Eight minutes after chef Khanh Nguyen confirmed his departure from Sunda and Aru, the Melbourne restaurants that made him a culinary star, he got a call from his old boss Brent Savage, co-owner of the Bentley Group.

“And we just had a long chat,” Nguyen says. “We kind of always joked about me coming back to the group, but here it was meant to be, I guess – they were opening an Asian restaurant and I was leaving, so it all fell into place.”

Savage was smart to jump straight on the phone – Nguyen had job offers aplenty. But after mulling over his options, Nguyen agreed to come aboard as executive chef and Savage got his man. Last week, Sydney got the result: King Clarence.

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It's a dual homecoming for Nguyen: he grew up in Sydney and cooked for years in the kitchens of the Bentley Group’s restaurants, flitting between Bentley, Monopole and Yellow, before working as senior sous chef at Cirrus. Coming back was a tough, but worthwhile, choice.

“I never thought I would move away from Melbourne again, but we just aligned,” Nguyen says. “They wanted to do Korean, Japanese and Chinese – and that was already what I wanted to do next. Because I like to write menus on my time off, when Brent reached out to me, I pretty much already had a menu written.”

That menu is broadly East Asian: Korean, Chinese and Japanese dishes, ingredients and ideas are represented more or less evenly across the offering of small dishes and larger group-friendly plates. And while King Clarence is ripe for a low-key weeknight dinner, there are plenty of opportunities to amp up the extravagance. For many, that’ll likely mean ordering a live lobster, straight out of the tank, served with your choice of sauces and optional add-on noodles. One option nods to Korean corn and cheese, combining salty, funky pecorino with a Singapore-style black pepper sauce and bobbing kernels of sweetcorn. Another riffs on Japanese curry, with the unusual additions of balsamic vinegar, reduced red wine and chunks of confit garlic.

Nguyen has a talent for signature dishes: Sunda had its Vegemite curry, while Aru had the duck sausage sanga and the banh mi pate en croute. At King Clarence, the frontrunner for the menu’s A-list will surely be the fish finger bao. It's a cross between a Maccas Filet-o-Fish and a xiaolongbao, packing a similar energy to the cheeseburger spring rolls at Ms G’s. The fish “patty” is filled with soupy fish and dashi stock, held together with a fried panko breadcrumb coating instead of a dumpling wrapper. It’s topped with American-style cheese and salmon roe and served in a bao bun filled with mustard greens and pickled chilli. It’s as cerebral as it is fun – everyone is going to order this thing.

When world-famous restaurant Noma had a residency in Sydney in 2016, Nguyen was one of the local chefs who interned at the pop-up. But he’s not the only one in the kitchen with Noma experience: the two-metre-long grill was custom-built by the Danish restaurant for its Harbour City stint. When Cirrus took over the space, it inherited the grill and, according to Nguyen, “It’s kind of been sitting downstairs for a number of years.” The grill was given over to Melbourne-based oven specialist Samuel Fraraccio to be re-customised. Fraraccio added four levels above the grill and an adjoined smoker box. Now it can grill, smoke, barbeque, roast and hold dishes, all at once. Quite the upskilling.

The rest of the restaurant has received just as much attention. Longtime Bentley Group collaborator Pascale Gomes-McNabb has delivered another sleek interior; the 100-seat restaurant is at home in the spectacular Bentley stable, while carving out its own distinct vibe – think disco balls and pops of neon. Combining Nguyen’s menu with the beautiful surrounds and another knockout drinks list by Bentley Group co-owner Nick Hildebrandt and Cirrus’s head sommelier Polly Mackeral, King Clarence is really shaping up to be something special. We only have a couple of weeks and change until 2024, but Sydney might just have been saving its best for last.

King Clarence
171 Clarence Street, Sydney
8456 7120

Hours
Mon to Wed midday–3pm, 5.30pm–9.30pm
Thu to Sat midday–3pm, 5.30pm–10.30pm
Sun midday–3pm, 5.30pm–9.30pm

bentleyrestaurantgroup.com.au/kingclarence
@kingclarence_sydney