The Bach Eatery
Newtown’s latest is about sophisticated food in casual surrounds... with a Kiwi accent. By Freya Herring The latest King Street restaurant may well be our new retreat. The name refers to ‘baches’, which is what New Zealanders call holiday homes and beach houses. As such, there’s a surfboard propped up against the wall, and low-key tunes playing on the stereo. The surrounds say laidback local restaurant, but then you look into the open kitchen, and the team, led by former Bistro Moncur executive chef Darrien Potaka (a Kiwi himself), is killing it. A special of tuna crostini needs a permanent place on the menu. Fresh tuna is cooked confit (slowly poached in oil) before being whipped with house-made aioli to create a sort of ultra-creamy, salty, tuna taramasalata. Piled high onto a little slice of granary toast and topped with pink strands of sour pickled onion and crisp caper, it’s light and moussey and exactly what you want when you walk into a restaurant hungry. On first sight, the pâté looks simple. But this is not your average pâté plate: crisp, sour
The tuna crostini special needs a permanent place on the menu
cabbage; sweet, melting onions; buttery pâté and warm, malty bread. The onions have been naturally sweated down for hours, creating real onion caramel (a rare thing). Pasta is rich and flavoursome and only $18 for a massive serve when we visit. A barely cooked egg and a generous grating of cheese sit atop the heap of fine pappardelle. The waitress tells us to toss it all together with the provided tongs – these apparatus appear with almost every dish, making each one so easy to share and eat. Why did nobody think of this before? Grain-fed steak is tender and melting, but they don’t ask us how we want it done, so be aware that it will probably come cooked medium. As for dessert, skip the ‘Jelly Tip’ (a popular ice cream in NZ) and go for the hokey pokey brûlée: a crème brûlée topped with two big chunks of honeycomb. For drinks, there’s a good range of New Zealand’s Monteith’s beers and ciders, and with prices this low (a schmiddy of Monteith’s Golden Lager on tap is $5 when we go in), you can afford to sit back and sink a few. Potaka is planning for the menu to be more New Zealand-focussed as time goes on, but frankly we don’t care what type of cuisine he’s serving up if it always tastes this good.
The Bach Eatery 399 King St, Newtown 2042. 02 8084 4093. www.bacheatery. com.au. Wed-Fri 5.30pm-late; Sat, Sun noon-late.