Sydney Series - The Cut Bar and Grill

http://www.cutbarandgrill.com/

I recently found myself in Sydney overnight after a whirlwind visit to the harbour city for work.  I wasn't sure if I would be able to get away for a nice dinner but decided I'd hit twitter to get some suggestions, just in case I had a few hours spare.  Asking where my followers would go for a meal in Sydney if they were only there for a night, I was expecting to suggestions like Quay, Rockpool, Est and some of the fancier dining spots around.  While I did get the odd Longrain and Momofuku, I was surprised and delighted with the less well known and clearly more personal dining spots suggested, Wildfire, Portento Fratelli Paradiso, just to name a few.

One suggestion that I got, which was also a recommendation from my lovely partner SC, was The Cut, which as it turned out was just a hundred metres or so from my hotel.  After a very early start and a very busy day, I was able to plant a few suggestion to my travelling companions throughout our meetings that led us in the direction of The Cut.  By the time we had finished and it was time to unwind and have a few drinks, we 'found' ourselves at the The Argyle, which as luck would have it is right at the back of The Cut!

A few drinks later and it was time for us to start thinking about food, it was the easiest thing in the world to just walk a few metres and descend some steps and enter The Cut.  We didn't know how we would go without a reservation at 8pm on a Wednesday in Sydney but we were offered some seats at a communal table or to wait at the bar for a table to free up.  The choice was easy for the lads, who were all too happy to have another beer before dinner started, so it was beer and fries for about thirty minutes until we were shown to our table.

And what a table!  It was huge and made of marble and could easily have seated six or eight people (eight at a pinch), although we did notice that the table we were ushered to was free for the entire time we were sitting at the bar!  Not sure why that was but we speculated it was more about evenly distributing meal orders than trying to inflate bar revenue.

We'd had our menus with us while sitting at the bar, so we had a pretty good chance to decide on what we wanted to eat.  I'd been talking up The Cut signature dish, a four hour slow roast F1 wagyu standing rib served from a wagyu beef trolly.  I mean really talking it up.  SC had tried this before in a previous trip to Sydney and had led me to believe this steak was the nirvana of steaks!  As our waiter came to take our orders, he said there was one update to the menu, they were out of the signature dish!  It was unbelievable, it was only 8:30pm and the signature dish was all gone.  We hid our disappointment fairly well and quickly recalculated what we would order, all the time lamenting that we'd missed out on something special.

Something a little strange happened to me at The Cut.  The lads that were dining with me had consumed a 'liquid' entree in the form of a few beers, so I was the only one actually getting a starter.  I didn't really want the guys to wait too long for their dinner, it was getting late, so I asked that my entree and main come out closely together.  What I didn't expect was that my main would come first!  I'd ordered the Darling Downs F1 Wagyu 400 day, grain fed eye fillet with a marble score of 7+.  The steak looked delicious and was simply presented with some vine ripened tomatoes and came with a béarnaise sauce.  The fillet was a perfectly cooked medium rare and was very, very tender. I think I could have cut through it with a butter knife.  As good as the steak was, I was completely thrown by eating my main before my entree!

My entree of beef tartare with quail egg, truffled mustard, traditional garnishes and lavoush was delivered when I was a few bites into my main.  As seems to be the case lately, the tartare came deconstructed and needed the onion, gherkin, parsley, capers and truffled mustard to be mixed together by the diner (me). Without much finesse, I just mashed the lot together and poured the quail egg over the top, before going for a second mash up.  I was initially concerned about the quail egg, which had the yolk and egg white and normally is just the yolk, but I didn't notice any difference in the taste.  The beef was very good quality which led to a great beef tartare.

While it was weird eating my starter after my main, it was soon forgotten about when my dessert of crème brûlée with passionfruit and pistachio was presented.  I'd been warned that it wasn't a traditional looking brûlée, which turned out to be an understatement!  There were none of the components that you would expect from a brûlée, the creamy custard with the sugar glazing on top, but the quenelle of thick custard at the centre of the plate definitely had the right flavour.  The pistachio was interesting, it was a mix between a gel and a puree but was lovely when mixed with the brûlée.  There was some texture from some pistachio crumbs and some candied flowers, with some pink fairy floss pulling the dish together.

The Cut pitches itself as a New York style steak restaurant, and it does a pretty decent job.  Head Chef Grant Croft has worked at some amazing restaurants here and overseas (including Aria, Biota Dining and seven start Burj al Arab in Dubai) does a great job leading the kitchen and producing great quality steak meals.  While it was amusing that my entree came out after my main, it's a great lesson for me not to 'upset the applecart' when eating at a very busy restaurant, it was not the fault of the kitchen - who probably thought I was a nut!

The dining room has a very relaxed feel to it, with lots of low lighting providing a perfect environment to bring a date.  It's sectioned off into a bar area, shared dining tables and then general dining area and each of the areas has a different feel.  There was an abundance of wait staff around on the night and the service was pretty good from the moment we were shown to the bar, right up to the point where we paid to leave.

Was The Cut the best steak restaurant I've been to? Probably not, but it was very good.  Unfortunately, we missed out on the signature dish which could have been the most amazing piece of beef I'd ever eaten.  I'm not sure why they ran out, probably it is the best piece of beef ever, but I reckon you can only make that assessment when you can try it - hopefully next time it will be available

@FoodMeUpScotty

CN and MC had the scotch fillet with truffled butter.  It was a Snap moment for them both 

GM had the rib eye on the bone.  He asked for it medium rare but it came closer to medium.  We agreed that it's harder to get it perfect when cooked on the bone

The onion rings were massive and delicious

Deconstructed desserts were the order of the day and MC had the cheese cake which looked amazing and tasted even better 

The dark and secluded bar area

The meat hooks light the way to The Cut