Plus a salad, dessert and four wines, making it arguably Sydney’s smallest menu.
When 24 York opens in the Sydney CBD next month, the restaurant’s tiny menu will offer not just a tonic for indecisive diners, but a serious contender for the title of Sydney’s smallest menu.
Steak frites will be the star of the show at 24 York, with chef Santi Aristizabal using the same scotch fillet cut from Gippsland he has on the menu at sister restaurant Rockpool Bar & Grill in Melbourne. Green salad and cheesecake tart will be the other two menu choices, and there will be four wines available by the bottle and glass.
When you offer just one steak, serious consideration is invested in its selection. The trio of culinary directors at Hunter St. Hospitality, the group behind the York Street restaurant, first had to eliminate other cuts such as hanger, skirt and sirloin before deciding on scotch fillet for a range of reasons, including fat content, chewiness, mouth feel and taste.
Chefs Aristizabal, Andy Evans and Shimpei Hatanaka then lined up a blind tasting of scotch fillet from 12 suppliers. Aristizabal, who oversees all three Rockpools in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, said at $48 (with chips), the 220g scotch fillet from Gippsland producer O’Connor is good value.
“At Rockpool in Melbourne you pay $95 for 400g on the bone, which is around 350g bone off. The steak at 24 York is only one marble score lower [than Rockpool].”
But will 24 York claim the title of Sydney’s smallest restaurant menu, or at the very least the city’s briefest steak line-up? Alfie’s, also in the CBD, only offers sirloin. But with nine sides, a daily rotisserie special and three desserts, its menu eclipses the three-choice 24 York line-up. Bistecca, near Bridge Street, has four desserts and cheese.
The opening of 24 York also signals a shift in strategy for Hunter St. Hospitality. The venue will open in the former home of The Bavarian, which the group decided to close after operating at the York Street site for the past 14 years to focus on “unique venues” rather than chains. “The area’s changed,” Hunter St. Hospitality chief executive Frank Tucker said.
24 York will be on the same block as The Charles, and just around the corner of the Bentley Group’s two-hatted grill Eleven Barrack.
Tucker doesn’t hide from the fact 24 York’s steak frites approach takes inspiration from Le Relais de l’Entrecote in France, which has successfully leant on steak and chips for more than half a century.
He says customers increasingly appreciate venues that do a single thing well, but said critical mass is needed for the concept.
“I wouldn’t have done this in Surry Hills,” Tucker said.
With Rockpool and The Cut in its portfolio, Tucker is confident his group has the chops in the steak department. He said the decision to include chips was easy: “The one thing that always ends up on every table [that orders steak] is chips.”
When the 160-seat restaurant opens on July 23, indecisive diners won’t be entirely off the hook. The steak frites will come with a choice of four sauces, so they’ll have to dig deep and decide between umami butter, peppercorn, mushroom or chimichurri.
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