When I heard the news that Adelaide’s fine dining establishment and only 3-hatted restaurant Orana would be popping up in Sydney for a month, I created an alarm to alert me of when reservations would open. Orana serves a 22-course degustation for $350 per person. I was surprised that I was able to get a booking on a Saturday, and reserved a table for two, paying the required full amount upfront. In my excitement, I didn’t see that lunch bookings were available via a different button further down on the website page. Luckily I was able to change the dinner booking to lunch, no problems at all.
On the day, with my friend Eileen from The Food Avenue, we head to Sydney for lunch. When we reach the front door, we slide the door to the side and are greeted by some people at the makeshift front desk. Our jackets and bags are whisked away into a cloak room, and we’re shown to the bar area to wait until our table is ready. I’m going to call the décor ‘fancy farmhouse’ – lots of dried herbs and natural flora hanging from the ceiling, large wire and netting installations, animal skin, lots of timber and great use of curtains to separate different areas.
As we sit at the bar area, we’re given the drinks menu and asked if we want sparkling, still or tap water. Soon, we’re taken to our table around the other side of the eatery.
After we sit down and the drinks menu is provided, we notice the small lump of bread sitting underneath a glass cloche. Eileen asks if we’re meant to eat it, but considering there are no plates, butter or cutlery, I said probably not and maybe it was still rising for our entertainment. I was kind of right, and we’re advised that the bread is proofing and is taken away to be baked and served later on during our lunch. The bread is a wholemeal sourdough with toasted garlic, wattleseeds and various other things which I’ve already forgotten.
Courses 1 – 4 arrive at the same time. It consists of potato damper stuffed onto a lemon myrtle branch slowly sizzling over hot coals. We’re asked to turn the damper onto the other side and advised it would only need about 3 minutes before we take it off the coal.
The damper comes served with a small bowl of lamb butter which is light as mousse (it’s been whipped) and so ridiculously good. After our mad rush to take as many photos as we can, we smell the damper burning and it’s time to take it off the coals and eat.
A tiny cup of warm macadamia milk with native thyme oil is also set down on the table. It’s actually quite tasty and smooth. I was expecting something more herbaceous but was happy with what I got. (No photo)
Another bowl placed in front of us is described as Poor Man’s Orange with river mint. Eileen asks what makes it poor man’s orange, and it’s apparently a mixed breed fruit of pomelo and orange so it’s kind of a play on words. It comes with a roast lamb jus – a good balance of savoury and sour/sweet.
The beautifully presented dish of ama ebi (a kind of prawn) lying on top of a glass dish encased with pink flowers, is wrapped in crocodile lardo and lightly dusted in boab powder. I didn’t know you could eat anything from the boab tree so it’s a good use of our native flora. The ama ebi looks almost raw when I pull it apart (you can eat the whole thing including the shell) but is actually cooked well. The lardo is a strange accompaniment and doesn’t taste like anything at all.
Course 5 – We’re each given a ceramic tea cup with a lid and asked to turn the lid over. This reveals emu egg with bunya miso and fried saltbush, all stuck underneath the lid. Inside, the cup is filled with egg custard and we’re told to mix everything from the lid into the custard. I add everything but in hindsight should have tasted the miso first. I thought it was a bit strong and yeasty. The egg custard on its own is very light and subtle.
Course 6-7 – angasi and wakame. More beautifully presented dishes consisting of two angasi oysters still in the shell.
We remove the top shell to reveal the oysters covered in a wakame sauce. The oysters are served with fried long yam crisps, and a bunya nut mousse with trout roe. We’re told to break off pieces of the yam crisps to dip into the mousse. Delicious. The fried yam does get stuck in our teeth so it takes an annoying amount of time to slowly nudge out.
Course 8-9 – surf and turf with toro and wagyu beef cooked over the fire. Perfectly cooked and lightly smoked. The toro comes basted in a curry paste while the wagyu is left alone covered in salt and pepper. Seriously delicious cooked meat. I could have easily devoured more of these!
Another course served with the surf and turf was the Streaky Bay razorfish and gubinge (a native green Kakadu plum). All I can taste is a nice sourness.
Course 10 – Red Emperor fish with farm greens and eucalyptus. This is like a green curry and the fish is cooked perfectly. Neither of us had any complaints.
Course 11 – crocodile soup soup served with Australian botanicals. In one of the indigenous communities, soup is soup, but ‘soup soup’ is really good soup, so Orana has adopted this phrase. Our waiter slowly drops in some Aussie native leaves into the soup, and states he will come back after a few minutes to let it steep and then pour it into small tea cups for us. It actually really is a warm nutritious and flavoursome broth.
Course 12 – The tongue in cheek roti consists of veal tongue stuffed with some lettuce, chutney in a deep fried roti sandwich. I’m really happy with this street food dish – full of flavour, hot and moreish.
Course 13 – kohlrabi with brush cherry, lemon myrtle and dorrigo. The kohlrabi is pickled and very carefully rolled. Our waiter tells us this takes the chefs ages to roll and I can see why. Very fresh and a nice palate cleanser to lead into the next dishes.
Course 14 – kangaroo with smoked potato, pandanus broth and wattleseed miso. Served medium rare, the slices of kangaroo are delicious. Kangaroo is difficult to cook as it gets tough really easily. I find that this kangaroo dish is executed perfectly.
The wholemeal sourdough bread stuffed with wattleseeds that had been proofing at the beginning of the lunch also arrives at our table, baked and ready to eat. It comes with a house made macadamia butter with native thyme. I love bread and butter, and wish they would bring out another one!
Course 15 – Moreton Bay bug covered in green ants and served with Geraldton wax (the green liquid in the bowl). Again perfectly cooked and the ants really just gave it some crunch. I don’t know what is in the Geraldton wax, but it needs to be bottled up and sold.
Course 16 – A large dish arrives covered in a large piece of paperbark. Hiding underneath is a roasted quail, sitting on grass. This is cut up into four quarters in front of us with the server telling us a bit of the story behind it. This comes served with minya, farm greens, and kangaroo grass soy sauce.
Course 17 – The first of the dessert courses is the cheese course. This is blackwood ash goat’s cheese, served with Moreton Bay fig and Sonoma malt loaf. The cheese is just divine and very gooey like a burrata. Paired wonderfully with the sweet fruity loaf, I could have easily eaten more but by this stage I am pretty full, and I remind myself that there are more desserts to come.
Courses 18-20 – Next a wooden box arrives at the table and when the lid is pulled open, it reveals some small sweet treats inside. This is a Coopers sparkling ice-cream pop; Orana vovo which is a light meringue and tastes like a vovo; and a Paperbark ice-cream sandwich which is my favourite of the three. Along with the box, we receive a tea cup of Jillungin tea. This is very bitter and I only manage two sips before leaving it aside.
By this stage, it is close to 3 hours that we’d been dining at Orana so I ask our waiter if he knew how many more courses were coming (I wasn’t counting). He asks if I was getting too full but it was more because I had a bus to catch back to Canberra! That speeds things up and the next two dishes came out very quickly.
Course 21 – set buffalo milk with strawberry and eucalyptus. I love the tartness of the strawberry and eucalyptus against the sweet buffalo milk. Another wonderfully balanced dish.
Course 22 – MacRobertson chocolates of buffalo whey caramel, paperbark ganache and cherry ripe.
All in all, I really enjoyed lunch at Orana. I thought it was a far better use of native ingredients compared to Melbourne’s Attica. Yes there are 22 courses but a lot of them are quite small. Favourites are the bread, potato damper, surf and turf, crocodile soup, tongue roti, kangaroo, Moreton Bay bug, quail, ash goat’s cheese, and the set buffalo milk. I wasn’t a fan of the dessert box (as I’m a sweet tooth and prefer something more traditional, like chocolate cake), but I understand that the lighter flavours are a better way of finishing off all those courses.
Make sure you have no place to be as this meal can take up to 4 hours!
Would I go back? Yes if I have the money and find myself in Adelaide.
Foodgasm 9/10
Value for money 8/10
Service 8/10
FPJ score 25/30
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