sixpenny

sixpenny is a wonderful, though on the pricier side, modern australian restaurant. we ordered their autumn tasting menu which consisted of four courses. we started with their tasters, all three of them were fresh and had unique flavours to them. our personal favourite dishes of the night were the 2 week aged lamb with fennel and the mackerel. the aged lamb was cooked beautifully and their pumpkin pureé complemented the dish extremely well. we also loved their mackerel. the skin was crispy, their complementing sauce was light and sweet and there was just enough sauce for the whole dish. staff were extremely accommodating - refilling our glasses whenever needed and we especially appreciated how the dishes were brought out and the components were explained by the chefs themselves. overall, we had a very pleasant diningexperienceat sixpenny and would not hesitate to visit again!

sixpenny is one of our pilgrimage half dozen when in sydney over from wellington, a place to walk to from the cbd, knowing that the meal will be an intellectual journey, considered to death, coaxed into form and presented in some of the most beautiful ways ive seen. this isn't a place to indulge the stomach, it is almost a zenexperienceto be paid homage to - shared with pleasure by its young cooks. 
sixpenny is one of those wonderful restaurants where the bravery and passion of youth finds a cheap(ish) suburb and as a group decides that its going to do its own thing unconstrained by the snobbery and rents of the cbd. sydney is lucky it has places like sixpenny. 
the ambience is fitting, modernist lines for a modernist degustation. a small dining space allows a concentration on food. the service ditto, careful and professional. the wine match was ok on the two occasions ive been but it was more interesting for the actual wines than for the match - i don't believe there is such a thing to be honest, and if a match really exists its rare and isn't going to pop up in every degustation in australasia. 
the courses are usually clever, surprising, often minimalist jewels to be thought about and considered. they aren't chicken nuggets. the shaved macadamia nut creature was one of the highlights on both occasions that we went -, maybe 8 months apart. compared to some of the higher end sydney restaurants the courses are not fancy constructions but spare combinations of perfect ingredients.
this is a precious little restaurant.

service was exemplary and we were taken such good care of.
food was good, however it was heavily influenced by various seafood. having had similarexperienceat seibo, i had specifically asked to temper their menu. however, that request was overlooked and it ended up in me having a rather unpleasant confrontation with two of the five main courses! starters and desserts were really good and innovative. drinks menu is exhaustive. i am going for 3 stars much against my wishes but that should be motivation enough for improvising.

this small and cosy restaurant in the inner west of sydney has no menu. you sit back and you are served small plates and then bigger plates. they call it a ‘tasting menu’. the food is creative, using seasonal australian produce. it’s definitely contemporary cuisine. i love that they support the small suppliers, the smaller farmers and fishermen. it’s definitely anexperienceeating at sixpenny. #sixpenny

what a wonderfulexperienceat sixpenny tonight. recently rewarded 3 hats from the sydney good food guide. a small restaurant in a little suburb of stanmore but the food was certainly big and delicious! particularly fond of the snacks in the beginning, the grouper dish was sensational and the last savoury dish being the beef was divine. dessert was a freeze dried raspberry custard in strawberry soup and that was so refreshing after 5 courses and some wine. last dessert was a coconut ice-cream surrounded by chocolate caramel. a little rich but still quite delightful. i will definitely be going back!

for my extensiveexperiencein fine dining, i have to give sixpenny a 10/10. love everything from decor, food to services.

the waiting staffs are experienced and their attention to details are great. the menu can be chosen between six or eight courses, the price difference is not significant. we go for the six course as we went at lunch, hence prefer something lighter. my favourite would be the chuck tail, pumpkin scallop, the potato and last but not least the frozen raspberries with custard.

the chuck tail is an unusual part for beef, but nice and tender, highlight is the mushroom jus (thick but light in flavours) and the caramelised onion. pumpkin scallop reminds me on the chinese fried with congee, but really nicely done. the potato is another highlight, cooked in butter with the garnish of zucchini flower and kale. (potato might seem like an easy ingredient to cook, however it is extremely hard to make it a standout dish) love the raspberry in frozen form with the smooth custard, they compliment each other so well.

sixpenny has officially make one of my top 5 fine dining list in australia. hopefully i will be able to see it to make the world’s top 100 list in the future.

what a gourmet foodexperiencewe had here again! we celebrated my birthday last year and we loved it. so we came back here last month with friends. professional but casual approach by wait persons made us feel so comfortable. yet, each course we had in it's degustation menu was beautiful to look at first and fantastic in our mouths. strongly recommendable.

sixpenny is a different class of fine diningexperiencewhich infuses a sense of simplicity with a variety of exquisite dishes. located in the quiet suburb of stanmore, the interior decoration of the restaurant resembles a comfortable, dimly-lit living room.

food, however, is disappointing. among all my fine-dining experiences (quay, sepia, tetsuya's, lumi, bennelong, est, 11 bridge, bridge room, gastro park, nel, momo, orm, auto, ester etc), sixpenny tasted extremely ordinary and unworthy of any accolades or hype.

the misses - the aged lamb rump was poorly sourced and prepared. the potatoes with oyster & raw mushroom tasted earthly and bland. the reduced milk sorbet tasted like a weight-loss meal.

i really expect more from a 2-hatted restaurant.

sixpenny is a cut above the rest. no matter how extensive yourexperienceis with fine dining, you’ll never have experienced it all until you try sixpenny.

the service and attention to detail here is just amazing. sixpenny helps create a wholeexperiencethat is more than just a dinner with chefs bringing out their dishes and explaining the flavour combos and how they’ve been made. some dishes were wholly made in house and took months to complete!

we went for the 8 course degustation and had no regrets. each dish was brought out by the chefs and carefully explained to us. the crab entree was definitely the standout for me. the 3 dessert courses were each magnificent in their own way. the menu featured a lot of raspberry--something i'm not complaining about because i love berries!

the intimate and serene atmosphere at sixpenny is one of a kind. just go and treat yourself!

my fine diningexperiencelevelled up 10 points due to the ingenious pairing of the two typically aussie ingredients. when we think ‘seafood’ and ‘nuts’, it is seldom in such delicate and subtle form. but it works, both in terms of aesthetic and taste.

the tiny restaurant, which has been opened for less than a year, offers only a degustation menu and almost everyone dining there had reservations and came from somewhere else. rarely do neighborhood residents ever drop in for a bite. apparently, that’s theexperiencechef james parry wanted to create – a dining destination that would entrance food lovers from around the world.

wonderful. a special dining experience, these guys are faultless, our diningexperiencewas perfection! i hope sixpenny will be around for the long haul, they deserve all the praise, so good!

if you are after a good degustationexperiencewith well cooked dishes and excellent service with nothing amazing on the menu then this is the place. we were quite disappointed with the lack of invention and creation of new tastes on the menu. the chefs did a good job using fresh ingredients and cooked and presented everything well but we didn't feel the menu selection met the standards. some of the disappointments were the potato scallop and sweet potato scallop which was dripping with oil that seemed like it had been used too many times and had browned. the mash potato which counted as one course was only a piece of potato dipped in a cheesy sauce with pieces of raw purple cauliflower which didn't add anything to the taste. the macadamia crab was simply cold crab with shaved macadamia. the marscapone carrot was another dish that only featured one element for a course. the entrees and mains served by each chef was cooked with care and done well but there was nothing exciting which u usuallyexperiencein a degustation menu like techniques for foams, soup extracts and sauce oils which they didn't use. the balance of the desserts wasn't very good as we had 3 very similar ice creams, a milk sorbet, vanilla ice cream and honey mead sorbet so by the third we felt like we were eating the same thing. there were a few extra dishes which was a nice touch and a takeaway cookie bag since we were all very full. for a table of 4 spending over 500 bucks the ingredients and techniques used and menu composition were a bit simple and was not good value. the sizes of the dishes, quality and service were a very good standard, unfortunately there was nothing particularly special on the menu for us that day.

exceptional. i enjoyed theexperienceof lunch at sixpenny recently with a group of friends. the food was exceptional - a lovely flow of innovative ideas matched perfectly with wines (including the best sake i've tasted). despite being a small space, the acoustics meant we weren't intruding on others or being intruded upon. smart, attentive service rounded out one of the best dining experiences for a while. highly recommended for a special occasion.

brilliant. best diningexperiencei've had in years.
creative, innovative and delicious...
have been three times in six months and it just gets better and better.
a must for any foodie type.


-----18 sep, 2012-----

brilliant. best diningexperiencei've had in years- its up there with quay. these two chefs are world class.
every dish i had was amazing, service lovely, wine perfectly matched. superb


-----17 sep, 2012-----

best diningexperiencein a long while.
amazing food, great space and service.
would i go back?! absolutely & will several times. daniel and his team are bloody fantastic.