Oncore – Barangaroo NSW Restaurant Review

We ate at Oncore to celebrate a number of occasions, one of which being my partners recent exam success. Two things have come of the past few years of pegfeeding – one has been that I’ve become much more appreciative of just how good a meal you can get at a nice neighbourhood restaurant, and two is just this overall sense of burnout.

I don’t really have the desire to go through each course in step by step detail as I once did, but I will present some thoughts from the night.

• I enjoyed the seating plan, where we were sat essentially next to each other, facing the water. The view of the water was pretty nice, though the windows could have used some cleaning. I wonder what a gargantuan task that would be, at such a height.
• Though we were faced away from the open kitchen, it was nice to peek back at it on occasion.
• Service from the waitstaff was by far the best and most attentive we’ve had at a fine dining restaurant in recent memory.
• The food was generally pretty good. We had the choice of two menus, a permanent and a seasonal menu, and we were able to each have a different one, meaning that we really did get to sample a large variety of different morsels.
• I enjoyed the snacks course, and we had a lot of bottomless bread.
• There was an overall heavy reliance on tableside saucing. I think probably greater than 80-90% of the courses involved some kind of sauce that was poured tableside. Why? Was this absolutely necessary? The theatre of a tableside pour diminishes when you’re doing it for every single dish.
• My friend bought some grape candies from Japan that were 90% as good as the grape dessert at Oncore.
• It wasn’t Sepia, and at this point I don’t know if anything ever will be again.
• Where is Clare Smyth?

Oncore
Crown Sydney, Level 26/1 Barangaroo Ave, Barangaroo NSW 2000