Passé are the days of paired wine – the Gantry's new tasting event in collaboration with local gin distiller Archie Rose comes matched not with drinks (which wouldn't be unreasonable to expect, especially with a gin-maker as one half of the equation) but with curated botanical distillates each tailored to match a course or cocktail. 'Curated what now?' you might be thinking, and an understandable question that would be.
In a city packed with hidden laneway bars and chic, broom-closet-sized restaurants, there's something invitingly freeing about the expanse and negative space of a restaurant set in a hotel. The Gantry, on the ground floor of Pier One Hotel in Walsh Bay, is one such space, open and overlooking the lapping waters of Sydney Harbour. It's a space in which you feel the freedom to try a little something different. From Thursdays to Sundays throughout October, the Gantry will join forces with the Archie Rose team to deliver a menu designed to be sprayed with fragrant botanicals before eating, to add a new layer of flavour and complexity (and gimmick, let's not beat around the bush here) to each dish.
You'll find five alchemic brown bottles clustered on your table when you arrive, each annotated with a different Alice in Wonderland-esque description. Spritz a raspberry distillate onto a plate of Sydney Rock Oysters with gin mignonette and slices of gin-cured kingfish, a plate which brings together the waterfront beauty of the Gantry with a little boozy Archie Rose flair. Next is a tender, crisp-skinned snapper accompanied by a creamy beurre blanc and the tang of finger limes. The spritzing element of the evening requires more precision than expected: some sprays are designed to be applied only to a certain part of the dish (a honey distillate is intended only for the caramelised crust of a molten marshmallow in a very high-end, lemon meringue style riff on s'mores for dessert), while the aromas of another raspberry distillate are supposed to hover just above a gin fizz cocktail. The pink peppercorn distillate isn't for your plate at all, but for your nose. "Smell before eating," it directs, once you arrive at course four, a cut of charcoal-roasted kangaroo with sweet corn, polenta and a whisky-infused sauce. Any menu that comes with not one but two desserts gets the tick of approval from us – save room for the aforementioned swanky s'mores, and finish off with the Gantry's signature dessert, a pill-shaped chocolate shell filled with dulche de leche and cocoa nibs, set on a fudgy base.
To enjoy an event like this takes a small yet healthy amount of blissful ignorance and blind faith. Just gloss over the fact that spraying your food with alcohol-scented mists in the middle of a pandemic can feel like you're taking the hand san advice a little too seriously, and don't dwell too long on the thought that figuring out whether you're supposed to spritz your freshly shucked oysters with juniper or peppercorn botanicals seems a little unhinged when the state next door can't even order takeaway food. Just roll with it. It's fine. You're fine.
Get the six courses accompanied by two cocktails and two wines – as well as, of course, the distillates – for $200 per person.
Book online at the Gantry.