Opportunity doesn’t necessarily knock. Sometimes it pours you a glass of wine and says, “we’ve got a space upstairs you should see”. This is how Porcine, the beautiful, French garret restaurant on Oxford Street came to be, perched on the first floor above the aqua blue façade of natural wine shop, P&V Wine and Liquor. Together the two businesses cover excess in all its most delicious forms: downstairs is where you stock the home bar with everything funky, fresh and smashable that comes with an age restriction, plus a local larder of snacks and condiments. Like to try before you buy? They operate a mini wine bar out in the back courtyard.
But upstairs is where your cheat day has died and gone to heaven, via the giant pat of house-churned butter and fresh bread sitting at the top of the stairs. On our visit the menu is in deep cool weather territory and the dish that we will never stop thinking about arrives early in proceedings. We didn’t know we needed foie gras wrapped in a gingerbread in our life, but it was worth every painstaking minute of the month that Nik Hill spent recipe testing to work out the perfect balance of chicken liver and butter made into a parfait. The gingerbread dough needed to be baked at low temps to protect the rich heart of the dish, and a spoon of prunes soaked in Earl Grey tea and sherry vinegar is the sweet, sharp foil to a heartstopper of an entree.
They keep those famously creamy French hits coming in the form of a potato gratin combined with a smoked eel brandade made with brined and hot-smoked fish that Hill makes up in the Hawkesbury as his side hustle. It gives the vegetable side a salty, savoury force that makes you view eels and potatoes in a whole new light.
The funny thing about Sydney is that we get very attached to certain dishes very quickly, which means even the best intentions of a daily changing menu are futile in the face of the dining public’s love of the pork cruton here. It’s a Quebecois dish that takes onions cooked with brandy and spices, adds chicken liver and then combines it with pork fat and crème fraiche. A side of lentils is the dish’s unlikely companion, but provides essential grounding to such artery-crushing delights.
The structure of the menu is simple: 14 dishes, two sides, two desserts, and the majority of the mains will be taken from the whole pig that comes in from western NSW each week and is broken down in house. They age it, make hams from the legs, farce from the neck and shoulder, and then on our visit, they roast a giant pork chop on the bone, letting the loin rest in a bath of pork fat and butter while grilling the belly over charcoal and lacquering it in beer honey. The plate also includes a little mince stuffed cabbage, a perfect piece of crackling and a jus of lardo and fino sherry.
Hill describes the direction as “pretty loose” with its French origins. It’s a bit Lyonnais, a bit Canadian and come summer he is planning to turn the focus to Nice and Provence with more salads; clean, sharp vegetables; and a lot less cream and pastry.
Porcine is a three-way venture from Nik Hill (Old Fitz) Harry Levy (Don Peppino’s) and Matt Fitzgerald. Levy is responsible for a good times wine list that includes lots of Euro fun, like the Vej Bianco Antico, an Italian skin contact that tastes like a Bellini, plus Sparrow and Vine house wines. Fitzgerald is responsible for the beverages with a higher ABV if you fancy a classic cocktail, a sharp aperitif or something sweet and fortified to finish.
And while you scrape out the last bits of a crème brulee or a chocolate mousse, you’ll already be wondering how quickly your budget and blood glucose levels will let you return.