Continental Deli crew’s new Newtown spot channels New York vibes with a cherry on top

To start, cold slices of roast lamb leg, thin as ribbons, with anchovy mayonnaise and much black pepper. Order a bread roll and fashion the perfect sandwich for a picnic. Then smoked belly ham with devilled eggs, a prawn cocktail and duck-liver parfait; maybe the grilled lamb’s tongue with salsa verde. For dinner, an imposing grass-fed rib-eye where dark crust meets butter-yellow fat and bone marrow-enhanced jus. There’ll be creamed corn, fries and a cheesy jacket potato. There’ll be amber cocktails and American whiskey. Dessert is a knickerbocker glory. This is my new ground zero for “Diet starts tomorrow”.

According to the Joe’s Tavern menu, the knickerbocker glory is an “ice-cream sundae created in New York, popularised in England and perfected in Newtown”. The same can be said for the pitch of the bar and restaurant, which is inspired by the kind of Brooklyn chophouse where a down-on-his-luck Jimmy Stewart might have followed an Old Fashioned with littleneck clams and broiled lamb. But many dishes also feel very Jane Grigson school of English meat cookery, and there’s a sunny Sydney vibe to the service and honeyed light.

But before I get too excited about the kitchen’s way with a pig, pour out a gazpacho for Flora. The vegetarian restaurant, one of three new Australia Street venues from the Continental Deli team this year, opened at the same site in January. Meat and fish were later introduced and chef Mans Engberg came over from Mister Grotto next door to lead the kitchen. Flora’s omnivorous menu was perhaps too close in pitch to Continental Deli’s bistro offering, however, and the team relaunched the timber-walled space as Joe’s Tavern in October. It’s named after co-owner Joe Valore, who runs the Australia Street venues with chef Elvis Abrahanowicz, Sarah Doyle and cocktail gun Michael Nicolian.

I’d like to think there’s a market in Sydney for more ambitious vegetarian restaurants, but I guess we’re not there yet. Joe’s Tavern is quite the flip, too: out with the mushroom bolognese, in with a “parts and labour” pig plate of “crispy belly, crumbed chop stuffed with its own ham and provolone cheese, and confit shoulder wrapped in cabbage”. It comes with a Vienna sausage and, on one visit, the kitchen was out of the shoulder chou farci, so you got a small steak of maple-glazed ham instead. Everything is slicked with dark, delicious jus.

Abrahanowicz and Engberg’s love and respect for the old ways is also evident in the lamb plate, featuring grilled, rose-pink chops, braised and pressed shoulder and a fat coil of harissa-spiced leg sausage. Photographs of French masters such as Paul Bocuse and Eugenie Brazier frame the room and almost nod in approval. They’re joined by portraits of assorted nose-to-tail doyens (Fergus Henderson, April Bloomfield) and chefs Abrahanowicz learned his trade with (Justin North, Matt Moran).

Whenever the kitchen gets peak-condition pig feet, there will be a special of pig’s trotter stuffed with sweetbreads – a signature of French chef Pierre Koffmann recreated by Marco Pierre White and the great Jeremy Strode. Those blokes have portraits at Joe’s, too.

Meanwhile, don’t miss the mint julep. This isn’t something I usually write, but the Kentucky Derby icon isn’t usually made with a masterstock-style tincture regularly topped up fresh mint so the flavour runs long and deep. I suspect it’s especially cracking next to the smoked and fried chicken wings on the specials menu. There’s also a rich burger with a half-and-half beef and lamb mix and nutty Ossau-Iraty sheep’s milk cheese, and vegetable entrees include chubby grilled asparagus spears enveloped in prawn-head bearnaise. A vibrant tomato salad is bolstered by shellfish vinaigrette; iceberg lettuce is lavishly dressed with blue cheese as the steakhouse gods intended.

And yes, you do want that timeless knickerbocker glory: a tall glass of vanilla ice-cream with strawberries (both fresh and in syrup form), whipped cream and tiny puffs of toasted meringue. It’s engineered by pastry chef (and recent Good Food Guide Chef of the Year winner) Lauren Eldridge, who also contributes a thumping wodge of New York cheesecake with a thick and perfect graham cracker crust and a “PB&J” ice-cream sandwich of peanut-butter parfait and raspberry jelly between a chewy, chocolate cookie. That one’s described as “What Elvis would order.” Diet starts next week.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine

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