Solander Dining and Bar — Restaurant in Sydney

Solander Dining is set within the West Hotel, a boutique designer upmarket Hotel by Hilton, situated close to Barangaroo. Solander can be aptly described as suave and sophisticated with art deco styling, complete with velvet lounge chairs, oak tables, tan leather menus, herringbone marble floors and unique lighting fixtures. The dining space is designed around a long fully stocked bar and even an indoor feature palm garden. This, combined with a dimly lit room oozes style and class.The space is further enhanced by a live music set infront of the well lit bar. As you enter the room, the music warmly greets and soothes you with classic tunes provided on the night by skilled musician Michael Duchesne, who happened to front our wedding band a few years back. It is perfect to provide a chilled atmosphere during your dining experience. If you aren’t there for the full dining experience, you can also order a cocktail, spirit, wine or beer and a few bar bites to enjoy with friends.The chefs, led by executive chef David Vandenabeele have done their research to locate and source the freshest native produce, incorporating the ingredients into their menu. Using banksia, acacia, salt bush, Karkalla leaves, lemon Myrtle, native finger line, Kakadu plum to flavour the dishes, makes for lovely flavour combinations. For the proteins, the menu highlights some amazing meats such as wallaby, rib eye and venison. From the seafood list, you can try Sydney rock oysters, kingfish or the amazing bugs. You can easily do the 6 course tasting menu for $110 to explore the menu, if you aren’t sure what to order. We decided to sample a number of dishes a la carte. We love a restaurant that that bakes their bread fresh on site. The bread here is an absolute highlight. The delicious bread is baked in a flowerpot with hints of Banksia and Acacia flavours. Just amazing. Onto starters – we ate the best dish we have come across this year! A stunning plate of charred bugs cooked in chilli butter with bush tomatoes. This seafood offering is perfectly cooked with the flesh sliding out of the shell with little encouragement, and even less encouragement once we had a taste. Even better, this dish can be ordered as a main. We will most certainly be back specifically for these bugs. The entree list has many other great options, including the gin cured salmon which is another inspired offering, well seasoned and served with pickled cucumber and native karkalla leaves and lemon myrtle.From the main list, the mountain pepper spiced venison rack came deboned, cut into small slices, and well prepared. Beautifully plated with butternut squash, the venison topped with the tartness of the Davidson plumb and finished with lovely jus. We also decided on a fish dish of seared king fish, skin very crisp, served in a silky lemon butter and served with delicate champagne poached oysters, a uniquely decadent plate of food.If you are hungry enough to order some sides, do yourself a favour and order the Warrigal greens, they are something to savour, with sweetness of the fermented black garlic. The desserts are all very intriguing, especially with the use of native ingredients. The strawberry plate immediately grabbed our attention, with strawberries prepared in many ways, fresh, caramelised and in a short cake. This came served with and earl grey jelly and pearl barley, which gives a nice toasty flavour and texture, as does the delicate chickpea meringue.There wasn’t anything delicate about the acacia chocolate fondant, and with good reason, it’s indulgent and very rich with intense flavours and a bold blackberry sorbet, a powerful dessert indeed.Solander Dining and bar is such a sophisticated venue, well suited for a drink and some live music, in stylish surrounds. The restaurant is great for a bite, be it small or a degustation and the food is extremely high quality. They are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We also love that they hero ingredients native to Australia. Impressive on all levels, be sure to place this high on your...

Hotel restaurants have a tough brief. The best ones have menus that provide a sense of place, without making guests too homesick with an avalanche of foreign techniques and flavours. To my eye, Executive Chef David Vandenabeele, gets this balancing act right at Solander Dining & Bar. Located inside the funky West Hotel Sydney, Solander is an attractive space that offers up a range of settings for your meal. Make your selection from well-proportioned bucket chairs set around well-spaced tables, a comfy cushioned banquette lined with tiny round bar tables, or take in the night air in the leafy, green internal atrium.

We pull up in an intimate window nook, each on our own individual, plush blue couch. A little table lamp casts a defined circle of warm, golden light. Along with wall dividers, it helps us feel like we’ve got the restaurant to ourselves, so we’re soon a glass deep into a bottle of the 2016 Tarrawarra Estate Chardonnay ($64). With a long and creamy palate, balanced by elegant oak, it’s good, whether you choose to drink it with or without the complimentary bread rolls.

Illustrated with plants, Solander’s one-year-on menu continues to play to Australia’s native flora and fauna. Double Boiled Wallaby Broth ($18) takes Vandenabeele’s ‘Chicken Tea’ from his time at The Langham in New York, and gives it an Aussie twist with lovely lean wallaby meat, a quail egg, enoki mushrooms and goji berries. Presented in a transparent tea pot, it’s a comforting and pretty, tea-like broth with gentle spicing that suits the cooling mid-season weather.

Charred Bugs ($24) summon the Aussie barbeque, presenting one of my favourite crustaceans in chilli butter. Two well-cooked bugs are presented split down the centre, adorned with a tangle of greens, freshly diced tomato and chilli threads. They pull out of their shells easily, with the portion feeling generous for an entrée – easily enough to share.

I’m surprised to see our mains arrive in lidded white crockery pots. It’s not what I expect from a hotel restaurant living in the Instagram age, which actually makes it all the more charming. Young Henry Braised Pork Cheeks ($40) are tender and tasty against shiitake mushrooms, shallots and Kakadu plums. They edge out the Slow Cooked Wallaby Shanks ($32) because the flavour profile of this dish, with quandong berries and macadamia crumble cream, feels slightly off-kilter to me. My critique comes only because I’ve eaten some amazing wallaby already this year; though to be fair, I suspect Hobart’s chefs are more familiar with this sweet and gentle game meat.

Despite each pot of protein feeling quite generously proportioned, sides are necessary if you want something other than meat on your plate. Warrigal Greens ($9) with black garlic are sure to excite anyone bored with spinach, with their balanced grassy and bitter notes. Juicy red piquillo peppers and pomegranate arils give Wok Fried Sprouting Broccoli ($10) with toasted almond slivers a unique twist. When taken together with sides, mains here do feel pricy, however if I was dining as part of a bigger group, I suspect you wouldn't need to order a protein and side apiece. What I do like is the meal feels, homey, Australian and healthy to eat.

Presented as a pretty wreath arranged around a ball of strawberry sorbet, the Strawberry Plate ($17) plays with texture using puffed barley, chickpea meringue, strawberry sponge, and earl grey tea jelly. I’m more taken with the Asian-inspired Watermelon Raindrop Cake ($20). Suiting the crockery beautifully, Vandenabeele has created a pond life scene with a quivering salty watermelon jelly dome sitting under a lacy, charcoal pepper tuile surrounded by glistening sloe gin pearls and micro basil leaves. Juicy, wet and refreshing, it’s adult in flavour rather...

Worst ever experience. DO NOT GO. Food isn’t great, the service and staff are irresponsible and rude. They blame you, do not help, zero customer service. Shameful for Hilton chain. AVOID AT ANY COST, expecially if it is a special event.

Read my story of you want to hear more about it.

I booked Solander Sydney through Dimmi. My friends and I dined there from 7.45. The last serving was served at 10.45. We may have started to order at 8.10pm. Service to so long. Not only this, as I walked in, I was told Alex the manager would assist us for the night. I handed him a cake, asking if they could bring it in during dessert time for the birthday boy to cut it. I was told there was a $5 charge per person. I told him, specifically I did not want the cake cut, it was for the birthday boy to cut. He said that is fine, but either way that $5 stays on. And we agreed to it. Then towards the end a waitress came after a while, and asked how we like our cake cut and served, and I said, we do not want it cut, birthday boy hasn’t seen his cake, so bring that first before cutting, then she went in and came back, said something about it being cut, so I said no it shouldn’t have been cut, so she went back in to confirm if it was cut and came back and said she was only wondering if it had to be cut, but told the restaurant chef not to cut it. Then after 30 minutes, Mark served us cut cakes, and we asked him why. Then he said he can’t do much, this is all he can do, it’s now cut, and it’s cut!! Then he said he had asked Alex, and Alex can not remember of me not telling him not to cut. I asked him to let me talk to Alex and he said Alex is no longer there. Then I asked him what the waitress said to us, that it wasn’t cut, and he said it was cut when she told us it wasn’t cut, but she’s only an waitress and the kitchen has sections and although she goes inside the kitchen she can not see part of the kitchen. And I asked how can I escalate and he said he is the only guy I can speak to, and I can sit there and argue all I want but he can not do much. He kept telling me about how Alex is a different individual to him, and it has nothing to do with him, I asked if they are not representing a restaurant, and he kept defending and arguing that they are two people with two opinions and it’s not his fault Alex failed to pass the message to mark. Then I asked I how could I trust them after all this and he told me I didnt know him to trust him, (like I am not asking about a relationship trust, I asked trusting a restaurant) and I asked how would I trust what they served even met our dietary requirements (two of our guest had requested alternative to beef meat) if they lie about cakes being slided or not, how would I know if it’s not beef served. This was a custom made cake, which I paid well over $100, very obvious it is not to be cut yet, expecially when we told them numerous time. They weren’t busy either to say they missed it. I was then told, they can not discount any of the items booked via Dimmi because it’s booked via Dimmi. When I came home, I noticed an email he cancelled my reservation when we clearly dined. Worst ever experience. Deters me from Hinton hotels. I can not explain how horrible. I repeatedly told them, it is an expensive cake, made of a Jack daniels model, for someone’s 21st, and I was approached by rude staff, who kept saying it been done, what else can they do now, and no remorse, no help, no politeness, ruined a special day and constantly blaming on each other, forgetting they represent a hotel chain white...