There’s a lot to like at The Dining Room, but somehow it manages to mask complex and assured cooking behind decisions that strip it of the magic.
14/20
Contemporary$$$
There is always a tipping point. That state of oversaturation, where the sponge holds so much water that all that’s left is for it to be squeezed out. How much frozen yoghurt is too much? How many patties can we smash into oblivion? How many mountains of acai are there left to climb?
The age of the grill? We’re in it. This is Australia, so in some ways – as sure as steaks go with eggs – we’re always in it. But ever since Rockpool Bar & Grill broke new ground in 2009, Sydney’s steakhouses have looked different: more conspicuously luxurious, more theatrical, more New York.
Snap to today, and copy-paste luxury grills are everywhere – and it isn’t over, with Melbourne restaurateur Chris Lucas due to launch Grill Americano at Chifley Square in September. Years from now, when we try to pinpoint exactly where the wave started to break, maybe we’ll say it was right here, at The Dining Room.
It may not call itself a grill – “an indulgent fine-dining restaurant” says the website – but The Dining Room hits every trope in the genre: caviar service, a seafood bar, premium cuts (including four steaks), desserts promising childlike glee.
But that doesn’t mean what’s on the plate isn’t worth your time: a crudo of Paspaley pearl meat, strewn with super-ripe persimmon whose flesh slyly mimics the mollusc’s slippery texture; delicate octopus carpaccio that presents as a mosaic, vibrant with sweet pickled fennel; steaks of noble heritage, grilled attentively and rested just until the slices have iridescent sheen.
Grand restaurants rely on theatre, on fantasy, but the cascade of so many missed details do too much to jolt you out of it.
All of the bits are in place, too. Experienced operators – Hunter St. Hospitality – who in Rockpool Bar & Grill and The Cut, already run two renowned steakhouses. A menu overseen by Mike Flood, former head chef of Felix, with support from top executive chefs Santiago Aristizabal (Rockpool) and Andy Evans (Spice Temple). A cellar stacked wall-to-wall with rare and prestigious bottles, plus wine service to match.
Part of The Collective – unceremoniously billed as “Sydney’s newest hospitality precinct” – The Dining Room has sister venues in The Garden, a courtyard offering breakfast (steak and eggs!) and a breezy lunch-dinner menu, and the Tailor Room, which stirs down some of The Rocks’ cleanest, clearest cocktails.
In The Dining Room, a sympathetic refit of The Argyle nightclub means comfortable booths and spotlit tables spaced among heritage pylons. If you can stop the sickly-sweet flashbacks to your early 20s and instead concentrate on the food and drink, there are wins from the get-go. A riff on a negroni subtly builds in layers of strawberry. Native citrus mayonnaise gives all kinds of edges to a one-bite abalone schnitzel. A fluted tartlet filled with parmesan cream, podded sugar snaps and a soft-set quail egg has lovely, lingering tang.
But what The Dining Room somehow manages is to mask truly complex and assured cooking behind decisions that strip it of the magic. Why pick a name so generic that it says nothing at all, one that’s shared by the restaurant at the Park Hyatt down the road? Why pipe disco-pop through the speakers, then follow it with a live act that leaps into a half-hearted Michael Jackson cover backed by a drum machine?
Part of the thrill of eating at restaurants is that it happens in a room full of strangers, but the tables here are so generously spaced, the room so cavernous, that it struggles for energy. Sit near an exit, and a cool draught might blow in all night. Scan the menu, and “Morton Bay” might raise an eyebrow, or the misspelling of “Myer” lemon, or the absence of a vegetarian main other than a spin on mushroom risotto, which just feels lazy.
Grand restaurants like these rely on theatre, on fantasy, but the cascade of so many missed details in The Dining Room do too much to jolt you out of it.
Why brief waiters to talk up sustainability, then sell bluefin tuna and grain-fed wagyu? Or maintain access to such a lauded beef program, then only list one steak under $155? Or offer a gimlet made tableside, then let it throw out the entire order of service when someone happens to ask for one?
Strip these things away, though, and the execution really is impressive. The dressing on a sunny salad of Ramarro Farm radicchio and crisped prosciutto is multifaceted and sweet from the – ahem – Meyer lemon. Golden-skinned coral trout is tougher than it could be, but building 𝄒nduja XO into a piperade, featuring capsicum and onion, is a winning move full of spice and sweetness.
Steak, perhaps a hulking 500g Black Opal Wagyu sirloin, is darkly crusted, blush-red and long on fat and flavour. A foie gras eclair lacks snap, but in The Garden, the burger, served with build-it-yourself tomato, lettuce and pickles, is one of the better restaurant renditions around. Flood’s chefs obviously interrogate what they’re plating, tweaking the acid, dialling up the seasoning, until things taste fresh and bright and cared for.
Still, these bits, while very good, aren’t so good as to justify why you’d pick The Dining Room over The Grill, or Eleven Barrack, or even Rockpool. But then, there’s enough here to build a base on. Give it some more care, find a point of view, and maybe this whole thing will hold water for just a little while longer.
The low-down
Atmosphere: Two-storey labyrinth of wood and sandstone, waiting for a spark
Go-to dishes: Pea tartlet with parmesan cream and quail’s egg ($12); pearl meat with persimmon and seablite ($38); radicchio with candlenut, Meyer lemon dressing and ham crisp ($28); Black Opal sirloin with smoked tallow jus ($155)
Drinks: Deep wine list packing big names and vintages at every turn and a welcome focus on NSW
Cost: About $250 for two, plus drinks
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
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David Matthews is a food writer and editor, and co-editor of The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2025.From our partners
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