Spice Temple

By Franz Scheurer

A new star is born!

Spice Temple is the latest Neil Perry restaurant, with his business partners Trish Richards and David Doyle. Located in the art-deco City Mutual building in the CBD, it occupies the basement and a long set of snaking stairs lead to the bar and the restaurant, which opens up on the right side. The restaurant itself is divided into two parts, separated by see-through screens and there is also a private dining room for ten. The atmosphere is dark, brooding, yet modern and intimate. Despite the many hard surfaces, noise is not a problem and although the light levels are held very low, and the menu is small (so as not to interfere with your space on the table), the typeface is well chosen and big enough to read, even without glasses.

Spice Temple is a modern Chinese restaurant and in typical Neil Perry fashion it offers superb service and the highest quality, freshest produce available. The menu pays homage to the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi and Xinjiang. The food is beautifully presented, the portions are substantial and the flavours are in-your-face fantastic. This is without a doubt the best Asian restaurant since the heady days of David Thompson and Darley Street Thai. Chillies are used often and you will encounter them dried, fresh, salted, pickled, brined and fermented.

Be ready to be wowed!

We started the night with a couple of cocktails from the Cocktail Menu with contains twelve cocktails, based on the Chinese calendar. We tried a ‘Dragon’ and a ‘Snake’ and they were sensational. We loved the citrus flavours and the scent of lemongrass in the ‘Dragon’ and the combination of raspberries and the house-made almond syrup made the ‘Snake’.

We ordered ‘Cabbage and radish’ from the Pickles section and ‘Tofu and preserved egg with soy chilli dressing’ and ‘Hot and numbing white cut chicken’ from the Salads and Cold Cuts. We moved on to a Hot Entrée of ‘Fried Squid’ which was served with a searing-hot chilli sauce on the side and progressed to the ‘Leather jacket fillets Sichuan style’ from the Seafood section and ‘Stir fried quail and peanuts with steamed egg custard’ from the Poultry menu. We finished with ‘Beef short ribs, wild bamboo pith and dried wild Chinese mushroom braised in superior stock’ from the Beef and Lamb menu. Every dish was a revelation in taste and textures and I couldn’t help thinking ‘this will be the dish of the month’ only to discover that the next dish was even better. If I had to elevate one dish to glory then it is a toss-up between the leather jacket and the quail, with the quail dish winning by a nose.

A Chenin Blanc, Huet Le Mont Demi-Sec Vouvray 2006 for the 100 Wines’ list, paired perfectly with the hot food and a bottle of Pinot Noir from Anthill Farms Demuth Vineyard in California knocked our socks off. Fantastically earthy, full of feral, savoury flavours, it worked perfectly. This is one of the best bottles of Pinot Noir I have tasted in a long, long while.

For dessert we sampled the ‘Almond milk jelly with fresh fruit and fragrant syrup’, the ‘Watermelon granita’ and the ‘Caramel ice cream with coffee granita and chocolate biscuit’. The desserts were good but the chocolate biscuit was heavenly and our remarkably astute waiter obviously noticed the rapt expression on my dining companions face and brought her an extra biscuit.

Value for money is excellent, service is attentive, professional and knowledgeable and the ambience is everything you could ever want.

This is not just a newborn star; it’s shining very brightly indeed!

What are you waiting for? Go and check it out!

Score: 8.5/10

For more infromation go to:

Spice Temple

10 Bligh Street

Sydney

Tel.: 02 8078 1888

Check out the Rockpool Group’s website: http://www.rockpool.com