bills
Darlinghurst
By Franz Scheurer
bills in Darlinghurst is within easy walking distance of St Vincent’s Hospital and, I’m sure, provides an oasis for many of its visitors during the day. They serve breakfast and casual lunches and transform into a more formal mode for dinner. Paper over cloth and reasonable stemware greet diners in a warm-toned, banquette-heavy setting.
Frustratingly small tables and chairs too narrow for all except svelte model-types, are reminiscent of something you’d find in a children’s playroom. The short menu is seafood heavy, at first I couldn’t find a single meat dish until I asked for clarification on ‘Belle forestiere with potato gratin & wild mushroom sauce’ and discovered it was a sirloin steak (not obvious from the menu description, as forestiere can refer to any meat, or even vegetable, served with mushroom sauce).
For entrées we tried the ‘Seared yellowfin tuna, nicoise salad, lemon a la Grecque’ and the ‘Spinach gnocchi with braised chicken, pearl onions & Madeira’. Both dishes presented well but the tuna was a little bland and the gnocchi pasty and, again, bland. The ‘Serbian black salt’ on the table looked great but had very little flavour beyond a trace of sweetness. For mains we ordered the ‘Belle forstiere with potato gratin & wild mushrooms’ and a main course size of an entrée: ‘Ravioli of goat’s curd, carrot & cumin puree with confit grape tomatoes’. The steak was excellent quality but unfortunately not rested sufficiently; once I cut it, despite it being medium rare, it oozed blood, loosing much of its flavour. Again, the overall impression of the whole dish was of blandness. The ravioli, ravioloni in fact, were plate-size disks of pasta with very little filling, stacked atop one another and buried under a mountain of cherry tomatoes, although pretty, it too missed the mark. So far, there was certainly nothing offensive about the rather small portions of food, but nor was there any reason to return for it.
Dessert was a different story altogether. We ordered a ‘Light lemon mousse with candied orange and passionfruit jelly’ and it shone. It was of a generous size, beautifully presented and outstanding. The dish of the night!
They are obviously used to turning tables over at breakfast and lunch and it shows by the efficiency with which dishes come out at night. You don’t feel rushed, but the whole experience is over in an hour or so. The wine list is small and concise and the choice of wines by the glass is good. Value for money is good and service is agile, informed and friendly.
Score: 5.5/10
For more information or bookings:
433 Liverpool Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
http://www.bills.com.au/restaurants/darlinghurst.htm