Ester, Chippendale

Tucked away in the back streets of Chippendale, Ester carried both a relaxed and serious atmosphere. The relaxed atmosphere came from its concrete walls and warehouse feel – none of the stiff white table cloth setting. The serious atmosphere came from watching their staff including the chefs and bartender work their magic – you could just tell that they were serious about getting the food right.

The set menu was excellent value for $88, and took the difficult decision of choosing from my dining companion and me. By the time the larger plates were served, I was absolutely stuffed but pushed on nonetheless.

The meal began with one of my favourite courses of any meal, the bread. You get a massive slice of the sourdough with some cultured butter, and I could just tell, as a carb lover, that it would be satisfying. Dark brown in colour, with a strong crust on the outside but super fluffy on the inside. The only downside was that it was absolutely huge and I was torn between finishing the whole slice and saving my stomach for the rest of the meal – ultimately eating the whole slice and hoping for the best won out.

This was followed by several smaller plates. My favourite was the roasted rock oyster (1 each) with sake and pepperberry sauce. The oyster was extremely juicy and flavoursome. The raw kingfish, sashimi style was also nice.

The interesting dishes for me though were the corn fritters and the blood sausage sanga (sandwich). The corn fritter was different to other corn fritters I have had and looked more like fried fish, but the server had me sold as soon as he told me it had fermented chilli. The corn was served as if you sliced down one side of your cob of corn, cooked this, and then layered on parmesan cream and fermented chilli on top.

The blood sausage sanga was also a thing of beauty for me having never had blood sausage before. Having devoured the entire slice of the sourdough, I was a bit hesitant about the white bread outside the blood sausage but honestly, it was the nicest white bread I’ve had in awhile and reminded me of the super soft crust-less sandwiches in Japan. The blood sausage was also flavoursome and if it hadn’t been called a blood sausage, I would have been none the wiser re the contents based on taste.

We were then served the grilled king prawns with fermented shrimp butter and capers. Delicious. The woodfire smokiness on those prawns absolutely made it and you could pretty much smell the aroma of the dish as it was carried from the kitchen to your table.

And then onto the larger plates with the hanger stake, a half roasted cauliflower and then the star of the vegetable dishes, the iceberg lettuce. I could not stop raving about the iceberg lettuce the rest of the evening, because usually it is such a boring item even in a salad. But at Ester, they served a whole chunk of the iceberg lettuce  in some ‘green goddess’ sauce with nori (seaweed) and the sauce just upgraded the iceberg to amazing. I can’t adequately describe how the mix of herbs and seaweed in the sauce just worked so well with the lettuce. The steak was also wonderful, tender and well seasoned. But if there was one dish at Ester, that I wanted the recipe for, it was that iceberg lettuce in the green goddess sauce.

Finally, dessert. And after quite a heavy meal, the dessert was wonderfully light. We had the burnt pavlova with white chocolate and passionfruit which was a good mix of sweet and sour, as well as left over sourdough icecream.

Overall, the meal was pretty good and the service was excellent. There wasn’t a dish I didn’t enjoy, but apart from the iceberg lettuce, there also weren’t many dishes that I’d be dying to come back for again. A pleasant evening was had and we returned home extremely full.

Details: Ester, 46-52 Meagher St, Chippendale NSW 2008