Grandfathers know best
Has the Clam Bar clan hit another home run?
There's a small handful of restaurant groups in Sydney that everyone expects to do excellent things every time they turn the key in a new location. The team behind the endlessly popular Pellegrino 2000, Clam Bar, Neptune's Grotto and now the Cantonese/Sichuan mash-up Grandfathers is one of them. Led by Michael Clift[[Clift just so happens to be Neil Perry's son-in-law. That's the same Neil Perry who said his Double Bay restaurant Song Bird failed – and had to be phoenixed as Gran Torino – because people don't want to pay big bucks for Chinese food. We shall see, I suppose… *strokes chin*.]] and Dan Pepperell on the pans and Andy Tyson on the floor, they have a soothsayer knack for knowing precisely what kind of restaurant the city craves, then executing it with an overlay of their proprietary cool.
So I arrived on my first visit to their latest creation, Grandfathers, inside the former Long Chim at Angel Place, quite consciously hauling every ounce of those expectations in with me. This thing, I thought, has a lot to live up to.
Well, they've got the cool part sewn up. The pouty red and black decor, the semi-circle booths, the neon fish tanks, the tiny brass lion chopstick rests[["Are people stealing these?" I asked my waiter. "Yes," he replied sorrowfully. Please, people, don't steal things from restaurants. We're grown-ups, aren't we?]], the sound system warbling Cantonese versions of New Order's "Blue Monday".[[ A signature move from this group; Neptune's Grotto has a playlist of 1960s pop belted out by Italian crooners.]] It's basically a 1980s Chinese restaurant in Bendigo with an Instagram account. Very good.