Icebergs - Sydney

Introduction: Created by Mario Terzini, the man who started the very popular Cafe e Cuccina in Melbourne and was a major influence in developing the 'coffee culture', has found a magnificent venue at 1 Nott St at the end of Bondi Beach for his iconic Sydney restaurant. The views from the window tables (table93 is best) of the full length of the beach with surf crashing virtually beneath your feet is unparallaled
Ambience: An immediate feeling of quality and you know this is not going to be a cheap dinner. Lighting s almost entirely by candle power which is romantic but makes it extremely hard to read the menu. Eventually our attentive waiter offered me a small torch!!
Service: Reasonably prompt, full explanations of the specials as well as menu items where requested, faultless.
Food: Both the Frittata with black truffles and goats cheese and the pea soup with pork crackling were extremely tasty despite being slightly over salty. Fot me the pea soup, which was just thick enough for it to be posible to eat it from one half of the plate without it spreading to the other half, would also have been improved if some smoked ham had been cooked with it. The accompaning sourdough bread with olive oil, butter on request, was replaced promptly without request.
For mains we had the Wagu beef for two. Brought to the table for inspection before being cooked it was grade 6. Grades from 1 to 12 the last being almost entirely fat, 6 to 8 are regarded as the best. Grain feed for 400 days and well aged cooked medium rare and thick sliced it was a steak to die for. Remarkably tender with magnificent flavour. Dijon, English and seed mustards were offered but the horseradish went best with it. The accompanying Diacon salad was very lemony. A side dish of spinach went well.
The dessert of chocolate pudding, filled with chocolate and accompanied by a burnt vanilla icecream topped with pistachio nuts was a rich delight
Wine: We drank Henchke Pinot Gris (2005) and Mitolo Cab/Sav (2005) by the glass ($13 and $12)
Price:The Wagu at $165 made this a little more expensive than it might have been. Around $250 for three courses for two.
Comments: Apart from the views Icebergs is particularly highly regarded for its steaks, indeed they have a special, separate steak menu.
Score:16 /20