Chefs are creating dishes with visuals, as well as taste, in mind, and these photogenic plates will be clogging up your social media feeds as restaurants introduce their new season winter menus.
267 Cleveland St, Redfern
How do you convince people to head out on a Monday night in winter?
By serving up a 900g grass-fed Angus rib eye, slow roasted for five hours and served with a bone marrow sauce bordelaise. It’s carved from the bone to order and served whole at the table.
Primus Hotel, 339 Pitt St, Sydney
No, it’s not a cocktail. It’s a soup.
This savoury dish is served in a martini glass. The pumpkin gnocchi — made from butternut puree, garlic, cream and parmesan, and turned into spheres by reverse specification — are swimming in a mushroom consomme and crowned with a crostini of dehydrated mushrooms and black truffles.
Moore Rd, Freshwater
The winter menu at Pilu will feature game — partridge, squab, pheasant and guinea fowl.
The birds are roasted whole with aromatics, pan-basted and presented whole to the diner before being carved by the chef and served with wild mushrooms sauteed in truffle butter, pickled pine mushrooms, chestnut puree and cocoa nibs.
Regent Place, 12/501 George St, Sydney
Make like Aunty Betty and squeeze those chubby cheeks of the emoji buns (left) to see custard ooze from their mouths. Not only works for Instagram, but perfect for a boomerang, video or Instagram story.
100 Argyle St, Camden
Smashed avo is so 2017. But it still garners a lot of likes. What to do?
Find the new incarnation of avo on toast and be the first of your friends to post a pic of a scotched avocado — a whole avo wrapped in pancetta, lightly crumbed and hiding an egg in the centre where the stone would be.
30 McLachlan Ave, Rushcutters Bay
Is it a mini hedgehog? Or a dried-out dahlia?
No, it’s a deep-fried artichoke. Now that the season has rolled around, artichokes alla giudia, Roman-Jewish artichokes, are back on the menu.
68 Market St, Sydney
Warm up this winter with a steaming pot of a cheese fondue.
This mix of Emmental (a yellow, medium-hard, savoury, mild cheese), gruyere (a creamy, unpasteurised, semisoft cheese), Kirsch (a clear, colourless cherry brandy), white wine and garlic are blended together and served with a variety of condiments including a garden salad, crusty baguette, cornichons and more.
Wulugul Walk, 7/23 Barangaroo Ave, Barangaroo
Taramasalata, the classic salted and cured cod roe dip, is given an indulgent kick with the addition of sweet, creamy, salty sea urchin and the colourful collection of dippable pickled baby winter vegetables makes the picture pop.
2/85 Tallwood Ave, Mollymook
Persimmons are to the cooler months what mangoes are to summer.
Their sweet, orange flesh is photogenic enough on their own. But when they’re roasted and served with caramel white chocolate, chiffon cake and dusted with pink beetroot powder on a dark plate, the dish is next level.
1 Victoria St, Paddington
Love crab? Then this pasta dish is for you.
The pasta is folded, allowing the blue swimmer crab and egg emulsion to peek out from underneath, while the pink finger limes and green chives add colour, and the dashi and crab broth adds an extra layer of texture.