Tarte tatin isn’t a dish you’d expect to find at a restaurant associated with Sydney’s godfather of modern Greek food, Peter Conistis. But the Gallic-leaning Le Grand Grill, which opens in Brighton-Le-Sands on Wednesday, November 11, not only has tarte tatin on the menu, but steak tartare, French butter and emulsified sauces aplenty.
The tatin, though, is what Conistis believes is a game-changer. The veteran chef isn’t blowing his own pan flute either, because it isn’t his dish; it was conjured by executive chef James Roberts, who Conistis says will take the lead at Le Grand Grill while he’ll be in support.
“It’s such a great variation of tarte tartin,” Conistis says. “The flavour combination, the way the carrot is slowly cooked in spice butter.”
Turning a sweet dish savoury isn’t Roberts’ only trick at Le Grand Grill, which Conistis describes as equal parts French-inspired restaurant and crowd-pleasing steakhouse.
Roberts draws on the tips and twists he picked up hovering around his home kitchen as a child, where his Algerian-born French mother would cook the likes of rabbit tagine or slip spices or olives into her ragout. Professionally, he honed his technique at seminal Sydney restaurant Est. before spending the past two decades working alongside Conistis at Omega, Civic Dining and – upstairs from Le Grand Grill – at Greek restaurant, Ammos.
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Le Grand Grill is a chance for the right-hand man to step out of the shadows, drawing on decades of the executive chef and culinary director bouncing ideas off each other. The bone marrow dotted with harissa-spiked yoghurt? That’s Roberts’ dish, but Conistis had a say, too. “Peter came up with the cucumber salad that goes with it,” Roberts says.
Le Grand Grill is serious about its meat program, too: expect True North Beef tenderloin, Kidman cote de boeuf and citrus-fed Chauvel striploin served on the bone, plus a Westholme wagyu tomahawk cooked over ironbark and charcoal before being carved tableside. Le Grand Grill is also one of just two restaurants in Sydney currently serving Frites Atelier, the fries created by Michelin-starred Dutch chef Sergio Herman.
As well as enjoying the spices his mother introduced to his palate, Roberts is cooking with red-wine jus, and road-testing a dry-aged duck kumquat dish to go alongside more French classics, including madeleines scented with lavender for dessert.
The 150-seat ground-floor hotel restaurant site has sat empty for a couple of years as restaurants opened above it at The Brighton Hotel Sydney (a Japanese restaurant at the complex is next). Different chefs were attached to the site before Roberts and Conistis jumped at the chance to hard launch it. “The marble has beautiful burgundy streaks, like a steak,” Conistis says of the fitout, which also features a walk-in wine cellar.
Roberts says the restaurant’s moniker was dreamt up over a long lunch: Le Grand Grill is a play on the restaurant’s setting, referencing both its Brighton-Le-Sands location, and the suburbs’ waterside arterial, The Grand Parade.
Open: Lunch Fri-Sun; dinner Wed-Sun
2 Princess Street, Brighton-Le-Sands, legrandgrill.com.au
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