For the most part, there are two types of restaurant. Those that meet a need in the market and those that carve a new path through our culinary landscape. In its short existence Ester has not only surfed the new wave of Australian dining, it has defined it. Smart, considered, simple dishes championing the ingredients of our Asian region, all backed by solid technique. The drop-in wine bar swagger of the front of house service encourages a boisterously energetic room that’s left formalities on the coat rack. And yet professionalism is not forgotten. Ester is, if nothing more, the embodiment of our way of life. It’s grown up without forgetting to be young at heart – exemplified by an irreverent wine list featuring everything from the funkiest skin contact fizz to those of elegance and refinement. A pizza oven lies at the heart of chef Mat Lindsay’s honest and playful menu, but don’t expect pizzas. Instead, prawns are butterflied, lathered in burnt butter and roasted by the mesmerising amber glow of the wood-fired oven. So too the wobbly meat butter of bone marrow singing overtures of shellfish by house-made XO. Meanwhile gently charred spatchcock nests in a gorgeous garlic bread sauce that’ll make you lick the plate. And that’s the thing, the staff would encourage such an act. In fact flames are licking even in the final moments when a slightly burnt meringue adds a campfire marshmellow edge to the classic pavlova. You see, at Ester, Lindsay not only delivers the future of contemporary dining in Australia right now, he reminds us to have fun too.
Tel: 02 8068 8279

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