Sometime before our entrees arrive, a trolley comes by, wheeled by a waiter proffering champagne and a soupcon of caviar, for a spontaneous $50 a head. We decline, feeling glamorous enough already with a New Zealand pinot noir in hand and a high-end three-course dinner just ahead. We're at Luke's Kitchen in the vast and spectacular lobby of the Kimpton Margot, one of Sydney's newest hotels. A few weeks after our meal, it will become a one-hat restaurant at the Good Food Guide awards, the eponymous chef Luke Mangan OAM being no stranger to such culinary gongs.
We're dining from a special Moulin Rouge! pre-theatre dinner menu, because the Kimpton Margot in all its art deco magnificence - it's in the heritage-listed former Sydney water board headquarters, built in 1939 in the CBD - is the "official hotel partner" of Baz Luhrmann's bold and brash hit musical. It's playing at the nearby Capitol Theatre, another of the city's stunning historic landmarks.
It's the joyful retro vibe, coasting from elegant to bawdy, that pulls it all together.
Given Moulin Rouge! is steeped in fin de siecle art nouveau sensibility, the hotel and the musical miss each other by a few decades epoch-wise, which matters not a jot. It's the joyful retro vibe, coasting from elegant to bawdy, that pulls it all together to make a thoroughly memorable night.
For entree, my partner chooses the prawn bisque with crab meat which, given he raves about it like a cooking show judge, seems to have trumped my deliciously aromatic tempura zucchini flowers, served beneath a generous layer of grated pecorino.
I declare myself winner of the mains with my steak frites, a bona fide French retro classic. It's a mountain of melt-in-the-mouth protein and salty carbs with dollops of Café de Paris butter. After a dessert of warm bourbon chocolate tart with blood orange sorbet, we're ready for the 10-minute amble to the theatre, through the buzz of a busy Friday night on the CBD streets. Sydney, you're back. kimptonmargotsydney.com
