Ten years on, Good Food visits Bennelong to see if it still delivers big-ticket thrills

The Age

26-06-2025

Head sommelier Alex Jacques is the current shaper of Bennelong's wine list, which at one point was all-Australian (champagne excepted) but now has a considerable wealth of Old World stalwarts and rare gems. Domestic bottles are still highly championed, and there's a particularly beaut representation of NSW producers. Spirits are well chosen, martinis are textbook. The only dud note drinks-wise is the mochi garnish on a Tokyo-inspired cocktail (whisky, yoghurt-purified azuki bean, tequila and coconut spice), which tastes more like raw scone dough than anything approaching the squishy Japanese rice cake.
'The menu doesn't change very much' is a common criticism. 'That duck has been on for years!' Well, yeah, but that duck is a cracker: a roast breast of pasture-raised bird from Tathra Place near Goulburn, with extra-crisp, maltose-lacquered skin. A sauce built on duck consomme with sherry caramel and Kampot pepper boosts things further, while the leftover legs are used in party pie-sized pithivier on the bar menu.
Also, with that price tag, most of us are only visiting Bennelong once a year if we're lucky. I'd be upset to take a first-timer and there wasn't the duck, or the buckwheat pikelets with marron and cultured cream, or the opening-day Opera House pavlova with meringue shaped like Utzon's sails. It's now joined by a joyous almond kataifi (spindly string pastry) with nougat and vanilla parfait.
If you're looking at the rumpled carpet and slightly scuffed chairs, you're looking in the wrong direction. Look at the soaring Gotham City ceiling and bronze sheen of the Tom Dixon-designed lights. Look at the jagged skyline and the ferries and the way the sun bounces off an Old Fashioned. Top work, Bennelong team. Top work, NSW government of the 1950s for backing such ambition.