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It is a truth universally acknowledged in Sydney dining circles that special occasion dining demands special occasion views. You may not have made it to Santorini this year, but a table laden with a Hellenic feast set to the backdrop of Botany Bay is as close to ‘summer in Europe’ as you can get via Opal card. And while international travel can at times be stressful, expensive and arduous, dining at Ammos, the new neutral-chic Greek restaurant in the Novotel in Brighton Le Sands, is relaxing and hospitable.
It’s not everywhere that can accommodate a quadruple date alongside dinner-for-two, but the beauty of a floor plan this generous is that each table is its own island. And if you do have an intergenerational gathering on the horizon, there is definitely a strong case for bringing more people with you to Ammos.
In true Greek style, the menu is lengthy and the serves are generous
A plate of feather-light whipped feta is a snow-white, salty canvas for the earthy funk of black garlic, gentle Turkish chilli heat, sweet red capsicum and lemon oil. Pita is the obvious sidekick, but why not level-up your Greek game and order the flaounes instead. These golden, sweet-and-savoury baked pastries are like a souped-up dinner roll, stuffed with three cheeses and a sweet mix of honey, fresh grape juice and mint. They’re basted in a butter fragrant with the Greek spice mahlepi, which has a distinctive fruity sharpness that is hard to place if you didn’t grow up with the aroma of freshly baked Cypriot Easter pies in your home.
And that’s just one dip that easily feeds two, so you need at least four more people to add on a classic tzatziki and the zhuzhed up white taramasalata with bottarga. As much as we love a meal of ‘things-you-can-dip-bread-into’, there are greater adventures to be had on a menu that spans 50+ items – including seven regional Greek cheeses – before you even get to dessert. Want to try something you’ll never find in the deli fridge at your local? The ladotyri is a sheep’s milk cheese that’s aged and preserved in olive oil, and has been made to strict conditions on Lesbos for centuries.
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Head chef Peter Conistis has been in the cheffing game for more than three decades, so it’s worth paying attention when he flips the script, frying up a school of anchovies like whitebait. Sardines arrive cured, and we appreciate that Conistis is not shying away from their strong, metallic bite, instead tempering the fish with the equally forceful flavour of fresh fennel and blood orange.
Of course lamb has its own menu section, and you can go all in on the 11-hour slow roasted shoulder, but if you want to keep skipping from dish to dish instead of dropping anchor in the big protein section, you could always just dip a toe in with two perfectly cooked lamb tomahawks, as golden and evenly bronzed as a career sunbather.
It may be meat- and dairy-free, but the Lenten-style zucchini, eggplant and tomatoes stuffed with a chamomile-infused rice pilaf manages to concentrate the flavours of a summer harvest into one artfully presented plate that turns out to be the surprising star of our meal. It may in fact be too delicious for it to qualify as a form of self-denial during your fasting period.
Die-hard taramasalata fans can square-up to the remixed moussaka that Conistis has been making ever since his first restaurant, Cosmos. It’s a cold dish that reimagines ‘surf and turf’ as ‘garden and sea’, with roasted eggplant bookending white roe dip, seared scallops and topped with a fresh tomato salsa and Yarra Valley salmon pearls – there’s a lot going on.
Does food taste better if you had to queue for it? Is it Uber access only? Are people eyeing off your table like they’re big-game hunters? Sure, sometimes the thrill of the chase adds a little spice to your night out, but there’s something to be said for a venue with on-site parking (perks of hotel life), bookings and a fairly relaxed approach to time.
Add big serves, water views, friendly staff and a wine list that reads like a holiday wish list and Ammos is a big green flag for striking outside the inner-city dining bubble
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