Surry Hills’ White Horse restaurant review – MASHAHER

Just when I thought that high-end pub-dining in Sydney was doomed to the same old carte of kingfish crudo and overly ambitious cheeseburgers, White Horse reopened in April and slapped me around the chops. There are dishes at the Surry Hills boozer that wouldn’t be out of place on some tasting menus for double the price, and although I’m not quite sure you can still call it a pub, whatever White Horse has become, I like it a lot.

White Horse (it has a rampant stallion on the roof) was built in the 1930s and has enjoyed stints as a piano bar, brasserie and live-music joint, plus as a slightly suspect hangout for bikers and cops.

Before hospitality veteran Craig Hemmings and a group of silent partners took the keys early last year, the hotel had settled into a life of craft beer, whisky and forgettable pizza. In short, fine, but not much better or worse than at least five other pubs within a five-minute walk.

Now there’s a “beetroot millefeuille” ($24), and it’s one of the most thrilling ways to eat a vegetable since eggplant caviar. Layers of finely sliced beetroot are rolled into a disc that looks like a giant dashboard cigarette-lighter (remember those?), and turbocharged with native thyme oil and a butter-emulsified beetroot reduction.

It’s rare to find marron with crisp, juicy texture like this in Sydney outside of, say, Quay.

There’s a kombu-forward, squid-ink glaze covering every millimetre of clean, sweet toothfish ($55) in the most striking way. Roasted gnarls of Jerusalem artichoke cradle goat’s cheese and saltbush ($6 each), and wagyu tri-tip is bolstered by a chestnut mushroom sabayon ($45) that tastes like an autumn afternoon in glossy, French-sauce form. A smoked tomato relish and steak sandwich on the bar menu is $34; it comes with fries and easily feeds two. Chef Jed Gerrard, welcome back to Sydney.

Gerrard cut his teeth at three-hatted Bilson’s and Tetsuya’s before spending a few years as executive chef at The Star’s Black by Ezard steakhouse. In 2015, he returned home to Western Australia to helm several high-profile restaurants, and when Hemmings needed a fine-dining chef to revamp White Horse, he gave his old mate from The Star a call.

Before I start using too many adjectives regarding the food, I need to mention that Farago Han Studio has also done a bang-up job on the interiors. In spite of a clubby soundtrack that sounds like something you might have heard at Hemmesphere in the early 2000s, the dining room is a soothing space of reclaimed oak tables, soft-textured walls, woven leather chairs and bold art. Renovation costs came in at $6 million.

Can you roll up unannounced and just order a beer? Yes. A first-floor bar and terrace is engineered for the occasion. But with a green, brushed-quartz counter-top and velvet ottomans, the space feels more like a cocktail lounge than a public bar, and a Reschs costs $10.

Bar manager Max Mercuri is a deft hand with any classic, so consider levelling up to a sazerac ($24) instead, or something from the house list designed by cocktail gun Michael Chiem.

The subtle sweetness of Chiem’s $20 “Benny Blanco” martini (gin, vermouth, macerated grape and rosemary) will also work with the richness of a chicken-skin cracker covered in liver mousse and persimmon gel ($8).

You might prefer a glass of Moon 2021 Chardonnay ($18) for the butter-poached West Australian marron tail, though, which is laid across a creamed-corn risotto boasting hand-picked marron meat and a commanding sauce made from the crayfish’s head. At $58, it’s not a cheap serve, but it’s also rare to find marron with crisp, juicy texture like this in Sydney outside of, say, Quay.

Other dishes are more disorientating. Char siu pork and prawn fried rice ($20) remixes the reliable Chinese favourite with paprika-loaded notions of paella. The bitter grassiness of creamed warrigal greens ($14) has me longing for spinach.

But while brie-infused ice-cream ($16) sounds bonkers, the potent cheese flavour is tempered by quince jelly and a sandalwood-nut sort-of crumble. Floral, dessert-riesling custard ($18) is teamed with frozen sheep’s milk yoghurt and desert lime and might remind you of lemon meringue.

Our man Gerrard is already back in Perth and will only travel east every two months. This is a small to major concern. But I’ve also been in when he wasn’t in the kitchen and head chef Jun Hwang is firmly in control of the high-wire act. Restaurant manager Bora Ahn leads a well-rehearsed floor team and if the owners can maintain this current crew, White Horse 17.0 may be the pub’s most successful iteration yet. It’s certainly the most delicious.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine