| Spice Temple |
Neil Perry’s new outfit is a shining light in an otherwise very bleak Chinese culinary landscape in Sydney.
Generally Chinese food makes me nervous. It’s a cuisine too often lost in translation in many places outside of China; and like many others I’ve spent too many a sad mid-week night at my local – that place where Chinese food goes to die and be reborn as plastic takeaway containers pulsating with MSG.
Spice Temple is equal parts amazement and gustatory relief. Its respect for and understanding of Asian cuisine, its traditions and complexity of flavours, and refined luxuries mean the take-out versions are a thing of hungry lives past.
The menu is lengthy. It’s a précis to the dining experience detailing the culinary heritage and hopes of the chefs and the ecologically sustainable farmers who have brought the food to your fine table. A little laboured to many, but to me, an automatic signal to loosen my pants and get excited about my tea. It speaks of eating possibilities in an establishment that cares – of food that demands rituals, special implements and dishes of flavour combinations that do not give of themselves easily and which demand serious attention and enjoyment.
Or in my case, a looser pair of pants.
The food is challenging in a positive sense, forcing the concepts of taste and texture to the forefront of your mind. Starters of tea smoked duck breast with pickled cabbage and Chinese mustard, and lamb and cumin pancakes were hoovered in one fatal blow. The flavours were as sultry as the surrounds and followed in quick succession by the three shot chicken – a masterful dish flavoured with beer, chilli and soy. It was sweet, hoppy, aromatic and full of flavour. The dish was brought to the table and our waiter added shots of beer, chilli and soy. Only really beguiling food experiences demand table theatre. Anybody who claims it's just too much fuss and who sighs with angst in the face of a waiter’s active involvement in his or her dinner is merely demonstrating a lack of commitment. Go get takeout. The lovely things are not for you.
Caramelised spare pork ribs, while more predictable in flavour and presentation, proved a popular favourite at our table and beyond, as did the shredded lamb shoulder with salted chilli. The highlight – fish drowned in heaven-facing chillies and Sichuan peppercorns. It was a taste revelation.
The fish held its own against the kicking spices, acting as a vessel for their flavour while providing the slightest and almost sweet after taste of the sea. The chilli was spicy enough for the momentary anaesthetised lips sort of sensation but mild enough to know I wasn’t part of some wayward experiment by a kitchen serving fugu.
The wine list, like the menu is intense. A hundred wines, all of which it claims have fought for their position to be there. And I don’t doubt it. Accurate wine pairing with Asian foods can be more challenging than typical European flavours, and the focus on Rieslings and Gewurtztraminers meant I had another fight on my hands – what to choose.
I finished with a cherry jellie and peanut chocolate bar – interesting, but I think the Rickshaw palate cleanser - a granita-style palate cleanser with just the faintest whiff of alcohol would have been a more pleasing finale.
The cuisine alone is worth the visit but in comforting Neil Perry style – the service is also 
impeccable and as unobtrusive, as the dark and serene interiors. The experience and the dangerously tempting cocktail list will ensure you are telling scurrilous tales before nights end as you amble happy, full and content, up the modern winding staircase and out into the night.
10 Bligh St, Sydney, NSW, Tel: +61 2 8078 1888
By Katrina Slaughter. This article was first published in the Appetite April 2011 issue.
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