The Clam Bar Trio Takes On the “Mother” of all Cuisines at Grandfathers

It’s not an overstatement to say Andy Tyson, Mikey Clift and Dan Pepperell are behind some of the city’s best restaurants: Clam Bar, Neptune’s Grotto and Pellegrino 2000. The shuttered Bistrot 916. And they each become so almost immediately after opening. Grandfathers, the trio’s Chinese 140-seater in Angel Place, is no different. Three weeks in and it’s in full swing.

Red-shirted floor staff buzz through the loosely L-shaped room, showing you to your booth, bar seat or table, picking out the stars from the menus, ferrying plates back and forth from the hidden kitchen. Red and black carpet zigzags underfoot, and muted lighting keeps everything warm. The space glows red, contrasting with the blue-toned fish tanks decorating the venue.

“We have, for the last few years, been looking and thinking about what we could do in terms of a Chinese restaurant,” Tyson tells Broadsheet. “Ultimately it is the great one of all the cuisines, it’s the mother. The diversity and breadth and quality is … there’s just nothing like it. We respect it greatly.”

The menu – led by Clift, who was on the Spice Temple opening team and has Chinese heritage, and Pepperell – heroes the Guangdong and Sichuan regions, with honorary references to meals the trio loved on their recent trip through China.

“The massive misconception, in Asia at least, is everyone attributes hyper-specialisation to Japan,” Tyson says. “Mainland China has the same specialists, people who just do one thing and do it so, so well, whether it be the guy that just does Sichuan-spiced chicken wings in Beijing, or a guy in Xi’an who does excellent fried bread.”

With the Sydney touch, rock oysters are zinged up with Chinese celery, and meaty slices of raw yellowfin come drenched in a peppery oil. The house pickle plate is a technicolour mix of veggies, and the husband and wife salad comes dressed in mouth-numbing mala chilli oil. The steamed dumpling platter hits the table with four pretty pairs of the day’s dim sum, prawn toast is crowned with almonds, and spring rolls are stuffed with scallops and king prawns.

Then there’s the pigeon. The guiding words from Beijing’s three-Michelin-starred Xin Rong Ji are: “It can’t be any better than just a perfectly cooked squab.”

“They just serve the pigeon in the most perfect, simple form,” says Tyson. “Crispy skin, tender, juicy on the interior. So that was the inspiration that we’ve taken for that dish. It is an excellent rendition that I personally haven’t seen in Sydney before.”

The steamed red emperor swimming in a super-fragrant broth, from Sichuan’s capital Chengdu, is Broadsheet ’s pick. “I absolutely love that dish,” says Tyson. “Green chillies, Sichuan peppercorns in a light, mustardy broth with white fish that you kind of have to find and scoop out through the chillies. For people in the know, it’s absolutely incredible, but if you’re not expecting it, it’s adventurous.”

Daily yum cha brings a dedicated dim sum list to the lunch mix, and supper’s served till 1am on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, a great time slot for the MSG Martini or Sesame Sazerac.

Legendary sommelier Charles Leong – who curated the Golden Century and opening Cho Cho San wine lists, and owned Aperitif on Kellett Street in the 2000s – joins the team. “He’s moved back to Australia just to open this restaurant with us … he’s kind of our grande sommelier.” Leong’s composed the wine list with the group’s head somm Darcy Lyne.

The list is flush with Kabinett and Spatlese German rieslings – low on booze and slightly sweet, just right for lunchtime dim sum. Custom bright-red custom speakers croon Japanese and Taiwanese jazz, before synth-y ’80s stuff and Cantonese pop covers – New Order’s Blue Monday, a few David Bowie covers – take it into the night.

Chinese dining rooms are opening in quick succession in Sydney: Grandfathers joins Young’s Palace in Potts Point and we’ll soon see the Sydney outpost of Victor Liong’s Lee Ho Fook.

Grandfathers
Angel Place, Sydney

Hours:
Mon to Wed midday–3pm, 5pm–11pm
Thu to Sat midday–3pm, 5pm–1am
Sun midday–3pm, 5pm–11pm

grandfathers.com
@grandfathersrestaurant