Hot Rocks

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday September 18, 1995

TERRY DURACK

HISTORICALLY, The Rocks was a rough-and-tumble area, a place of hard work and heavy drinking, of bartering and bargaining, rising at dawn and carousing until the next one. Until about 12 years ago.

"They thought we were crazy to put a hotel here," Serge Dansereau says, sitting in the executive chef's office in the The Regent Sydney and shivering with the memory. "When we opened 12 years ago, the streets were a sea of beer cans. It was a really rough area."

Now, the process of gentrification and commercialisation is turning the Rocks from a hard place into a local-friendly, inner-city suburb.

The Regent's appearance on the fringe of the Rocks suddenly made the area socially acceptable. Until then, the Rocks was a shadowy, tourist world of its own, punctuated by copious amounts of drinking, lacklustre dining and the selling of cheap souvenirs. The cradle of Sydney was looking more like a decaying old people's home.

Then came the much-lauded opening of the glam new Rockpool restaurant in 1989. That a restaurateur would spend millions of dollars on a seafood restaurant in The Rocks was unheard of.

About the same time, the big-name hotels started making their mark with the likes of the Old Sydney Parkroyal, the Park Hyatt, the ANA and The Observatory. Suddenly, The Rocks was hot property. In came other serious restaurants such as Tony Bilson's Bilson's, Neil Perry's MCA Cafe and Anders Ousback's The Wharf, just around the corner in Walsh Bay. Good grief. The Rocks was becoming respectable.

Now The Rocks is fast becoming fashionable as well, as even more of Foodiedom's fabulous somebodies are finding themselves, like Ulysses, being drawn irresistibly towards The Rocks.

David Thompson and Peter Bowyer of Darley Street Thai have just opened not one, but two new Thai restaurants in the historic Sailors' Home; Annie Parmentier, the culinary Queen of the North Shore, recently swapped Palm Beach for Walsh Bay, setting up residence in the majestic Hotel Palisade; the two-hatted Guillaume Brahimi from Pond packs his bags and arrives at Bilson's later this month, doubtless bringing his ethereal mashed potatoes and basilinfused tuna with him; and Anthony Musarra, of Mesclun in Kings Cross throws his one hat into the ring, too, when he takes over as head chef of The Observatory in October.

So The Rocks has suddenly gone from gawky to groovy. How? And why? All signs point to Bob Mitchell, who for the past five years has been chief executive of the Sydney Cove Authority, the residential and commercial manager of the area.

Mitchell passionately believes The Rocks can be a fully fledged international destination, and not just because of its cobbled streets and quaint buildings.

"I want the Rocks to reflect Sydney's sophistication," he says. "To do this, we have to make the area relevant to the locals."

This can be done, he claims, without excluding the allimportant tourist market. "Overseas visitors underpin the basic stability of the area. They are the reason we only lost one single tenant during the recession. That is not a bad record."

Upgrading the shopping experiences has been one of the authority's top priorities, beginning with the introduction of The Rocks Market. But the market is small potatoes compared to the forthcoming Argyle Centre, due to open next Easter. The American jeans house Guess will take a whole floor, and Esprit and Surf Dive 'N Ski have also signed up.

"We're also planning to have a level devoted to young jewellery designers," says Mitchell. Other top-flight operators are being negotiated now. Similarly, he has big plans for a showcase restaurant at the centre. "We're talking to some pretty high-profile restaurateurs about it," he says, with a poker-playing smile.

It was Mitchell who lured Darley Street into George Street. "I guess I'm selfish," he says. "I love eating David Thompson's food."

The Rocks' newest restaurateur, Thompson, admits he wasn't convinced about the area until he came to check it out.

"I hadn't been to The Rocks for a long time, and I was relieved to see that it was no longer just a twee tourist trap," he says.

With Burley Katon and Halliday, the same design team which transformed Darley Street Thai into a glowing, silk-cushioned temple, Thompson and partner Peter Bowyer have created two of Sydney's best-looking eating spaces. Upstairs is an easy-going, drop-in noodle bar with one long stainless steel communal table that can feed 50 people at a time, and a menu that runs from a simple bowl of roast duck and egg noodle to a full-on Chiang Mai-style curried chicken and noodle soup with roast chilli sauce and pickled mustard greens.

The entrance to the downstairs restaurant lies directly opposite Cadman's Cottage, neatly counterpointing The Rocks Future and the The Rocks Past. Designer Iain Halliday has cleverly combined the basic sandstone structure of the building with a classy contemporary feel that uses candy pinks, lime greens and canary yellows, with the odd in-your-face design statement such as a circular waiters' station, clad in silver leaf. It is the perfect foil for chef Martin Boetz's perfect steamed John Dory with ginger and coriander, aromatic stir-fried mussels with chilli jam and Thai basil, and braised pork ribs in red sauce.

"What we're not doing here is compromising the tissue of the past," says David Thompson. "Instead, we're using it, and making it relevant to today."

There is still a lot of eating in The Rocks that is far from cutting edge. Advertising head-hunter Esther Clerehan moved her business to The Rocks two years ago. "If the MCA Cafe is booked out and you don't feel like noodles, you still have to leave the area," she says. "It's better now than it has ever been, but there is still a lot of rubbish." Others who live in The Rocks complain of having to cross the bridge to North Sydney's Greenwood Plaza to pick up meat, fish, fruit and vegetables for dinner.

There are plenty of choices for those who want to watch sheep being shorn while they eat, sing Waltzing Matilda after dinner, and hit the buffet table, but now there are options for people who arrive in The Rocks by car and taxi as well as by bus.

The class is beginning to be obvious. It's there in your Chinese roast pigeon with yam and ginger lasagne and stir-fried mustard greens at the glamour-soaked Rockpool. It's in your slow-cooked salmon on fresh egg noodles with a view at the Park Hyatt's No 7 at the Park, your warm pikelet with black mussels at the nice and homely Palisade Restaurant, your late-night champagne supper at Kable's at The Regent, and your creamy tarama salata with olive bread at The Wharf. While the tourists have activated what seem like miles of glass-walled duty-free stores filled with bright, fluffy jumpers, they have also brought a collection of top-quality Japanese restaurants that no other single area in Sydney can match.

The ANA Hotel boasts a Japanese restaurant voted Sydney's best in the latest Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide, as well as an elegant sushi bar with heaped helpings of the best view in town.

Other classy performers include the stylish O'Hiro in Harrington Street, the popular Shiki in Clocktower Square, and the charming Hananoki restaurant, one of the few restaurants in the world where you can slurp udon noodles outside on a sunny terrace.

What's still missing? Good food shops. Apart from "the oldest butcher in Sydney" on the top of Argyle Street, Le Renaissance French patisserie in Harrington Street and the Ichibankan Japanese grocer in Globe Street, they're thin on the ground.

This fact hasn't escaped Bob Mitchell who claims that quality food shops are on the drawing board at the Argyle Centre. Maybe he could look at a good wine shop and a wine bar while he's at it.

While a boutique beer at the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel in Kent Street can settle the dust, The Rocks could do with a sophisticated, friendly wine bar with civilised snacking along the lines of the wonderful Universal wine bar in Adelaide.

Entrepreneurial restaurateur Neil Perry openly admits he is infatuated by the area. Not only does he run Rockpool, the MCA Cafe and MCA catering, he even lives in the area.

"If I were in Europe, I'd live in Paris. If I were in America, I'd live in New York," he says. "This area is the lounge room of Sydney."

Make that the dining room as well.

ESSENTIAL ADDRESSES

* The Rocks Visitors Centre, 106 George Street, The Rocks. Ph 247 6678.

* Bilson's, Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay West. Ph 251 5600.

* Galileo, Observatory Hotel, 89-113 Kent Street, Millers Point. Ph 256 2222.

* Hananoki, 7 Cambridge Street, The Rocks. Ph 241 1364.

* Kable's, The Regent Sydney, 199 George Street, The Rocks. Ph 255 0226.

* Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel, 19 Kent Street, The Rocks. Ph 251 4044.

* MCA Cafe, Museum of Contemporary Art, 140 George Street, The Rocks. Ph 241 4253.

* O'Hiro, 115 Harrington Street, The Rocks. Ph 251 1238.

* The Palisade Restaurant, Hotel Palisade, 35 Bettington Street, Millers Point. Ph 251 7225.