The recipe for Rockpool Bar & Grill’s sultry dark and stormy with house-made ginger beer as featured in our March newsletter.

Dark and Stormy 
50ml aged dark rum
10ml fresh lime juice
60ml house ginger beer 

Build the ingredients in a high ball without ice. Be aware, the carbonated ginger beer has a lot of fizz when mixed with ice. Add ice and garnish with a lime cheek and mint sprig. The kick of the fresh ginger combined with the honey and rum is one of the great beverage pairings.

 Ginger beer
600g peeled baby ginger root
4 litres water
600g honey
100g sugar 

Add the finely sliced ginger to the water in a  pot and bring to the boil. Blend the ginger water with a hand blender and return to the heat. Shut off the heat. Add the honey and sugar. Stir well and cover for 1 hour. Strain through a fine chinois or cheesecloth and allow to cool. Transfer into bottles and refrigerate.

Dark & Stormy with house made ginger beer

Last week we put a few new dishes on at Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney and today they are going on in Melbourne too.

Slow Cooked Egg and Braised Greens on Bruschetta with Parmesan: I love the deep rich green flavour of the braised greens on bruschetta with a slow cooked egg, the perfect way to start off any lunch.

Summer Vegetable Passata with Herb Butter and Parmesan: The passata is a summer vegetable puree soup like a summer minestrone, but silky smooth and the lift from the herb butter and added intensity form the parmesan makes it a wonderful, light yet full-flavoured, refreshing summer soup.

Panzenella with Preserved Tuna and White Anchovy: The Tuna and bread salad is a play on the classic Italian panzanella salad.  The grilled bread giving extra depth of flavour; with lots of extra virgin olive oil and Forum vinegar in the bread the salad is simply delicious. The slow confit of the tuna renders it superbly tender and juicy.

Woodfire Roast Chicken and Waldorf Salad: Classic Waldorf with a twist, when you have an amazing woodfire rotisserie chicken and then you add it to the refreshing crisp textures of celery, apple and walnut all you need to do is add fresh mayonnaise to create an homage to a classic that is so refreshing and yummy that you realise why it has been revered for so long.  Its that added smokiness of the chicken that gives you  improvement on perfection.

These dishes are now starring on the menus at Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney and Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne.

Excerpt and photograph taken from Time Out Magazine

Sydney’s best, brightest and booziest came out to raise a glass at the Time Out Sydney 2010 Bar Awards on Tuesday night.
Rockpool Bar, the bar component of Neil Perry’s new Rockpool Bar and Grill, was named Bar of the Year during the ceremony, which took place at swanky Kings Cross venue the Piano Room.

Rockpool Bar at Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney

To read the full article head to the Time Out Sydney website.

The Rockpool Bar & Grill Wagyu Burger

An astonishing number of our impossibly delicious wagyu burgers race out the door each and every day.  Exactly how many you ask?

Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney have sold 8031 since opening in March 2009…quite a few.

Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne…a whopping 9333 have raced out the doors this year alone!

Talk about the most popular burger in town!  Swing by and sample one soon.

Quite an amazing ‘59 burgundy tasting at Rockpool Bar & Grill last night.

All the wines were incredible, Bonnes-Mares and Clos de la Roche were youthful and delicious.

Then along came Romanee-Conti, what a wine!  The length of flavour and complexity is extraordinary, no wonder it is so famous - again the proof is in the pudding and the best rise to the top!

Then, just to finish off, a cheeky little magnum of  ’82 Lafleur, this is Bordeaux at its most opulent and it is a totally luscious wine.  

Thank you for your amazing generosity Mr Doyle you are one in a billion.

As part of the Sydney Morning Herald Sydney International Food Festival (SIFF) the World Chef Showcase is coming to town, and to dinner, from 9-11 October.  Tickets are available via Ticketmaster.

It will be the biggest meeting of top-drawer chefs Sydney has ever seen and you can catch Neil cooking with Rainer Becker of Zuma London/Hong Kong/Istanbul & Dubai fame.

Rainer is well renowned for his hip, Japan-inspired resturants and he’ll be presented classic Zuma dishes – past, present and future alongside our very own Neil Perry – master of the Spice Temple, Rockpool and Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney & Melbourne empire.

Beef dry ageing in Melbourne this is really what it is all about, the only way to truly age beef. The enzymes have done their bit, now the meat dehydrates and intensifies in flavour and tenderness. We are taking them out to minimum 50 days maximum 80 and they really are extraordinary.

This is what makes a great steak house, we are defined by the quality and difference in our beef and no one can touch us currently. The 36 month grass fed is clean and long with a great taste of beef, the Rangers creamy from the grain feeding and the Blackmore Wagyu is out of this world with cameral popcorn flavours and an amazing texture, we are the only restaurant in the world dry aging this product.

All our beef is from older animals and as such has great flavour. So if you want to try the best beef in the country, come on down Rockpool Bar & Grill – Sydney or Melbourne - or both!

At the conclusion of this year’s Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Awards Rockpool in The Rocks and Rockpool Bar and Grill Sydney both took home 2 of the coveted little hats each.

Rockpool Bar & Grill, Sydney, continued it’s award winning ways taking out the Best New Restaurant title.

For Simon’s full story on Rockpool Bar & Grill – winner of Best New Restaurant click here.

For a full list of this year’s winners click here.

Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney wins three awards at the
Australian Gourmet Traveller 2010 Restaurant Awards 

25 August 2009: At last night’s announcement of the Australian Gourmet Traveller 2010 Restaurant Awards, Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney scooped three major awards including ‘New Restaurant of the Year’, ‘Wine List of the Year’ and ‘Maitre d’ of the Year’, won by Restaurant Manager, Tom Sykes. 

Neil Perry and his business partners, Trish Richards and David Doyle were thrilled with these awards and commended the restaurant’s dedicated team for creating such an award-winning restaurant and wine list in the five months since it opened its doors. 

Perry says that Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney is a culmination of everything we have experienced and learned in our years of running restaurants and it is such an honour to receive these awards from Australian Gourmet Traveller. 

“David Doyle, with his extraordinary knowledge of wine and extensive collection, has assembled one of the best wine lists in the world with selections for all price ranges and tastes. 

“Tom Sykes, a long time employee of the Rockpool Group, has been a hard working and dedicated manager for the past 13 years and it is wonderful to see him achieve the recognition he deserves.  He has embraced our philosophy of care, making sure that the staff are in a position to look after the guests, and that the guests themselves are relaxed and ready for a great dining experience. 

“We are incredibly proud to have three of our restaurants rated in the Top 20 in Australia and four within the Top 100, and we could not have achieved these accolades without the unwavering dedication of our entire Rockpool family,” says Perry. 

Rockpool Sydney was also commended receiving the highest rating of ‘3 Stars’ (and number 6 in the Top 100 ranking), while Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney and Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne received ‘2 Stars’, and Spice Temple received ‘1 Star’. 

- Ends - 

For further information and media inquiries:
Contact Michelle Campbell, Minc Communications, T 0410 614 433, E michelle@minccom.com.au

ROCKPOOL BAR & GRILL SYDNEY had a fantastic night at the Fine Wine Partners & Australian Gourmet Traveller Wine Magazine Wine List of the Year Awards in 2009.

It was an extremely proud moment for us taking out Australia’s Wine List of the Year in 2009 plus Best Restaurant List and Best New List – The Tony Hitchin Award.  To read more about these awards and Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney click here.

And that wasn’t the end of it…

Our very own Sophie Otton took out the National Judy Hirst Award which focuses on sommeliers whose unique talent and knowledge elevates the public’s appreciation of the role within the industry.  To read more on this award click here.

Sophie Otton in the wine room at Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney