raw prawns and pickled carrots. I was half-tempted to shoot its laser-sharp, leftover liquor, dotted with prawn oil, like a 19th-century health tonic. Word to the wise: avoid the basement-level car park, at least on a Sunday afternoon. It was an epic poem to find a spot two weekends ago, a drawn-out battle with locals shopping at Wunderlich Lane's Harris Farm. Eve Hotel guests have their own parking spots, but again, that will be upwards of $500 for the privilege.
Sky News AU
2 days ago
- Sky News AU
Meghan Markle eyeing new ‘gold mine' but Sussexes could still be forced to cut staff at Archewell production company
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's new 'first look' deal with Netflix could end up netting the Sussexes more money than their original contract, an insider has claimed. The Sussexes signed a five-year, $100 million content partnership with the streaming giant through their Archewell company in the heady days of 2020. The deal produced the massively successful docu-series Harry and Meghan, where the Sussexes dished royal secrets, but subsequent projects have come and gone with little fanfare. Infamously, Harry's Drive To Survive-style series on Polo attracted less than 500,000 viewers around the world. Only Markle's cooking series With Love, Meghan, is set to return to the streamer for a 'second season'. It is understood the Sussexes will transition on to a 'first look' deal at Netflix within months, which gives the streamer first dibs on optioning any new Sussex projects. According to royal insider Alison Boshoff, the deal could end up being highly lucrative if Netflix opts to purchase several programs or expand the With, Love Meghan universe. 'There are options on the table for other lifestyle shows from the Duchess, tied to hosting gatherings at Thanksgiving or Christmas,' she wrote in the Daily Mail on Thursday. 'The idea is to announce those in September when the second series (already shot) of With Love, Meghan drops.' While standalone specials could be a 'goldmine' for Meghan, Ms Boshoff claimed that the Sussexes may struggle to cover the payroll at Archewell without the Netflix deal. 'It's bad news for their own large team at Archewell Productions, which has been funded up to now by the Netflix exclusive deal,' she wrote. 'Insiders suggest that running the team and the office costs around $3 million USD a year.' Meanwhile a source close to the couple expressed concerns that without the guiding hand of Netflix the Sussexes are 'horrible' at managing their business affairs. 'They are horrible at making decisions,' the source told the same outlet. 'They ask everyone, then don't take their advice.'
