Eating with the AU: The Animal at the Newtown Hotel, Sydney

Upstairs at the recently renovated and reopened, ever-so-popular Newtown Hotel – the latest to join the Keystone Group’s run of venues around Sydney – are two exciting additions to the Newtown nightlife. First, a rooftop cinema, and secondly, a brand new restaurant called The Animal, featuring a fusion of Australian and Greek cuisines.

Unlike many of Newtown’s most popular restaurants, this isn’t your usual Newtown cheap eatery. A meal here is going to set you back a bit more than what an average uni student can afford. But the food is very much worth it, and it creates a new destination for the locally employed. The Tuesday evening we attended was no exception; the place was packed!

We began the evening with a serving of their split pea dip; a variation on the traditional hummus spread, and accompanied by black sea salt. Indeed, the taste wasn’t too dissimilar from hummus, however the texture was something quite different, producing a soft, almost dough like quality. Accompanied with some perfectly cooked, lightly grilled pita bread, this is a great way to get the meal started. I also enjoyed a Ginger Beer from Broome Brewery Matso’s. The beer is low in alcohol but high in flavour.

Of course, any Mediterranean meal wouldn’t be complete without sharing plates, and the idea here is very much of that nature. Order a couple of starters, a couple of mains and a salad… then hopefully you have some room for desert. Share with your friends accordingly.

Said meal wouldn’t be complete without seafood either, so we started our meal with the Octopus ($17). Beautifully cooked to enhance the soft, chewy texture, the creatures were accompanied by a red wine balsamic dressing with olive oil, some beautiful baby onions and a surprising dash of cinnamon and capers, which brought about a beautiful balance to the meal. Make sure you have some extra pita bread on hand, too, as you’re going to want to lap up the left over dressing.

The scallops came next ($18), sitting on top of warm olive oil and an yogurt base, covered in trout pearls and a tomato basil salsa. The scallops were perfectly cooked, and the accompaniments divine, though I could also have done without the warm olive oil. I don’t know if that was an intention or a byproduct of the warm dish, however.

We enjoyed a couple of cocktails between starters and mains ($15-$18), and settled into the “King Freddy Fudpucker” (try saying that ten times fast) – a tequila based cocktail topped off with mandarin, almond, lemon and dry ginger – and the Janis Joplin – featuring chamomile tea-infused Jack Daniels, white creme de cacao, Cointreau and lemon. I enjoyed the former while my female companion enjoyed the latter. We were both pleased with our choices, and thuogh for me, the Joplin was a unique, delicious drink, the Fudpucker was a familiar enjoyment that I just couldn’t go past.

Moving onto the mains, we enjoyed two main dishes, a salad and a side of potatoes ($10), roasted in lemon and tossed in capers, onions, oils and herbs. Perfection. It was slightly too much food for two people, perhaps more suited for three when you add in the starters, but the variety was something we couldn’t go past.

The first main came off of “the spit” menu, which features a different selection of meats every night. The coal roasted “suckling lamb” is the most popular and is usually on offer ($20). We went for the Wagyu Bolar Blade ($19 – pictured in header), however, beautifully sliced beef, served simply with lemon and left to simmer in the juices it had been cooking in. With meat that good, I daresay you don’t need too much else, though enjoying the beef in the same bite as some of the potato was definitely a sound choice.

The braised 9 hour lamb shoulder moussaka ($22) was our other main, and a beautiful choice. The dish, which in the simplest of terms is like a lasagna that has had the pasta sheets replaced by eggplant – or in even simpler terms, it’s a Greek casserole. The flavours were absolutely stunning in this dish, to the point where I find myself not nearly adept enough as a food writer to describe it. All I can say is that it’s a must try dish on the menu.

For salads, we went for the watermelon ($14), covered in fetta and mint, and accompanied by “pita croutons”, which were just as the name describes, and presented almost like leaves. This fresh salad was delicious, and a well considered option to settle the stomach during a barrage of meats and seafood – not to mention pita bread. Though the menu also offers a Beetroot salad and a Greek we didn’t try, I daresay this is the highlight of the salad menu.

Somehow we saved just enough room for dessert and shared “Dad’s Chocolate Walnut Cake”, covered in cream, rasberries and walnut brittle ($13). It was one of those chocolate cakes where the word ‘perfect’ immediately springs to mind. You’re not going to go wrong there.

We ended the night with two more cocktails – the “Mr Charisma”, which featured vodka, cumquat marmalade, lemon and mint, and the “Florodora Sextette” with gin, rasberry, rose, lemon, orange bitters and ginger beer. The former is one of the finest cocktails either of us had not only enjoyed that evening but in some time. A highly inspired blend, and an absolutely beautiful drink. Unfortunately, with a variety of flavours competing for your attention, we didn’t feel the same for the Sextette. But we barely scratched the surface of the cocktail menu, and there are no doubt plenty of other finds in there.

This was a feast by no uncertain terms. We left the animal feeling like the restaurant’s namesake. Though there are vegetarian options, such as a Spinach, Ricotta and Fetta Pie which I’m told is fantastic, as well as the beautiful salads, this is very much a restaurant for carnivores. If you are one, and live in the Newtown area, this is definitely a restaurant worth splashing out on every once in a while.

All prices were correct at the time of printing. Larry and his companion dined as guests of the restaurant on a Tuesday night. The Animal is located at 174 King Street Newtown, NSW 2042, and is open for Lunch and Dinner 7 days a week.