Gelato Messina HQ, Rosebery

Messina without a queue? Messina gelato cakes at the drop of a hat? You can get both at one of Gelato Messina's lesser known outlets in Rosebery. The Rosebery store is Gelato Messina HQ, home to a bright and shiny kitchen classroom for gelato-making workshops and gelato appreciation classes. It's where all Messina gelato cakes are made - that means you can stop by and pick one up without having to pre-order. Say what?!


Gelato cabinet 

Its location makes for a handy weekend pit-stop, with relatively easy street parking. The best part is there's rarely a queue inside. Being able to see the entire gelato cabinet without a single person blocking your view is a rare luxury.


Apple pie gelato

Like all Messina stores, you'll find 40 different flavours on offer. There are 35 permanent flavours and five weekly specials.


Passionfruit sorbet

Ten permanent sorbets include blood orange, lemon and coconut & roast almond with chocolate coated almonds. All the sorbets are dairy free and vegan. 


Gelato rainbow

I'm always befuddled by the overwhelming choice of flavours. Apparently the salted caramel and white chocolate is their biggest seller.


Weekly gelato specials

The novelty of the weekly special is usually hard to resist. Hat tip also has to go to the creativity of flavour combos and the quirkiness behind each creation name. The Messina team reckon they've made 2,500 different flavours so far.


L: Frooty Loopy, Coco Republic, and pandan & coconut
R: Honey I Burnt the Kids, salted coconut & mango salsa, and #36

We end up getting almost every weekly special on offer. The Frooty Loopy makes us feel like kids again, with Froot Loops-infused milk gelato and chewy Froot Loops rings. Coco Republic is chunkier than we expect, with large bits of pineapple cake mixed through coconut gelato and only a small amount of passionfruit curd.

There's quite a savoury note to Honey I Burnt the Kids, a burnt vanilla gelato with smoked dark chocolate fudge, burnt honey mousse and caramelised popcorn. And #36 is dense with frozen glazed doughnuts and pecan crunch mixed through peanut caramel gelato.

We also pick from their classic range. The salted coconut & mango salsa is super tasty and I still swoon over the pandan & coconut, probably my most-eaten flavour from Messina of all time.


Display area of gelato cake samples

In the back corner of the shop is a display area of Messina gelato cakes complete with mock-up samples.


Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom $85 (serves 16)
Dark chocolate gelato, peanut cookies and dulce de leche with flourless chocolate sponge, red ganache and white chocolate buttons with popping candy grass


Tiramisu $75 (serves 16)
White chocolate and coffee bowl filled with tiramisu gelato and lady finger biscuits topped with a white chocolate ball rolled in coffee bean and dark chocolate filled with a coffee and marsala gel


Bombe Alaska $55 (serves 14-16)
Raspberry sorbet and dark chocolate gelato on a flourless chocolate sponge covered in scorched Italian meringue

As one staff member told us, all the gelato cakes are made on the premises here, so chances are you should be able to pick up any cake you choose even without pre-ordering. It's also much easier to find a street park here than at Darlinghurst or Surry Hills.


Strawberries and cream gelato

Like every other Messina store, there's a distinct lack of seating, but standing around with your mates and stealing spoonfuls of gelato from each other's cones and cups is half the fun.


Gelato time!

 

Gelato Messina HQ
58 Mentmore Avenue, Rosebery, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8821 7391

Opening hours:
Monday to Friday 11am-10pm
Saturday 12pm-10pm
Sunday 12pm-9pm


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PAZAR Food Collective, Canterbury

If he had it his way, Attila Yilmaz would be back in the police force tomorrow. After twelve years as a police officer, Yilmaz was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, retiring as a leading senior constable in 2011. Five years later, he still struggles to sleep. Those restless nights are now used to jot down ideas and recipes for his flourishing new career, as chef and owner of Pazar Food Collective in Canterbury.

You would know Yilmaz from his Mexican-inspired Al Carbon food truck, off the road now, but still used for occasional events. He also set up La Lupita, a Mexican pop-up at Canterbury that was relocated and sold as a concept to The Basement (it's since closed). Both were created after intense research trips to LA and Mexico.

When he parted ways with La Lupita, Yilmaz says this was a major turning point. "Up until then I'd always cooked what I thought people wanted to eat. But then I realised if I'm going to get back into this, I'm going to start cooking what I like to eat." And Pazar Food Collective was born.



The wood fire oven

Pazar would be hard to miss were it not for its purple illuminated sign on the street, a rare blip of colour along this nondescript stretch of Canterbury Road. Inside it's a different story.

Pazar means marketplace in Turkish. While you won't find any stallholders here, it accurately depicts the casual raucousness to the place, a merry mix of locals and blow-ins clustered around an open kitchen. The massive wood fire oven takes centre stage. It's Yilmaz's pride and joy, designed to be large enough to cook several lambs at once. The menu is Turkish and Middle Eastern with the occasional Mexican twist.


Zucchini herb balls with feta and sumac yoghurt $8.50 for 3

We take up a table outside, warmed by outdoor heaters as the sun sets. Our party of eight is happy to order the Collective Sharing Feast, a chef's selection of at least 10 different dishes for $45 per person (available for groups of at least four, and mandatory for groups of eight or more). I've provided standard menu prices below each photo. One member of our party works with Yilmaz's wife so we immediately receive a family-style welcome. We also get a generous variety of dishes as Yilmaz pulls out all the stops.

There's some strange purple lighting out the back so some photos are missing, but I can tell you we start with a terrific mound of hummus with Sicilian braised mint peas and fermented chilli. Next comes a plate of roast pickled baby beetroot with whipped haydari herbed feta and then a build-your-own assembly of lettuce cups with red lentil kofte ssam.

My standout of the starters is the smoked labne, laced with a dense smokiness that I cannot resist. We dip and dab our way through everything with warm squares of wood oven-baked pide bread encrusted with sesame seeds and nigella.

Zucchini herb balls are another highlight, fooling me first as falafel lookalikes but then quickly revealing themselves as fresh and crunchy zucchini fritters, splashed with cooling yoghurt sprinkled with sumac.


Wood roast blackened pumpkin $16

Wood roast blackened pumpkin is another vegetarian win. The massive hunk of pumpkin is engulfed in a tidal wave of pepita salsa verde. A rubble of crumbled feta and toasted almonds add saltiness and crunch.


Whole wood roasted blackened pumpkin

I spy the whole blackened pumpkin in the kitchen. It's a magnificent idea to roast it whole, intensifying its natural sweetness while adding a smoky char.


Spiced beef stuffed eggplant $21

It's not until our seventh dish that we finally encounter meat, not that we'd really missed it in our preceding six courses of vegetarian dishes. I do appreciate the inclusion of spiced beef mince in the roasted eggplant though. It's the kind of warm and hearty dish that ticks all the boxes for comfort food. Melted cheese, pine nuts, Turkish currants and a splash of mulberry molasses add texture and tang.


Turkish Caesar salad

Yilmaz sends out one of his off-the-menu creations: his version of a Turkish Caesar salad swapping out bacon for thin shavings of pastirma, and croutons for baby radishes. Buried beneath the snowstorm of cheese is a runny egg, best pierced so its sticky egg yolk runs everywhere.


Chilli mussels $19

We happily get messy with chilli mussels, prising them apart with fingers and using our teeth to scrape the meat off the shell. The mussels have been baked in a thick tomato sauce spiked with white wine, and liberally garnished with a zingy gremolata.



Pork cutlet $28

The 280-gram pork cutlet is wondrously tender, the result of a gentle sous vide before hitting the grill. Pickled vegetables, roasted pineapple and an intriguing peanut salsa verde round out this dish but it's the pork bone that's the real prize. Wait until everyone else is distracted and sneak in for the best bit. I did.


Smoked lamb shoulder $34

The onslaught of food continues with smoked lamb shoulder. The meat falls apart with the gentlest of nudges, served with a bulgur butter pilaf and a tomato herb salsa for freshness. Lamb shoulder is such a flavoursome cut - no wonder it's said to be most butchers' favourite cut.


Harissa roasted chicken $26

And then we're presented with the harissa roasted chicken. It's everything you want in a chicken: succulent flesh encased in a crisp skin. A bed of fermented chilli hummus acts as both a dip and a sauce.

Tres leche cake $14

We're spent but we can't say no to a spoonful of dessert. Yilmaz is proud of their modified tres leche cake, designed by a young chef given room to experiment in his kitchen. She came up with a habanero caramel with a raspberry mezcal and lime sauce.

It works brilliantly. The milky sweetness of the cake gets a tongue-tingling hit from the habanero caramel. The raspberry mezcal provides a sweet alcoholic kick.

Fun times in Canterbury? You bet. I'm heading back for that smoked labne.

NB. We paid for our meal here although we probably did score extra dishes and a free dessert.






Pazar Food Collective
325 Canterbury Road, Canterbury, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8964 9334

Opening hours
Tuesday to Friday 6pm-10pm
Saturday 5.30pm-10pm


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BBQ Pitmaster Rodney Scott at Harpoon Harry, Surry Hills

If there's one man that knows barbecue, it's Rodney Scott. The barbecue pit master of Scott's BBQ in Hemingway, South Carolina, barbecued his first whole hog at eleven years of age. When Anthony Bourdain visited Scott's BBQ for Parts Unknown: Charleston, he introduced Scott as "a man sought after all over the world for some of the finest whole hog barbecue there is".

South Carolina? That's a long way away from Sydney. So what did Morgan McGlone do? He brought Scott's BBQ to Sydney, with a two-day stint at Harpoon Harry.


Scott's BBQ menu at Harpoon Harry

Scott's BBQ started in the early 1970s by Rodney's parents. They began with one whole hog every Thursday. Now they cook up to 10 hogs per week. And they're only open Wednesday to Saturday.

The whole hogs are cooked using hardwood from the immediate area. The hogs are butterflied open and barbecued low and slow for twelve hours. Scott's signature is a mop he uses to baste the meat with a mixture of ground red pepper, vinegar, lemons and "lots of love".


The queue

Barbecue fans were told to arrive early at Harpoon Harry. And they did. Even though the barbecue would not be served until 3pm on Sunday, there was already a queue by 1.40pm. By 2.45pm, the queue was at least 300-deep.


Rodney Scott from Scott's BBQ and Anthony Puharich from Vic's Meats

In Sydney, Scott and McGlone had set up the barbecue pit at Randwick Racecourse. The whole hog - from Vic's Meats - had gone on at 11pm on Saturday evening. It was basted throughout the night. By the time they'd transported the cooked hog to Harpoon Harry in Surry Hills, McGlone admitted he'd only gotten two hours sleep in the truck. Scott had had none.


Plating up 

After joining the queue at 2.10pm - and about 50 people deep - I finally reached the front about 70 minutes later. There's an efficient production line in place with Scott, Puharich and McGlone all providing a friendly face for customers.


Morgan McGlone plating the pulled pork

McGlone is on the pulled pork station. Each serve nets about 150 grams of pulled pork.


Ladling the pimento mac n cheese

Out the back in the kitchen, chefs are churning out tubs of Carolina slaw and pimento mac n cheese.


Pork cracklings

And then there are the trays of pork crackling, adding a mouthful of crunch to every platter.


Scott's BBQ Plate $25
Rodney's pulled pork, pork cracklings, Devils white bread, Carolina slaw and pimento mac n cheese

The BBQ plate is a generous meal for one hungry person that includes pulled pork, pork crackling, Devils white bread, Carolina slaw and pimento mac n cheese. The Devils white bread is another classic Scotts BBQ trademark, eschewing the usual corn bread for thick slices of soft and fluffy white bread. It's ideal as a sandwich maker or for mopping up sauce.


Pulled pork from whole hog barbecued for 12 hours

The pulled pork is incredibly soft and tender, like a super slow roasted pork that just falls apart. There's more texture here too, unlike the indistinguishable mush of a lot of other pulled porks I've encountered. Many of the pork hunks come apart in long strands. Scott calls it "pork spaghetti".


Carolina slaw

The Carolina slaw is terrific too, a light and crunchy salad of red cabbage, white cabbage and carrot that is lightly tangy with vinegar.


Pimento mac n cheese

And we dig the pimento mac n cheese, doused in lashings of cheese sauce and dotted with little squares of red capsicum.


Rodney Scott

I can't wait to one day visit Scott's BBQ in South Carolina. This was a tasty little preview!


The team: Anthony Puharich, Rodney Scott and Morgan McGlone

Rodney Scott is back at Harpoon Harry today (Monday 16 May) for one last time. Barbecue starts at 6pm but I'd definitely get there early to queue. If you need any consolation about waiting, you'd probably spend longer checking in for that next flight to South Carolina!



Rodney Scott's BBQ will be available at Harpoon Harry on Monday 16 May from 6pm until sold out.

Harpoon Harry 
40-44 Wentworth Avenue, Surry Hills, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 8262 8800


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Restaurant Hubert, Sydney

Restaurant Hubert. Everyone's Instagramming it. Chef Dan Pepperell's follow-up gig to 10 William Street seemed to have gotten the thumbs up from everyone within its first days of opening. Could it really be as good as everyone said it was? We arrive with high expectations, surprised by the very plain entry door on the street. There's a brief moment before we push it open gently. And you know what? We're immediately entranced as we step through.


Vintage miniature spirit bottles, some dating from the 1920s

The only illumination in the darkened entryway comes from a few wall lamps, but our eyes are immediately drawn to the display filled with miniature spirit bottles. There must be about a thousand of them, all different, and covered in a thin layer of dust.


Descending the spiral staircase to Restaurant Hubert

We descend one flight of spiral stairs where we discover a mini bar and yep, more miniature spirit bottles.


Display cabinets filled with miniature spirit bottles

There are about 4,000 spirit bottles in total, deliberately exposed during construction so that a fine layer of dust would creative some authenticity. 

Bar Pincer

Down the stairs on the right is Bar Pincer, serving a bar menu that includes the Normandy burger and steak frites. The bar menu is also available in the adjoining Chester Lounge with curved leather booths.


Drinks ready to go at Bar Pincer

The Beatrix Dining Room in front of Bar Normandy

Down the stairs on the left is the main Beatrix Dining Room facing onto Bar Normandy. Both areas offer the formal dining menu. The booth seats for couples opposite the bar are definitely ones to seek out for a Friday night out. They are super cosy.


Diners in the Beatrix Dining Room

The folks behind Hubert is the Swillhouse Group, the same people behind Frankie's Pizza, Baxter Inn and Shady Pines. The heavy timber, imposing archways, balcony overhead and intricate details everywhere would suggest this space was unearthed from a just-opened time capsule. Except it's not. This spot used to house the very 1980s Celestial Chinese Restaurant that included mini pagodas, a red carpeted bridge and a pond with live carp that are said to have been living there for the fifteen years the restaurant had been open.


Mr Creosote Stage with the baby grand piano

There's no natural light down here but that only exemplifies the moody French post-war dining experience that the owners hoped to create. Noone's playing the baby grand tonight but a steady stream of 1940s jazz and the tinkling of wine glasses by candlelight is all the music we need.


Terrine du Jour $18
Pork and pistachio terrine with marinated prunes

The sharing menu runs from snacks to larger style mains. We start with the terrine of the day, a melange of pork littered with chunky pistachios that provide crunch. A marinated prune adds a deepened caramelly sweetness.


Duck parfait $17
Liver mousse with maple syrup jelly

A basket of baguette slices is rapidly vanquished once we start using them as carriages for the liver mousse with maple syrup jelly. The duck parfait is deliriously light and smooth, accented with a subtle sweetness that I greedily approve.


Malakoff $12
Fried gruyere with Dijon mustard and dill pickle

We order two malakoffs to share between the five of us, but in hindsight, we should really have ordered one each. Don't make this mistake!


Melted gruyere cheese inside the malakoff

Inside the gruyere - deep fried to a rich golden brown - is a molten puddle of mustard and gruyere cheese. The cheese oozes languidly on the plate, stretching into the thinnest of ribbons when we try to prise apart each portion.

A bed of Dijon mustard adds an extra tang to the puff. You need to eat this immediately. And quickly. But just long enough to luxuriate in every mouthful of cheesy goodness. Finish with a wedge of dill pickle to cleanse your palate.


Tomato tart $18
Tomato confit, onion jam, black olive and puff pastry

The tomato tart is one of my surprise favourites of the night. At its essence, it's a simple dish. Pastry and tomato. But the puff pastry is a masterpiece of distinct flakiness. The tomato confit on top is like the intense distillation of a hundred tomatoes in one mouthful. The thin layer of onion jam only enhances the sweetness, contrasted with the occasional salty burst of black olive.


Prime beef tartare $22
Wagyu topside, classic condiments and French fries

There's an impressive pile of French fries that cascade across our mountain of wagyu topside beef tartare. The hand-cut beef is pre-mixed with egg yolk chives, capers and cornichons but served quickly so the beef is still a brilliant hue of red.

We like the generosity of fries but find they're not quite thick enough to be crunchy. It's also difficult to eat them with the tartare.


Bavette steak $42
350g grilled Rangers Valley flank with Bordelaise butter

The Bavette steak is cooked to the perfect shade of medium rare. It's flavoursome and tender. We tease the disc of Bordelaise butter so it melts its red wine and bone marrow richness into each slice.


Murray Cod a la grenobloise $84

We go with the special of the day: Murray Cod a la grenobloise. The whole cod is wood roasted in a brown butter sauce with capers. It's a huge serve that would probably equal three mains given the amount of protein.

The flesh is a marvel of softness and succulency. The kitchen has even removed all the bones, bar the spine, so it's easy to eat. We try eating the skin but it's more chewy than crisp. And of course we eat the treasured cheeks as well. It's a beautiful eating fish prepared with great skill and respect. I love that they keep the head and tail on as well.


Chicken fricassee $62
Whole chicken, mushrooms and tarragon sauce

We can't help but be impressed by the presentation of the chicken fricassee too, complete with menacing claw. The whole Holmbrae chicken is served with head and feet on the plate, a sight that some may find confronting. I appreciate this honesty of our meal's origins - it's a thoughtful reminder of the privilege we have in what we eat, and why it should never be taken for granted.


Chicken fricassee

The chicken has been brined, dried, steamed and deep-fried. It's incredible. I rarely order chicken in restaurants but this is the tastiest chicken I've ever eaten. Each mouthful is juicy, the flesh is silky and the skin has crisped up in some spots to an enviable crunch. I even eat one of the chicken feet (carefully avoiding the nails) and it's delicious.

Tumbled across the top are all kinds of forest mushrooms. The buttery sauce is worth mopping up too.

We also order the side of Pommes Anna ($10) which sadly was only captured in a blurry photo. It's another highlight of the night for me, layered potatoes baked and then turned on their side to crisp. Peeling them apart and dunking them in the buerre blanc sauce is like the gourmand's version of chips and gravy.


Creme caramel $18
Egg custard with bitter caramel

There are three sweet options on the dessert menu plus a cheese platter. We pass over the religieuse au chocolat in favour of the creme caramel, a dense but satiny smooth custard enrobed in a bitter caramel sauce.


Melon en surprise $22
Santa Claus melon with finger lime, sorrel jelly and young coconut sorbet

And we can't resist everyone's favourite dessert right now, the melon en surprise.


Santa Claus melon balls, finger lime and sorrel jelly beneath a layer of young coconut sorbet

Beneath the layer of young coconut sorbet is a treasure trove of fruit. We find Santa Claus melon balls (they taste reasonably similar to honeydew), sorrel jelly and fizzy bursts of tart finger lime. It's a terrific palate cleanser although I'm in love with the creamy young coconut sorbet the most.

And once you finish the filling, keep going. We end up scraping the frozen Santa Claus melon bowl to create a second dessert of melon slush. It's so tasty!

We had a couple of service lags: our drinks (two wines, one Aperol Spritz and one gin and tonic) were ordered at the start but took about 40 minutes to arrive even with a reminder, by which time we'd already finished our entrees; and there was at least a 40 minute wait between our entree plates being cleared and our mains arriving. Perhaps the latter was due to our fish and chicken order but there was no prior warning nor a reassuring update from floor staff that the kitchen was temporarily backlogged.

But these mishaps are no doubt part of a new restaurant still finding its feet, and we left still rather entranced by a memorable dining experience in quite magical surrounds.

The good news is that you can now book for Hubert with some tables held for walk-ins. I'd recommend you arrive at 5pm if you want to chance a table. We arrived at 5.30pm and scored one of their last free tables.

Bring a handful of mates so you can make some headway into the menu. I'm planning on making a trip to the bar. There's a steak frites (and ok, the burger too) with my name on it.






Restaurant Hubert
15 Blight Street, Sydney

Opening hours
Monday to Saturday 5pm-1am


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