The Press Club

As long as you don’t mind spending $$$$ like myself than this is the restaurant for you. I love the dessert menu, more, hehe!

One of the best experiences of my life, the food was excellent and the staff were so attentive and great at describing each of the dish!

Ok was it what i expected yes and exceeded. Nothing i ate could i say «i can make that at home»
Went 6 course with wines also exceptional. I was just so full got no idea what would it be like if i went for the larger menus.
We allowed wait staff to select with some minor guidance.
Meal of the night was the winter vege
Wine if the night champagne with no bubble my god where do i get it.

Taking over the former Little Press bar this reinvented Press Club is physically a much smaller affair, offering a more intimate fine dining experience for up to 32 guests. This new restaurant is Calombaris’ mission to have «the best modern Greek restaurant in the world».
Open only Monday to Friday, lunch offers shorter menu options, but for dinner it is either the 5 or 8 course ‘Symposium’ degustation menu, with or without matched wines. We opted for the matched wines, as it can be nice to just sit back and let the evening unfold before you, but the wine list is biblical in length, offering an encyclopaedia of choice for those wanting to hunt out some of treasures. Service is as you would expect from ‘fine dining’, I often find it can begin a little stilted and formal as they try to decipher what type of diner you are and what type of experience you are looking for.
Soon after arrival a ‘Hills Hoist’ arrives on the table, well a miniature replica of the everyday clothes line complete with faux grass beneath it. It is a theatrical and quirky way to present both the storytelling concept behind the menu, but also the ‘chips n dips’ of vegetable chips with various emulsions and toppings dotted over them, each pegged to the clothes line.
Following are the mezethes, starting with a beautiful mussel served in an edible shell, which is a touch unnerving but does serve the purpose of adding texture to the mussel. A skewer threaded with sous-​vide calamari is next, which is tender but has a good texture unlike many sous-​vide seafoods, served with a daub of chicken spit emulsion. The final meze is a chunk of Stilton blue cheese with an edible walnut shell covering it.
A village or horiatiki salad followed, paper thin slices of apple with purée beneath, shards of celery, crunch of walnuts and the return of Stilton, which is always welcome. It was a good dish and well-​executed, if only a little simple. The next dish, a savoury interpretation of baklava, was an interesting, curious and delicious dish. An ethereal eel brûlée at heart, with a subtly flavoured ‘custard’ layer on the bottom and a sweet-​sour gel on top, finished with a smoky cream, a hearty smoked eel croquette and a wafer of ‘baklava’.
A modern avgolemono (or ‘egg-​lemon’) soup followed, a refined take on this rustic dish with tender grilled abalone draped over a subtle lemon infused soup with chicken ‘noodles’ (set with gellan) and dotted with egg white caviar. This was a well-​balanced dish and proof that well-​cooked abalone is an amazing ingredient which is too often abused into rubbery nothingness. The final seafood dish was my highlight of the meal, exquisite marron poached in tarama (fish roe, used in taramasalata) butter, which only served to heighten the depth of flavour, on a pool of buttery cauliflower purée. The decadence of these components was balanced out by the acid of pickled cucumber, enoki and the gentle crunch of sprouted lentils, with an interesting crisp of crystallised crème fraîche that was sweet, sour and crunchy at the same time.
The next two dishes for me were a little disappointing when compared to the string of highlights leading up to them. The first was potato, crumbed and fried, served over a creamy onion purée with a hint of dill and a cocoa chilli crumb over the top. It was not bad in any sense, it just failed to live up to the standard of the previous courses. Following was a 48-​hour slow cooked lamb neck with a modern twist on moussaka, complete with a caramelised, almost brûlée like, shell on top; balancing out the rich meat was a lively mint and spring onion salad. Once again the dish was technically well-​executed, it just lacked the spark of imagination that the rest of imagination that the rest of the menu carried. The Greek koulouria bread served on the side were delicious, I only wish there had been more of the lamb jus to soak up with them.
While two of the dishes may have disappointed slightly, this was only because of the standard of the menu as a whole. From the arrival of the Hills Hoist through to the quail dish, the progression of dishes went from strength to strength and the final ‘Smashing Plates’ dessert ended the meal on a high note. The reinvented Press Club has taken on its own definition of what fine dining is in today’s culture and made the experience both intimate and compelling with elements of theatre and drama. Where the menu shined was by taking the heritage of Greek cuisine and pairing it with imagination and creativity of flavour and textural combinations and modern techniques but having the restraint to use them only where it benefits the dish rather than for the sake of it. This new Press Club feels like the culmination of George’s passion for Greek fine dining, and as my visit was soon after they opened, I can only imagine that the menu has grown and evolved even more since
You can read the full review on my website.

I never subscribed to the MasterChef hype and in fact have only watched a couple of episodes. The whole notion of «Celebrity Chefs» I believe are a good thing because they not only provide some healthy entertainment (as opposed to American Reality TV, Criminal Minds and Big Brother) and most importantly give people the motivation to prepare new and innovative dishes, and sometimes even healthy meals for their families. Despite some off-​putting personalities I believe the Australian «Celebrity Chefs» are good role models in general and I want their restaurants to succeed, books to be sold and television shows to be broadcast as they not only educate us common plebeians but give the consumer a greater and more educated, if not critical, choice when frequenting restaurants.
I arrived with my clever companion at George Calombaris’ flagship, The Press Club, to be greeted at the door and summarily shown to our table. My first impression was that I was entering the Forum with Cold Chisel performing. Tables and chairs were placed a bit too close together for my liking and I would quickly learn you can not engage in a private conversation without the guests at the table next to you actively eavesdropping and on occasion actually interrupting you and providing their outlook on life and times. It is something that I would expect to happen at a concert and I believe the proximity of the tables makes it easy for people to befoul social graces. The Press Club also subscribes to the «chefs table» notion so there are a few seats at the border of the loud kitchen. People were having fun, but it just isn’t my thing. So besides the Cold Chisel concert of sorts emanating from the kitchen with groupies in the moshpit, I was getting to know my fellow concert-​goers by chance and not by choice in the mezzanine.
Like with my other culinary journeys, I was interested in a tour de force, as was my clever companion which did not involve decisions. We opted for the eight course (with one extra ‘add on’) aptly called the «Symposium» degustation with the wine matching. Every course was «good» but nothing was truly memorable. When I think of other restaurants that I have been to lately, like Pei Modern, I think of the amazing Almond Gazpacho with Blue Swimmer Crab. When I think of Rosetta, my mouth waters when I ponder the wonderful Lobster roasted tomato, mint and chilli Fettuccine and at at Virginia Plain I yearn to return and have Andy Harmer’s Ocean Trout cured in Raspberry Vinegar. The problem is despite being «good» nothing was a remarkable stand-​out or anything that caused me to obsess over let alone froth at the bit to go back and have again.
The matched wines were issued like rations in a draught and I never was excited to try them. They were interesting but the service that introduced them never got us that excited. Like when Raúl Moreno Yagüe encouraged me to go outside of my comfort zone and try Slovakian and Lebanese wines at Vue de Monde, the education that I received ignited a passion. Probably because service was so blasé about the wines, they were just consumed with no pomp and circumstance or even respect to the grapes that died in battle, which is a shame really.
Service was professional although not overtly engaging throughout the night. They were quite apologetic when it was announced that a chicken dish was being served, the wine was matched and poured appropriately and then a fish dish was placed in front of us. That created some confusion but was probably, if not sadly, the most exciting thing that happened with the menu all night.
I suppose if the bill didn’t come to $ 300 p/​p (with a modest tip) I wouldn’t be so disappointed. After enjoying some amazing meals that certainly excited and inspired me lately, I have been left instead feeling a bit sad and disappointed with my time at The Press Club. Fortunately I was able to catch up with my clever companion and given this experience was like attending a Cold Chisel concert, these lyrics seem appropriate:
But Oh! Who needs that sentimental bull****, anyway?
You know it takes more than just a memory to make me cry
And I’m happy just to sit here, at a table with old friends
And see which one of us can tell the biggest lies.

Beautiful Greek-​Australian food in a relaxed contemporary setting. Our waitress was very warm and friendly and seemed as though she genuinely loved her job. We had the $ 135 symposium degustation and all of the dishes were very good. At the end of the meal we were given a small bottle of George Calombaris’s GC olive oil to take home, which I thought was a nice little souvenir.

You literally need to live under a rock, in a cave to be in Australia for any length of time and not know who George Calombaris is, so a visit to The Press Club comes with high expectations. And as he’s generally a popular celebrity, your really want to love the place. Alas, with my visit, as much as I wanted to love it, I just couldn’t muster more than a «facebook like».
Don’t get me wrong, the service is excellent, attentive and professional from the moment you cross the threshold, you’ll be served by an array of staff, without a moment of intrusion. So far so good.
The food is excellently presented and great quality and great flavours but, and I don’t know what it was specifically, but it just didn’t wow me. It was a great meal, but was it worthy of the chefs hat rating, I expected more.
Maybe it was because I was comparing it to another restaurant I visited the night before, a lesser rating and a far more casual style of food. It completely eclipsed the meal at The Press Club. Comparing it similar level restaurants in Sydney and even Newcastle, I just didn’t think the Press Club matched up for food or value.
The Press Club is an excellent restaurant and certainly, for a special occasion, you will feel like royalty and receive excellent food.
But the foodie in me says there are restaurants with better food and similar exclusivity for half the price.

The Press Club, I have been lead to believe by a season of incredibly hyped Australian Tv, is the pinical of dining down under.
Owned by one of the judges of Master Chef Oz, there is a certain level of quality you are expecting before arriving. I was invited to go with a friend, who at one point had worked there. We were greated at the bar side of the restaurant with a comped glass of champagne and then ushered through into the beautiful main dinning room.
This place is a scene of decadence, so forget about the diet and the bank account because it’s all out the window.
To begin, I had the surf and turf starter. Which was a selection of scallops, muscles, thinly sliced lamb and a oyster infused foam, all artfully presented on a slab of oak. For the main I had the 24hr slow roasted lamb shank on potatoe purée an White bean sauce.
This was all washed down with a wonderful merlot. The food was fantastic, and the atmosphere was great. I love places that just let you be and spend 3hrs just indulging.
The only draw back is that it is a little pretenious and veeerry expensive. So I would save it for a special occasion