See the squiggly line over the n? That’s called a tilde and it changes the pronunciation of the word. You’ll sound more authentic if you say it right! 
WRONG: por-teen-oh, RIGHT: por-teen-yo. Yo is the key! (seriously though, it’s one of my pet hates when people pronounce jalapeño as ja-la-pee-no, instead of ha-la-peen-yo.)
During the time that TFP, Juji & Jay were in Sydney we got the chance to go to Porteño, and we were very happy to be dining there that night.
If you like meat, this is the place to go. Seriously, it’s a carnivore’s delight!
At the heart of it, Porteño is an Argentinian style barbecue restaurant. It’s designed to emulate the barbecue dinners experienced in Argentinian homes and restaurants, and features a distinct wood smell as you enter. As they say on their website, “It is a smell that tells you dinner will be ready, maybe not anytime soon, but it’s cooking.”
The restaurant is run by tattooed duo Ben Milgate and Elvis Abrahanowicz, who we first learned about from MasterChef AU. Unlike other chefs that you don’t tend to see at the actual restaurant, these guys are notably visible cooking, chopping and constructing dishes right in front of you.
We loved this restaurant, and we’ll certainly be back at some stage, as long as we can get in. They did get very busy, and they don’t take bookings for groups of less than five people or more than twelve, so I would imagine it could be fairly difficult to get in. For times like this you can always wait in Gardel’s Bar, a sort of limbo for those waiting for a seat in the main restaurant. There is a bar menu available for you to snack on while you wait.
They also have a private dining room that seats up to twelve guests, with a minimum spend of $1500, but I don’t think it would be hard to get up to that level, especially with twelve guests. If you’re a party of eight or more, you get the chef’s banquet style menu which I assume is a set menu, and costs $70 per person.
We don’t expect that everyone will like Porteño, I’m guessing vegetarians in particular, but perhaps also those who don’t like the informal cooking methods, but that’s ok, more of the good stuff for us!
The restaurant itself, is set in a covered courtyard. I’m guessing this was deliberate, but either way it’s a brilliant idea. Not only because of the glorious light that floods in if you’re there early enough, but because it really sets the scene.
Ah, the fantastic meat. The night starts with two pigs and two lambs cooking over the coals. Over the next few hours these are carved apart. There are two seatings at the restaurant, 6:00pm – 8:30pm and 9:00pm – close. We noticed the meat disappearing rapidly at our early seating, and wondered whether they have more set aside for the later seating. If not, you’re probably not going to get what you want at the later seating, but I seriously doubt that would be the case.
The carving station. Complete with a butcher’s dissection chart.
The service bar (Gardel’s bar is upstairs). I love the look of the waiters. They look like they were transplanted directly from 1950s Argentina!
Serious carving implements.
The bread was absolutely lovely. Crisp and firm on the outside, and soft and fluffy on the inside.
The bread came with olive oil and pork pate ($2 per person). The other two condiments, chimichurri (chilli) and criolla (salsa) were for the meat dishes.
Elvis at the chopping station.
Calamres Asado ($18). BBQ calamari with chickpeas, preserved lemon and watercress. Very nice and tender and with a lovely BBQ taste. Strangely I particularly liked the chickpeas and sauce that it came in.
For drinks Caroline and I each had a lemon, lime and bitters. Very nice, and with chunks of real lemon and lime.
Out of the meats, the lamb was the star of the show in my opinion. Perfectly cooked, skin on, and crispy, just a lovely, lovely taste. ($42)
I enjoyed the pork as well but thought that the cracking would be more crackly. It was crispy, and had a satisfying crack when bitten, but I’ve had much better crackling in my time. In all fairness though, perhaps that method of cooking didn’t lend itself to that kind of crackling. The meat itself was nice and tender and tasty. ($44)
For me the absolute star of the show was the brussels sprouts (with lentils and mint) ($14), which is amazing. I mean I always liked brussels but these were deep fried and distinctly different to the usual boiled sprouts. Even TFP, someone who notoriously (well, maybe not notoriously) dislikes brussels sprouts said these were pretty good. And guess what? There’s even a recipe online for them.
A definite meat fest!
We did have some carbs in the form of polenta with provolone cheese ($14). I’m not a huge polenta fan, but I was willing to give it a try and it turned out really nice. I’ll certainly have that again. It was of course, most probably the cheese that gave it the creamy consistency.
As if all that meat wasn’t enough we also had the O’Connor grass fed Angus beef short ribs ($30). They were good, not as tasty as I thought they’d be, but still very good.
As you can see, not much was left. Voracious eaters – all of us!
Dessert time. Leche Quemada ($14). Burnt milk custard with orange jam and chocolate ice cream (and unannounced on the menu, popcorn!) So nice and creamy. We loved the orange jam and the popcorn.
Piña Colada spider ($14). Pineapple soda and coconut-rum ice cream. Oh I wish I could have another of these right now.
Postre Chaja ($14). Argentinian style pavlova. Very interesting, very nice. I loved the meringue, and the sponge. I could go for one of these now as well. I certainly am the king of desserts. Well, the king of eating desserts!
Finally we ended off with coffee and tea. I asked for a flat white but was denied as they only do short coffees. We instead had a piccolo, a teeny, tiny version of a latte. Check out that coffee compared to the glass!
That’s why I took the photo with the glass. On its own it doesn’t really look that small. It was a very good coffee though.
TFP had an Argentinian tea that I’ll let her explain in more detail on her site. Let’s just say we defined it as granny tea! I didn’t taste it, but it certainly did smell like granny. Not that that is really bad of course, as long as you like the smell of mothballs, primarily coming from the tea itself that is very camphor like.
SECRET FOOD BLOGGING TIPS SECTION! LOL. Not really…
The restaurant was nice and light when we arrived, but towards the end of the meal it was getting quite dark like most restaurants end up being. What to do if you’re a keen food blogger who needs light for good photos? No problem, TFP took out her iPad and while Jay held up the light source she took the necessary photos. Indeed my photo of the pavlova was taken using the iPad as a light source and it came out very nicely actually! Thanks for the idea TFP.
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pina colada,
polenta,
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porteño,
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surry hills,
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