Our critics’ verdict of George Calombaris’ Chinese restaurant Double Happy

April 5, 2025
2:26 pm

Callan Boys digs the cosplay dining room, but wonders if diners should spend their money at a theme-park tribute or a family-run original.

11.5/20

Chinese$$

“George Calombaris to open Chinese restaurant in Annandale” wasn’t on my tombola board for news items in 2025. A Greek kitchen in the city, sure – I know Melburnians who still rave about his Hellenic Republic joint more than five years after it closed. But what was the bloke doing hawking dumplings on Parramatta Road and a pizza topped with barbecued pork, oyster sauce and stracciatella cheese?

The former MasterChef judge has joined new group Linchpin Hospitality as its “culinary director”. Linchpin manages the food and booze at a few Sydney pubs, including Annandale’s Empire Hotel where there’s a pokie room, pizza and schnitzel restaurant, and – as of February – honey-chicken nostalgia trip Double Happy.

Prawn toast tostada.Jennifer Soo

“Everyone’s been saying, ‘What the hell do you know about Chinese food?’,” said Calombaris to Good Food a few months ago.

“We’re doing proper, Aussie, old-school, Chinese food, and I know how that’s supposed to taste.” Hmmm. Colour me interested. I do like prawn toast.

Some people will say that any venue associated with Calombaris is best left ignored, given his company’s wage underpayment scandal in 2019. (The 515 employees involved were reimbursed.) Publican Jon Adgemis owns the Empire Hotel, and his Public Hospitality Group has also faced – and denied – allegations of unpaid wages and debt. But people are still flocking to Double Happy in droves, and reviews exist to give you, the reader, enough information and criticism to decide if the restaurant is somewhere you want to spend money.

Mongolian lamb.Jennifer Soo

So here goes. There’s a bottle of “Gossips” NV Cuvée on the list for $65. Charlie’s Liquor Barn in Warilla sells the same wine for $4.99.

One night, there’s a cluster of dead flies floating in the soy sauce on our table – the kind of flies that invade my kitchen when fruit turns. I’ve been trapping the buggers with detergent and apple cider vinegar, so it’s good to know I can just leave the Kikkoman out.

“Sorry, guys, that’s a bit gross,” says our waiter, who promptly replaces it with a fresh bottle. Staff are friendly like this, but I’ve also experienced long waits for acknowledgement at the door, table water, a look at the dessert menu, the bill and for plates to be cleared. I haven’t spotted Calombaris in the restaurant yet, but culinary directors are busy men.

There are some decent dishes. Diced scallop is kicked up with a green chilli “XO” of rousing flavour and heat; the batter on a not-too-sweet, honey-lemon chicken is properly crisp and doesn’t slide off the chook. Tostadas stuffed with a prawn toast-style mix are crunchy and fat, and stir-fried, morning glory spinach is full of life and bite.

Five-spice roast pork belly with plum sauce.Jennifer Soo

Har gow dumplings, however, are all mush when the prawn filling should be bouncy. Stodgy pork siu mai dumplings are underseasoned, while the fried rice has too much salt. Mongolian lamb arrives lukewarm, like it’s just been reheated, and a toothless XO sauce coats pipis possessing a texture somewhere between Haribo Goldbear and Staedtler HB eraser.

Mapo tofu is an exploration of gloop and glug rather than one of the most thrilling ways to eat fermented beans going. (And, as you might expect, the soft cheese and oyster sauce pizza is about as harmonious as listening to Björk and The Twelfth Man’s Marvellous! simultaneously. Great puffy crust, though.)

Um, what else can I say? The cocktails are fine. The roast pork belly is fine. The moist hand towelettes reek of isopropyl alcohol. I dig the cosplay dining room with its red lanterns and neon, although there are hundreds of Australian-Chinese restaurants across Sydney where the “real thing” still exists. Do you want to spend your money at a theme-park tribute or the family-run original? Do you want to spend $65 on Gossips or bring your own $5 fizz?