Queen Nigella Lawson’s in Sydney – Here’s Where She’s Been Eating

Nigella Lawson’s opinion on food is, quite simply, gospel. The celebrity chef and food writer has that homely, snacky way of eating down pat. And that way she talks about food… you can hear the feeling. She’s been Down Under since early March for An Evening With Nigella Lawson in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. And while a Sydney stage didn’t cop a night with her, many a Sydney venue did.

Around town, she’s been basking in the glow of our sunrises and visiting favoured book shops. She’s giving us reminders to catch art exhibitions before they close, buying local ceramics and making a fuss about a NSW-made vermouth that is worth every golden word said about it (a few of hers: “This stuff is life! So bitter, so good!”).

And between all that and jaunts through Centennial Park, she’s hit a starry crop of spots to eat and waxed lyrical about her favourites. Here’s where she went, what she ordered – and what she thought.

Breakfast

Flour & Stone, Woolloomooloo
Nadine Ingram’s baked goods are, quite simply, perfected – and Lawson knows it. “It was a bit of a tussle for me to choose between a canelé and a morning bun,” she writes on Instagram. “The obvious answer was to go for both! In my book, it’s a sin to pass up on opportunities for pleasure when they present themselves.”

Lunch

Sean’s, Bondi
“I’ve been going to @seansbondi for Sunday lunch whenever I’m in Sydney for as long as I can remember,” she writes. “It’s such a haven of loveliness, and the food is only one part of it, but not an inconsiderable part, nonetheless: mussels, radishes and romesco; sweetcorn chowder with prawn toast; that famous roast chook; and perfect baked custard with rhubarb. On top of all that, @seanmoran64 and his gorgeous staff made it, as they always do, a perfect day.”

Lucky Kwong, Eveleigh
Lawson’s been a long-time friend of Kylie Kwong, and when she enters her lunchtime-only Eveleigh restaurant she feels a “surge of happiness … I know I also veer into the wildly woo-woo when I write about this place, but it really does feel, for me, like entering a hallowed space.”

And what is she ordering? Kwong’s home-style fried eggs (“crisp-edged, gooey-centred, chilli-hot”); an Australian-Cantonese coleslaw with Mooloolaba tuna and bush mint (“I could eat this forever!”); and a whole snapper from Ulladulla, deep fried and dressed with XO, finger lime pearls and Geraldton Wax grown on-site.

Cho Cho San, Potts Point
After picking up Madeleine Gray’s Green Dot at Potts Point Bookshop, Lawson waltzed across the road to Cho Cho to eat “pretty much everything on the menu”. Specifically though, the “exquisite” tataki tuna.

Penny’s Cheese Shop, Potts Point
Penny Lawson’s Macleay Street fromagerie is in a near-constant buzz of cheese passed to and fro across the counter – surely only amped up when Nigella Lawson dropped in. “I love @pennyscheeseshop and have, over the years, tried to eat my way through the Australian cheese section. On my latest visit, the blessed Penny gave me a taste of this flower-crusted alpine cheese made in the Adelaide Hills by @s28cheeses. It had, somehow, the flavour of spring – and of course it turns out that it is, indeed, called Primavera. Just perfect! I had to buy all of it.”

She also nabbed a blue to savour with a glass of her beloved Aristotelis ke Anthoula vermouth, made way south in Merimbula.

Dinner

Baba’s Place, Marrickville
Lawson left the party-ready Marrickville warehouse restaurant in a “crazy haze of all-over enthusiasm”. The tarama toast starred in its simplicity, as with everything. “The thing about the cooking at Baba’s Place is that it never betrays the simplicity at the heart of good, traditional food by being fancy and clever for its own sake but, rather, infuses it with a wholehearted and playful joy,” she writes. “Everything that comes out of this talented kitchen is a beguiling combination of the hearty and the exquisite. I ate lots, photographed little, and cannot wait to be back!

“I feared a restaurant in a converted warehouse in Marrickville would be hipsterish and contemptuously cool: it turned out to be the warmest, most welcoming place I could ever imagine. I adored the scarlet-painted wall-section with its jumble of photos and pictures and the collage of Turkish rugs on the floor, I adored the people and I adored the food.”

Bar Copains, Surry Hills
It’s only right that the culinary star took a night off to hit Nathan Sasi and Morgan Mcglone’s gem of a place. A vodka Martini to start – an extremely hot order – followed by the pig’s head fritti, perfected fish sangas, brown butter leeks and the amaro crème caramel to finish.

Cafe Paci, Newtown
Straight into another banger: Pasi Petänen’s charming King Street dining room, which “no visit to Sydney would be complete without”. There was the “essential” order of rye toast piled with ‘nduja and bright discs of fermented carrot, another brown butter leeks dish (this time with spanner crab), and a “magnificent” salad of radicchio, figs and blackberries. “Thank you, too, lovely Lilian,” Lawson writes, “for looking after us so well and keeping those Dirty Martinis coming!”

Fratelli Paradiso, Potts Point
This 23-year-old classic is the restaurant Lawson reckons she’s eaten at “more often than at any other restaurant in Australia”. A silky scampi spaghettini (that’s been on the menu since opening) was the order. “Just ordering it, let alone eating it, makes me smile.”

Pork Fat, Haymarket
Lawson’s ability to wax lyrical about food – and Sydney – is both generous and, from Broadsheet’s perspective, genuine. This time for Narin “Jack” Kulasai’s Haymarket restaurant. “A trip to Sydney without a visit to the peerless @porkfatsydney would be just unthinkable for me,” she writes. “It’s a small, unpretentious place serving fiercely exquisite Thai food with big flavours and even bigger heart.” She ordered the deeply smoky larb topped with “glorious” cubes of pork fat and mint, the “fresh and fiery” papaya salad, and the deep-fried pork belly with chilli lime nahm jim. “This is food that makes me feel sizzlingly alive – and, so much part of what creates that feeling, the people there are so deeply lovely, too.”

King Clarence, CBD
The Bentley Group’s latest addition to the stable is a winner, and it was chef Khanh Nguyen’s place in the kitchen that got the UK chef in. One of her “culinary heroes”, Nguyen prepped those vibrant fish finger baos for Lawson – plus the duck tsukune sausage sanga, lemongrass XO clams (“One or those dishes you pronounce too rich to eat much of, then hoover down effortlessly!”), spanner crab fried rice and mapo tofu. To finish, the matcha ice-cream sundae with Davidson plum shaved ice, blackcurrant, strawberry gum and mochi – like a “palate-awakening mixture of sour, sweet, smooth, crunch and chew.”

“The thing about @genghiskhanh’s cooking is that he has a profound understanding of just how far to push the balance of textures as well as the play of flavours, and it’s so resoundingly evident in every dish he creates,” she writes. “I bow down before him.”

Petermen, North Sydney
Josh and Julie Niland’s north-side dining room is just as impressive as St Peter, but more accessible with its à la carte menu. “I don’t know how @mrniland does it, but I’m just glad he does,” Lawson writes of her visit. “I cannot stop thinking about this extraordinary … line-caught hapuka with bone noodles and agretti in a vivid and headily fragrant lobster broth.” She goes on to educate on agretti – an Italian “reed-like vegetable” – and Niland’s deft skills in making noodles out of fish bones.

“I love Josh Niland’s obsessively enquiring nature and the food it results in. I’ve waffled on so much, and won’t hold you up much longer, but must also acknowledge admiringly the as-ever incredible oysters; the little fermented rice cakes with summer truffle and periwinkles; the spicy little sausages made from yellowfin tuna; and the heavenly yuzushu parfait with meringue and mango sorbet and enchanting raspberry and juniper Madeleines, baked in oyster shells, with @malfroys_wild_honey cream. Over and out!”

Feather & Bone, Marrickville
Around all the dining out, there are surely a few nights in too. “Going to restaurants is such a treat, but being cooked for at home is the biggest treat of all,” she writes. “Incredible steak from @featherandboneprovidore with perfect peas and roast potatoes, all cooked exquisitely. True loveliness.”

As Kwong writes on behalf of Australian chefs, restaurateurs and foodies: “thank you Nigella for coming to Australia so often, for uplifting everyone’s spirits with your infectious, intuitive energy and frequent visits to our places and spaces, for your articulate, erudite and considered acknowledgements, for your deep appreciation of the challenges that come with our industry, and for your warmth and kindness to all of our staff.” Couldn’t have said it better.

@nigellalawson