The curry at this hidden spot has ‘everything you want and need for winter’, says our critic

A modern Indian wine bar in a northern beaches industrial zone. It’s like someone pulled a random location, cuisine and concept out of a hat and voila! Bazaar & Bar was born. In another universe, I could be writing about a Korean buffet that’s just opened at the Patonga pub (that would be excellent, now that I think about it).

But despite its combination of paneer-stuffed flatbread, beaut riesling and a view of leading window and door manufacturer Sydney Woodworkers, Bazaar & Bar’s opening last July was a calculated move. Propelled by strategic redevelopment, Brookvale is popping off with new breweries and bars such as Bucketty’s and Chalky’s, both within a five-iron of Bazaar. When I call to check the spices used in the goat laal maas, a popular Rajasthani curry, owner Kabir Arora tells me that while Brookvale has plenty of places to drink local beer, he saw a gap in the market for good wine and food that wasn’t buffalo wings.

Vital spices in the laal mass include single origin green cardamom and black pepper, and chef Adwait Jagtap sources pasture-raised loin and shank from The Gourmet Goat Lady near Dubbo. The meat has a beautiful length of flavour underlined by smoky-sweet Mathania chillies. Anyone who tells you that wine doesn’t go with Indian food (these people are out there, I’ve met them at Bordeaux tastings) has never hunkered down with a big glass of fruit-forward tempranillo and a complex but soothing dish like this. It’s everything you want and need for winter.

I missed a trick by not visiting Bazaar & Bar over summer, though. Its small streetside terrace seems like the right place for an amaro spritz in the sun, perhaps with a few Shark Bay scallops sparked up with thecha, a rough-textured green chilli chutney born in the state of Maharashtra. Jagtap’s thecha features crushed macadamias instead of the traditional peanuts, and their gentle sweetness blends well with the scallops’ gloss of brown butter.

Meanwhile, Kashmiri chilli-spiced beef croquettes are extra crunchy and topped with green apple and ginger chutney. Try them with a bottle of Taittinger or a chilled blend of pais and cinsault grapes from A Los Viñateros Bravos in Chile. With a mix of emerging organic producers and familiar names, plus a few Indian whiskies, this is one of Sydney’s best short drinks lists north of the bridge.

Like Bengali restaurant Kolkata Social in Newtown, Arora and Jagtap run a butter chicken and naan-free zone. They reckon it’s far more interesting to serve regional Indian dishes that can’t also be found in a bain-marie at Westfield Warringah food court. Indeed. Anyone really set on butter chicken can find comfort in the dhaba curry with a fall-apart Maryland and rich tomato gravy rippling with mustard oil.

And hey, look, it’s not a perfect package. A curry leaf gimlet doesn’t have much curry leaf flavour rising above the lime and gin; a lentil dhal is too generous with the salt. But these nitpicks are hardly mood or concept killers, and Bazaar & Bar has gradually developed a robust following over the past 12 months. As the adage goes, “If you can make it with goat curry and natural wine in the northern beaches, you can make it anywhere.”

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