Where Chefs Eat: Mimi Wong’s Got a “Ballsy” CBD Thai Spot on Her Mind

“I grew up within quite a turbulent household, but food was always a ritual everyone respected. It was incredibly harmonious when it came to food.”

It was this experience that chef Mimi Wong leant into during lockdown, while separated from her mum. “I took it upon myself to learn, via voice notes with my grandma on Whatsapp, how to do her recipes. It was a bit of a hobby at first, and then obviously Masterchef came around, and it kind of just fell into place. Now here I am.”

When Broadsheet chats to Wong, she is in the final throws of recipe testing for her one-night Dine Out event at Attenzione , where she’ll be joining co-owner and head chef Toby Stansfield in the kitchen on Wednesday August 13. She’s perfecting fluffy pineapple char siu buns, and Szechuan sour fish agnolotti, fried longevity noodles with dan dan mussels, and an adzuki bean tart with tonka bean custard.

“Toby has worked in many restaurants that have had Asian influences, and we both got really excited about it. The menu is very much like both of our affinities for Italian cuisine, but also Chinese. I’m so excited about the tart, Toby and I have worked on it for ages – so many renditions. It’s kind of the best of both worlds, between Attenzione – the elegance of the wine bar and the restaurant and the dim, warm lighting – and then the really experimental, creative food.”

But before you nab one of the final tables , find out where Wong’s dining around Sydney.

Quick takeaway dinner: Yok Yor , the Thai place in the city. They have tripe noodle soup on the menu. For something that’s so rustic and hole-in-the-wall, it’s just so ballsy. Such an extensive menu – I always say this spot is for loyalists, but also curious shoppers that just stumble upon the place.

Lunch on the go: this one, tried and true, is Sushi-Mori in Surry Hills. When I first discovered this restaurant, I think I went seven times that year – and five of them were by myself. You just go in, half an hour, seafood’s super fresh. The one lady that runs the kitchen in the back, she is so lovely. I wish everyone knew about it – there’s something about casual, mid-tier little Japanese restaurants, it’s just so comforting. You can put your headphones in and have a meal, nobody’s gonna question you about it.

Ideal date: you can’t go to a venue where you’re sat across from the other person. You have to go to a place where you’re sat parallel – so you’re discussing the world beyond you. It makes things a little bit less intimidating.

I am a Newtown girly, so I love Ante. I went on a date at Continental Deli – specifically the al fresco seats in front, where you stare across into Westwood. And for a very, very romantic date, the loveseat at Fontana. The two seats on that bar island – when you get the receipt, it says “loveseat”. That’s just a really lovely touch.

Special occasion: Osteria Mucca. Seriously, I was speechless. I go to a decent amount of restaurants, but something about this restaurant … Everything was so well seasoned, everything had acid, everything had salt, everything had a bit of meat. You get that beautiful kind of rusticity of Italian cuisine, where every plate there’s that lingering taste of extra virgin olive oil in your mouth, and the tortellini killed me! Perfect!

Burger: Poly ’s happy hour burger , with the onion ring. Just get that and the pickle plate, with one other person. Happy hour drinks. Fantastic.

Snack and a drink: garlic bread and a glass of wine at Fontana.

Big group: big group events always happen out west. It’s either Sun Ming in Hurstville or Hansang in Strathfield. Like, Asian food’s always perfect for that. Sun Ming is classic Cantonese, love that place. I always get the sizzling tofu with gravy. Not a lot of Chinese restaurants around the city actually do that dish, so when I go I always get that.

Long lunch: my first and only experience of long lunch in the conventional sense is Porcine. That meal was so silly. We went in wanting to get a couple snacks, sat down, looked at the menu, and were like, “Nah – we must have it all.”

It was an I’m-going-to-remember-it-for-the-rest-of-my-life kind of experience. They had the tarte aux pâté, with the smoked eel, the chicken liver, apple, the aspic on top. Like, the construction of everything at that restaurant makes me want to, like, pull my hair out.

Bucket list restaurant: this year I discovered this restaurant in New York called Cafe Mutton. It’s not, like, three-Michelin-stars-type of aspirations, but I look at the Instagram and I’m like, “This is so silly – it makes me wish we had a restaurant like that.” If I ever go to New York, I have to go here.

Something sweet: number one has to be the Paci liquorice cake, carrot sorbet, whipped yoghurt. Or when I go to the Jane happy hour , I always get the jersey milk panna cotta with rhubarb, beetroot granita. It’s the best panna cotta I’ve had in Sydney.

Groceries: I save it for when I know I’m gonna get a bunch of stuff – Illawarra Road in Marrickville.

Top late-night snack after cooking: this has been like an obsession over the last two weeks – leftover rice or super, super quick-cooked noodles, a tablespoon of the Lee Kum Kee Chiu Chow chilli oil , some sort of pickled relish – even if, worse comes to worst, the squeezy tube sandwich stuff – a tablespoon of toum and a fried egg. It’s so random, but it’s basically like chilli, garlic, vinegary noodles, fried egg.

Mimi Wong’s pop-up dinner at Attenzione is on Wednesday August 13, exclusively for Broadsheet’s Dine Out festival. Nab one of the final tables, bookings essential.