Obsessed!

I just found a restaurant that I may have to find time to be truly obsessed with. It’s so fantastically cool that I wish I could have babies with it and fill Sydney with other equally-cool (though maybe a little bit more deranged) places.

Since my full-time job of restaurant writer requires me to be sane, I’m going to use this blog as an outlet to tell you about it in my own crazy, erratic, “ummm…I’m not sure that she’s even talking in coherent sentences anymore” kind of way.

The place is called LL Wine and Dine and I’m sorely disappointed that while other people have already managed to become regulars, I only just discovered it. It actually opened eleven weeks ago – right around the time that I could still walk without a ridiculously subtle limp (the one that makes people think I was just born ungraceful and wearing cheap, flat shoes).

Anyway, since I haven’t actually tried the food yet, I’m just going to tell you about how very aesthetically-orgasmic it is. But before I do that – porn wall and all – I have to retell its history because it’s pretty amusing.

The history

So picture this: three young lads, who happen to be brothers, decide to turn an abandoned adult bookstore into a funky new Potts Point (read Kings Cross) restaurant. Okay, so already you have to imagine that this is quite a task. There are all sorts of unsavoury parts of adult bookstores (especially ones that have been around for forty or so years, as this one had been) that you wouldn’t want to mix with food. So you have to sympathise with Tim, Chris and Matthew when they discovered that the place had an even more nefarious background than they first imagined.

This didn’t come to light in one, calm conversation with a previous owner – it was a gradual discovery during which they uncovered hydraulic doors, secret passageways and false exits. “What kind of porn needs those sorts of security measures?” you wonder “does the public need safeguarding? Does it feature Tony Abbott?” As it turns out, the bookstore served as a front for an illegal casino for quite some time. So no, it wasn’t quite so bad.

You’d think that having found this out, the brothers could go on with their lives in a happy, informed kind of way. But there was also the question of why so many condoms and other odd items were strewed about the place. Cutting a long story short, once the casino had been raided and the owner sold it, his replacement turned it into a swingers’ club (which eventually also got raided).

But the largest discovery – and I’m talking volume – was a secret attic filled with 35 garbage bags of old-school porn. There was enough material to bury the front part of the restaurant in two inches of boobs. In an instant the brothers were faced with a teenage boy’s ultimate fantasy and a responsible adult’s worst nightmare: What to do with all this porn?

Rather industriously, they decided to use the more quaint pages as wallpaper in the restaurant’s passageway (and give the rest away). And just so you don’t miss it, they mounted a bright red “ECSTACY” sign* right above it.

Looking at the wall is a bit like smoking a spliff in Amsterdam – you know you’re allowed, you know it’s not a big deal but you feel like there’s a giant red sign (in this case a rather suggestive one) flashing above your head alerting the world – and your mother – of your indecent behaviour. And yet you stop and search the various faces to see whether you can recognise any of them. That is until you realise that by now they’re old enough to be your mother, then some paranoid thoughts enter your mind and you decide that you don’t want to see anybody you know in that light, so you move on…

The restaurant
Aside from the wall which I’ve made quite a big deal out of, sorry (it’s not that big and I’m not that perverted), the rest of the restaurant is all class. The front bar has a certain old-world quality that comes with classic leather bar stools, polished wooden counters and shelves of alcohol. From there a corridor leads patrons from the bar, past the aforementioned wall and to the dining area. It is meant to make you feel like you’re going from the bar, through a laneway and into another bar. And, strangely, it does.

The back end of LL is split into three rooms:

The downstairs lounge simmers with red banquettes, white pillows with black embroidery that somehow seems suggestive (even though it’s not), round cocktail tables and warm-toned brocade ottomans. It’s a very Kings Cross-appropriate place to drink a cocktail.

The upstairs dining room is intimate, moody and very cool. So cool that at first you’re not sure whether you’re actually cool enough to hang around it, but then when you sit at one of its dark brown tables, you realise that it’s not about you at all. And that makes you feel cool.

The middle section shamelessly stares into the dining and lounge rooms like a true voyeur. Although it – and its modern Japanese screen feature wall – somehow manage to stay super classy.

A bit about the food

Okay, I haven’t tried the food or cocktails yet (but trust me I’m busily clearing my schedule to make it happen). So, just for the curious, I will say that the cuisine is modern Asian, prepared by chef Jin Kung (who has done stints at various good restaurants) and is a fusion of Chinese dishes with Thai and Japanese ideas.

Personally I’m looking forward to a chilli and coconut martini and some black tea and star anise smoked duck breast pancakes with house soy bean sauce and spring onion. I will update you on my experience. Let me know if you want to join me in my quest and become equally obsessed.

*the original name – and sign – of the bookstore.

Photography courtesy of Caroline McCredie