Arrana — Restaurant in Sydney

Some of my favourite dining experiences have taken place in regional fine diners. What sets them apart isn’t necessarily the cooking, but the way what you eat is connected to both landscape and people. At Arrana in Springwood, my night was made by Carly—the star of the floor—proudly telling me she grew the lemon myrtle on our plates on her acreage in nearby Faulconbridge. Growing up on a cattle farm, Carly gave the Pinnacle beef—raised on a farm near Armidale—a nuanced introduction. In this dish, the second on our four-course degustation ($150/head), two substantial bits of fillet were cooked in a coating of salt and pepper leaf and served on a soupy bed of pearl barley, king brown and enoki mushrooms and diced green beans.

The meal isn’t faultless. Bread rolls, somewhere between brioche and semi-sourdough, arrived beautifully presented over smoking paperbark but felt a bit stiff in the eating. Too much rosella chutney dominated the artisan Barossa Valley Brie in the cheese course, and I reckon the chef threw too many things at dessert with smoked meringue, pineapple caramel, pineapple and coconut sorbet, aniseed myrtle and finger lime. But, unlike Sydney fine diners who have, by-and-large, embraced letting the key ingredient speak and pared back multi-course menus to lower prices, here your (substantial) spend still includes everything. This means a corn and river mint gougère amuse bouche, and tea and coffee with strawberry macarons and river mint marshmallows to finish.

The wine list focuses on Australia, eschewing the usual suspects for lesser known labels. The 2020 Streicker ‘Ironstone Block’ Chardonnay ($95) from the Margaret River sits in between buttery and lean. The kitchen banks on two to three hour visits so we also had time to drink a glass of the 2023 Rowlee Single Vineyard Arneis ($23/glass). This one was more linear, with white pear, herbaceous elements, and plenty of acidity. The bill for four courses for two people came in just shy of five hundred bucks, but we did leave full and carrying our...

I am absolutely delighted to have a place like this in Blue Mountains. It's run by a lovely chilled out family, and the rest of their staff are amazing. It's fine dining without pretense or stuffiness, like having a fancy dinner at your neighbour's house. As soon as you walk in, they talk to you like they've known you for years. The atmosphere is lush and comfortable, it's not a huge dining space, but a full restaurant really gave it a nice buzzing sound. The staff are passionate and so obliging to everything you ask. The young chef has real passion and direction with what he's trying to do (we were lucky enough to have a little chat with him). Every dish was so different, but all the flavors and textures fit together like a puzzle. I died for their beetroot sorbet, a savory sorbet which doubled as a palette cleanser, a beautiful innovative touch, which I still feel is underused in fine dining. They also incorporate a lot of native plants and herbs, which is so delightful because a lot of those flavors were foreign to us. There are no extra palette cleanser "courses" in their menu, which is a plus for me because I often struggle with all the courses we get to begin with. Having said that, some of the courses did include a kind of cleansing element, or soft flavours or soft flavors amongst courses. Their wine pairings were spot on, especially for not having an actual sommelier. I asked for a Dirty Martini, and it was the best I'd had in years. My only qualm would be the pairing volumes were a touch too big (not really a complaint), but I think I was a bit boisterous by the end of it. Got to have a chat with the owners, lovely, warm people. We've done a fair few degustations in Sydney, and internationally, and this is definitely in our top 3. It was only $220 pp for 7 courses and pairings (plus an amuse bouche and petit four), well worth every dollar. I can not wait to go...

We dined for dinner, choosing the Darrbi menu with matching wines.

The food itself was great, would rate the meals 9/10 overall. The mix of ingredients, flavours and textures were interesting and tasty, and each dish was presented nicely. The Wagyu with beetroot was delicious, as was the goats cheese and rosella dish. The dessert was surprisingly small, with the ratio of meringue:topping not quite right (one small spoon of cream and 1.5 raspberries each felt quite stingy).

The matching wines complemented each dish nicely. But we were extremely disappointed at the lack of value for money here - $70pp for what were effectively 4 tasting glasses (each about a quarter of a normal serve of wine): this is a total rip-off. Made even more so by the adjacent tables, who were being looked after by different waitresses to ours, who received blatently larger serves of wine with each course. We noticed that these other tables were receiving double, and in some cases triple(!), the amount of wine we were served. Being non-confrontational types of people, we were too embarrassed to say something at the time, not wanting to make a fuss or a scene in the dining room. The inconsistency was quite upsetting and ruined what was supposed to have been a special evening for us.

The service started off well - our waitress was friendly and attentive enough without being overbearing. But attentiveness dropped off towards the end of the set menu. We waited ages for our dessert plates to be cleared, and when we were finished and trying to get the bill, we both spend about 10 mins trying to catch the eye of ANY waitress in the room to no avail; in the end I walked up to the counter to pay. There was defintely the feeling of 'they've got our money (being a set menu) and don't need to work for it'.

We were thoroughly disappointed with our overall experience and we will...