A cut above

Walk into Woodcut at lunchtime on a sunny weekday and you may, for a moment, feel slightly disorientated — as if you’ve stepped back in time. Or, perhaps, that you have jumped forward to the future.

At Woodcut, the extraordinary new Barangaroo restaurant from Paddington-based chef Ross Lusted and his restaurateur partner Sunny Lusted, it is as though the past 12 months of living in a catastrophic pandemic have suddenly vanished. There’s no sign of shabbiness or depletion here.

At Woodcut, said to have received a $10 million fit-out courtesy of owner Crown, the gleaming tables are full. Ladies wear heels and silk dresses. Men, sharp suits and shades. The alluring scent of woodsmoke hangs in the air.

A cold seafood counter draped with marron and caviar sparkles to one side, a cocktail bar shimmies to another. Huge installation artworks and enormous light fixtures imported from Europe dangle from the ceiling. Luxury abounds: marble, gilt, leather, art, water views. COVID-19? Don’t mention it, no one else does.

The Lusteds were much loved and admired for their previous venue, the Bridge Room, a boutique city fine diner of sublime elegance. Eighteen months on from that venture, the stakes at Woodcut have been considerably raised. Woodcut seats 350 across the dining and bar spaces; the investment is mind boggling.

Over four open kitchens Lusted offers a bounty of Australian produce prepared simply but precisely. Choose from dishes that come from the wood oven, the wood grill, the ash grill, the cold seafood counter, the raw and cured bar, the vegetable counter or steam kettles (imported from Canada).

Start, perhaps, with some electrifyingly plump and briny Sydney rock oysters ($6) served with a mouth-smacking yuzu mignonette and take alongside it something from the cold seafood counter — raw kingfish with lychee, grilled ginger, coriander and chips ($28), say — that’s textural and subtle and delicious.

You could return frequently and eat something new and surprising each time. Pippies are prepared over steam and offered with vadouvan, roasted chickpeas and chickpea leaves ($33); from the wood oven, John Dory nestles alongside soft herbs, green olives and lemon ($65); while a beautifully cooked, spiced Maremma duck is simply served with rhubarb and softened dates ($65). Gorgeous.

Jurassic cuts of beef are licked by fire on the wood grill. A 1kg Rangers Valley Black Angus T-bone (aged for 270 days) is as beautifully handled as a grass-fed O’Connor tenderloin ($52).

The huge wine and cocktail list is directly from the old-school playbook; read: extensive, premium, marvellous. Service is friendly, direct, polished.

What a pleasure it is to slip out of the careworn shade of 2020 and into a place where Sydney returning to normality is not only a possibility but a reality.

If you feel worn down by the world and need a genuine escape, I could not recommend Woodcut highly enough. Its boldness is heady, its high-stakes glamour a fabulous and much-needed salve in an oppressive world of much darkness. Go, eat and be merry.

Woodcut

Level 1 (Ground), Crown Sydney, 1 Barangaroo Ave, Sydney

crownhotels.com.au/sydney/restaurants-bars/woodcut