BEA at Barangaroo, has been one of my favourite new openings recently. Not just in Barangaroo, but in all of Sydney! This was actually my second visit there because my parents loved it so much, we went back a few weeks later with my cousin and her fiance from Hong Kong in tow!
It was still quite warm when we went so we booked a table on the balcony both times. If it’s not too cold, I would definitely recommend sitting outdoors! You’re on the top floor of Barangaroo House and facing west, so you get to see the beautiful sunset over Pyrmont. The inside of the restaurant isn’t shabby either, though. There’s a mix of booth and table seating available.
We started off with a couple of snacks and entrees. As you can see, everything is designed to share! Olives ($9) and Miche sourdough with house butter ($8) are both two lovely snacks. I love that the bread rolls come in a Uashmama bag, supporting that local company! The bread roll serving is also quite generous, so make sure you don’t fill up on that.
We also for the Sour cream, smoked mackerel, lime, leaves ($10) which…wasn’t quite what we expected! It actually comes in the form of a dip, with some crisp bread. It reminded me a little bit of taramasalata, another dip made of fish roe which is one of my favourites!
We had two more entrees before the mains. The Smoked bone marrow, condiments ($15) was so good last time that we got it again! In fact, we ordered two of these between the five of us because we knew it was fairly small portion and that we’d all want a bite. I found that I didn’t really make use of the condiments and just spread the bone marrow straight on the crispbread! For any bone marrow fans, I’d definitely recommend this.
The Bangscetta ($19) isn’t some complex Italian dish you’ve never heard of. It’s actually just BEA‘s version of a bruschetta, playing on the word Barangaroo (which is where the restaurant is located)! It’s kind of a reinvention of the bruschetta and a deconstructed bruschetta at the same time. The crispbread is used here again, and the tomatoes are left in rather large chunks compared to the usual diced version. To be honest, I found this dish very hard to eat. It’s pretty much impossible to eat the crisp bread with the tomatoes because it just crumbles everywhere. This is what I mean by ‘deconstructed’ – you end up eating all the components separately!
Mains, here we go! Can you tell we’re fans of bone marrow because we ordered the Eye fillet, onion, smoked bone marrow ($45)? Can’t get enough of bone marrow! This eye fillet was extremely delicious. Everyone on our table loved it! It’s a pretty small portion though, I feel like I could’ve eaten this by myself.
We’ve had a pretty meat-heavy meal so it’s also important to eat your greens! We ordered the Autumn vegetables, tarragon, pickled grapes ($32) which was a beautiful selection of root vegetables, zucchini flowers and cabbage. We also had the Butter lettuce ($10) for a lighter side.
But finally we have the hero of our meal – the whole kingfish. Again, we had this last time and were just so blown away that we had to have it again. Firstly, how ridiculous is this presentation?! You’ve gotta laugh. You order the fish and the comes out looking at you with its mouth open! I love that they included the head. It shows you just how big a kingfish really is. Secondly though, I think this is the first time I’ve had cooked kingfish. I usually have it as sashimi! It came with a delicious, bearnaise sort-of sauce – the perfect accompaniment to quite a gamey fish. If this is still on the menu when you go to BEA, please please please get this. It’s incredible and I’ve never had fish quite like this before. Cannot recommend it highly enough.
We were pretty stuffed after all that food, so we only shared one little dessert – the Strawberries and cream ($19). Originally when I saw pictures of this dessert, I thought half the plate was covered in some sort of white mousse. Turns out it’s a thin layer of meringue! This dessert had an unusual extra element – pepper! It was really interesting tasting the pepper with the sweet berry taste. A bit unusual, perhaps, but still fun!
Wow, I really loved BEA the second time round. I’ll have to go back in a few months’ time to see what new dishes they have on their menu!
BEA
BARANGAROO HOUSE
1/35 BARANGAROO AVE
SYDNEY
https://www.barangaroohouse.com.au/bea-restaurant/
