Boronia Kitchen — Restaurant in Sydney

Leaning down from his open kitchen, chef Simon Sandall looks relaxed and happy as he chats to regulars sitting at the bar. Sandall was the quiet achiever behind celebrity chef Matt Moran for seventeen years. He began as head chef of the flagship restaurant, Aria, and ending his innings as group chef of Moran’s restaurant group, MorSul (which has now merged with Solotel). As you might imagine, for a man who catered the Sydney Opera House’s New Year’s Eve party with more than a thousand guests, a suburban 72-seater is a walk in the park.

A walk in Boronia Park, to be precise, located in the leafy green suburb of Hunters Hill. You’ll find Sandall's restaurant, Boronia Kitchen, across the road from Boronia Park Public School, which his kids attended. It was through being a local resident that Sandall was able to watch his local Italian, Il Bolognese, wind down, and step into the breach when the owners finally called quits.

The red and green neon has given way to simple white; and spaghetti bolognese has been turfed in favour of a delicate quintet of Scallop Tortelli ($26). With ephemeral skins, the tortelli are so light they seem to hover in your mouth on a cloud of fragrant yuzu. It gives way to a burst of scallop when you sink in your teeth, with apple matchsticks and thinly-sliced pickled daikon adding texture and keeping the plate from being too ‘lemon butter’ cloying.

We’re tucked on a tan leather banquette – another new addition to the space - in the second, nearly full, sitting, on a Saturday night. Nobody in the kitchen is even breaking a sweat. Floor staff are plentiful and friendly, as you’d want from a neighbourhood, all-day eatery. We’re cleverly down-sold to an interesting 2016 San Marzano ‘Estella’ Fiano ($48/bottle). It’s textural with some funk in the trunk. By also purchasing the quirky brick fortress next door, Sandall has the space to include an impressive wine cellar list. Consider it over a sesame-seed crusted slab of sourdough stuffed with light, sweet prawn mousse and dotted with yuzu mayo. that he’s casually dubbed Prawn Toast ($22). It cleans up the funk in our Fiano, leaving behind pretty lemon and minerality.

This paves the way for Merimbula Rock Oysters ($24/6). Presented under glistening orange pearls of roe softened by an almost Asian ginger marmalade, you get a hint of briny oyster that may be too narrow for oyster purists. Seamlessly integrating Asian influences into likeable and coherent contemporary Australian comfort food continues into the Seafood Curry ($34). Feeling vaguely Sri Lankan in origin, this dish teams barramundi, clams and a plump king prawn in a coconut curry broth dominated by curry leaf. It’s faintly bitter, but the seafood is cooked well, and the juicy scorched cherry tomatoes add some balancing sweetness against grilled bread rather than rice.

Snake Beans and Kale ($9) is a bit too healthy/worthy, and not quite lively-chilli, enough for me. Replace them with Duck Fat Potatoes ($10); while your cardiologist might not appreciate the switch, your palate certainly will. Boiled then roasted in duck fat before being fried, these crisp, fluffy-centred, rosemary-enhanced spuds are the best potatoes I’ve eaten in quite some time.

For our final dish, we're cleverly steered onto the 2018 Ochota Barrels ‘She’s Lost Control’ Fragola ($82/bottle). If you’ve always wanted to be a red wine drinker, but never quite made the jump from rosé, this is the drop for you. It’s like a short, sharp raspberry juice, that’s quite refreshing, with a deceptive salty lick that’s brought up when you consume it with Duck Cassoulet ($36). Sandall makes this usually intense dish is made every-day accessible with diced mortadella and de-boned confit duck. It's tomato-rich, making it eat almost like a thick minestrone soup under a crisp breadcrumb crust, freshened up with chopped parsley. It made me wish that winter was already here.

It's certainly easy to see why Hunters Hill locals are all telling their Eastern Suburbs friends: ‘we’ve got a...

I went here to use a birthday voucher I got from family. We had a big table up the back of the restaurant (probably because I had 2 small children!). I noticed most of the other diners were at the front of the restaurant, probably intentional! Haha. But my kids were actually super well behaved because I came prepared.

The food: huge portions! And actually pretty good value I think, main and entree for $79. The entree - I had the grilled calamari. I thought the flavours were nice. The calamari kind of... crunchy? Not sure if it was meant to be like that. I also tried the prawn toast, pretty good but again not amazing. I also tried some of the proscuitto entree and that one was really nice too.

For the mains I chose the pork belly. I didn't expect it would come rolled. The flavour was OK, but not amazing. The crackling nicely done and the pork inside was moist and not overcooked. Huge portion.

My partner got the beef fillet and said it kind of tasted 'boiled' but didn't mind it. I think he was expecting a steak with a bit of char on it.

My family members got the prawn pasta and I was not a fan. Way too prawny, like they ground up the prawn heads and shells to make the sauce. It kind of reminded me of the Singaporean dish Har Mee which I am not a fan of. Like if you are expecting a fresh oil based prawn pasta with herbs, you'd be disappointed. It was quite heavy and I noticed nobody finished theirs. I was impressed when they asked to take the kids' orders first - pretty thoughtful. The kids liked their meals (fish and chips and the roast chicken & veggies). The jus (gravy?) of the roast chicken, very delicious. Like good enough to put in a jar and sell. The chicken nice and moist. The kids' ice creams were just vanilla with a bit of strawberry syrup on top.

Oh, and for sides we got the duck fat potatoes (epic!) and the garden salad, which was just a few cos lettuce leaves on a plate with snow pea sprouts thrown on top. The lemon vinaigrette was nice but having to cut up your own leaves is just annoying in my opinion.

I got the Pineapple mojito (a mocktail), it was average. Kind of tasted like they put some kind of cordial in it.

The service: OK, nothing to rave about. Food wasn't rushed out and we got a bit of time in between entree and main which was nice, everyone's food came out at the same time, also nice. They provided a colouring sheet and coloured pencils for my children.

We didn't get dessert because I bought a fancy cake to eat at home and was stuffed. I was half expecting for such a fine establishment they'd do something nice for my birthday (a little complimentary dessert or something), but alas... they didn't. The waitress did say happy birthday to me as I was walking out the door with a bunch of flowers, so there is that.

Would I return? Yes maybe for a date night, but not as a family for dinner. I might also come back with my sister for a more casual...

It’s sad when you’re made to feel unwelcome to any establishment. It’s taken me 2 weeks put my thoughts about my experience into words.

It’s 2023, but this place felt as if we had walked into old Australia where non-Caucasian migrants are unwelcome.

Just before we walked in on a busy Saturday morning (plenty of places to sit), I noted two patrons before us being greeted and seated.

We walked in and immediately the mostly young caucasian staff suddenly became extremely busy, avoiding us, and scattered around the place not meeting our eye.

The tenured staff behind the counter were equally uninviting and also refused to acknowledge our presence for a good long and awkward moment.

I had to loudly ask if we needed to wait to be seated or if we can make our own way! That jolted them as they had to respond and we eventually made our way to a table inside (I was adamant) even as they were trying to force some smiles into their ‘would you like to dine in or take away’.

The maître d' approached us with raised eyebrows and only relaxed her shoulders after we bantered with her while placing our order.

The food was not bad and quite tasty (we ordered the salmon quiche, almond croissant and the green bowl), coffee was good.

On either side we had the company of very hostile patrons (no guesses to where they were from) who were continuously being tended to.

It was only towards the end when an Asian staff member came over with a stiff smile and decided to relax and have a brief chat when clearing our table.

So it would seem the culture of the establishment has an unconscious (or wilful) bias, perpetuating the need to have a mostly stereotypical customer base (aka non-brown) in the Lane Cove suburb.

I’ve lived in conservative Adelaide for a decade and never had to face this type of othering based on how I look, and it’s taken me to come to Sydney to be reminded about original settler syndrome…out of date and “frog in the well” at best.

To be othered in a place you live, work and call home just because staff can’t expand their worldview and sense, boggles a global citizen’s mind. I hope they can change their collective attitude, because all it takes is one person to bring...