“Delicate” and “serious” are through lines on the menu. In contrast to the marquess-gone-mad room, the food at Eleven Barrack is probably the team’s most restrained. It follows a classic grill format: appetisers (including a luxurious seafood platter), starters, pasta and mains. Then you hit the headliners: shareable meats like coal-roasted Murray cod in tangy green garlic sauce, pork tomahawks and five steaks, including a butter-soft F1 wagyu T-bone in Café de Paris and jus.
The bay lobster is a strong opener. Gems of shellfish are arranged in a cut-crystal coupe, layered with dashi jelly and savoury custard. I’m pleased to see that ploughman’s platter favourite, piccalilli, make an appearance on a potato tart, though I could’ve done with more of the puckery relish. A better potato investment is a shattery-crisp skin stuffed with pommes purée and jigged up with mustard and crème fraîche. It’s got a cult-dish feel to it: the potato you have when you can’t decide between chips or mash.
The culinary somersaults that characterise the group’s other venues, like the playful fish finger bao buns from King Clarence or the subversive hot sauce duck burger from Monopole, are mostly absent (though you can get a slightly madcap croissant hot dog at Eleven Barrack’s bar).
Instead this is expert, refined cooking designed to be eaten your way. Want to settle in for four voluptuous courses? Go for it. A bowl of mafaldine and a glass of delightful Pícaro del Aguila rosé? Of course.
Eleven Barrack might be doing straight-laced things on plates but I think even a Scottish heiress would have a grand time here.
Opening Hours
Lunch Mon Fri; Dinner Mon-Sun
Author Alexandra Carlton Journalist
Alexandra Carlton has been a journalist for approximately 20 years, specialising in food and travel for around nine of those (don’t quote her on that; numbers are not a strong point). As well as Gourmet Traveller, she writes for Qantas Magazine, Escape, The Australian, Virtuoso.com, The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide and the WA Good Food Guide. She is also the Oceania Academy Chair for World’s 50 Best Restaurants. She travels for around half the year and has two favourite places to eat in the world: the first is pretty much anywhere in Seoul, South Korea, and the second is on her sofa in Marrickville in Sydney’s inner west with a plate of Malay takeout and a backlog of trashy TV.
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