Outside, the clouds parted just a little, and I remembered – for the millionth time – how much I bloody love bread.īaba’s Place, Marrickville – bouillabaisse bolognese It was piled high with a flurry of Spanish ham sliced so thin it seemed to dance in the restaurant’s agreeable air conditioning. But then a slab of tomato-smeared sourdough bread appeared at the table, dear reader. Lola’s Level 1, Bondi – pan tumaca with jamon ibericoįrom my window seat at Lola’s, the sea looked angry on a stormy Bondi eve. It’s a versatile beast, this pizza, and a welcome addition to my eating-out repertoire. It’s the perfect comfort food – and while it was a delight during lockdown, it was best shared with others: split with a bottle of chilled red with workmates, divided between a few friends from out of town after a few cocktails, a last-minute decision to go halvsies with my partner on a weeknight. The crust is thin and chewy, the cheese melty and oozy, the honey adds sweetness that’s tempered by the fermented garlic. But the one that served me well this year – that I love so much I devoted an entire column to it – is the fermented-garlic and honey. Westwood, Newtown – fermented-garlic honey pizzaĪll of Westwood’s pizzas are excellent. It’s oily, punchy and has the exactly big-flavour energy I need in my life. There’s no trickery to this flavour bomb – it’s grilled octopus on a bed of chickpea puree spiked with sobrasada (a kinda spicy Catalan pork sausage) and topped with a dollop of yoghurt. I was out, the sun was shining and I was hanging with my favourite people. Like the burger, the joy it brought was partly because of its timing – I visited the newbie as Sydney was reopening after our winter of (lockdown) discontent, and as I felt comfortable to be out and about. It was an immensely tough decision to choose just one dish – it was a toss up between Jovi’s DIY cheeseburger (I even wrote a whole article about the juicy, delicious cook-and-eat burgs) and this fabulous dish from La Salut, the suave new Spanish wine bar by the Love, Tilly Devine, Ragazzi and Fabbrica crew.
La Salut, Redfern – octopus, sobrasada and chickpea These are our favourites: the drinks and dishes our staffers, editors, writers and photographers couldn’t get out of their minds. Like last year’s picks – when ramen was the dish du jour – this year’s choices are all about comfort foods: plenty of pizzas and burgers, as well as the joys of a fine dining meal that feels so luxe and welcome post-lockdown. But food was one of the shining lights of our year – whether it was giving us something to look forward to on the weekend after another infinite week of being cooped up, or the joy of that first restaurant meal once we were released. This year didn’t exactly turn out how we had planned – we spent more time in lockdown than we would have liked, and less time in restaurants.