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At Dean & Nancy on 22, high above the city, one of the current favourite cocktails is the 2001 Space Odyssey, a cocktail inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film of the same name. This is the film, of course, in which HAL 9000 quietly demonstrates that artificial intelligence can become extremely troublesome if left unsupervised.
The Drover’s Wife, directed by Leah Purcell with a libretto by Purcell and composer George Palmer, is based on Purcell’s acclaimed reinterpretation of Henry Lawson’s iconic 1892 story. Purcell broadens Lawson’s tale of a pioneering woman battling isolation and a snake to confront Australia’s violent colonial history through the introduction of Yadaka, a First Nations man fleeing persecution.
As we have previously commented, the Park Hyatt does the best breakfast in the world along with the best view. This does create difficulties when someone asks how you would like your eggs, because you are too busy staring through the window and wondering whether it would be socially acceptable to move permanently into The Dining Room.
But Champagne now has competition. The latest French obsession is butter. French butter, particularly the Breton sort made by Maison Bordier, has acquired the sort of following usually associated with limited-edition handbags and restaurants whose booking systems open at 3am and are full by 3.01.
Wednesday night is an interesting choice for the opening night of an opera in Sydney, particularly when it collides with State of Origin. My husband mentioned this several times.
To be the world’s best at anything is outrageous. Most of us would settle for being the best in our own kitchen at locating the scissors, or the best in the family at reversing out of a Bunnings car park. To be declared the world’s best at something suggests rarefied air and a tiny plinth. The world’s best omelette. The world’s best left-footed goal. The world’s best hotel pillow, which I am convinced exists and is being kept from us by powerful interests.
In 1884, a steamboat came to grief on the Albert River and washed up near the Beenleigh sugar property with a copper still on board. This was the sort of historical accident that makes modern branding departments sob into their mood boards. John Davy and Francis Gooding, who were growing sugarcane in that steamy corner of Queensland, looked at the stranded apparatus and appear to have reached the only sane conclusion: the universe wanted rum.
Handpicked Wines is a highly organised, beautifully hydrated, soil-conscious, Pinot-whispering operation in which even the worms probably have professional development plans.
Topper’s Mountain is well suited to such vinous eccentricity. Founded by vigneron Mark Kirkby, the vineyard sits in one of Australia’s youngest wine regions, where high altitude, cool climate and rich red volcanic ash soils create the sort of conditions that alternative varieties find extremely agreeable. If mainstream grapes are the people who arrive at dinner parties with a reliable bottle of Chardonnay and sensible shoes, Topper’s Mountain is where the more intriguing guests gather in the kitchen: Manseng, Nebbiolo, Gewürztraminer, Touriga, Tinta Cão, Tinta Roriz and now, the Spanish oddity with the almost biblical backstory.
There are certain inventions that make humanity look briefly magnificent. The wheel. The printing press. Antibiotics. The emergency Tim Tam. And now, with absolutely no regard for the dignity of civilisation, Real McCoy has launched a Cinnamon Doughnut Whiskey Liqueur, which sounds ridiculous until you taste it and begin making dangerous plans involving ice and a second bottle.
I grew up devoted to Get Smart. For me, Maxwell Smart was the perfect secret agent. He blundered magnificently through danger with the cheerful confidence of a man who had never once allowed competence to ruin a good adventure. Which is why The Porter House Hotel Sydney struck me as exactly the sort of place where Agent 86 might stay, provided CONTROL had suddenly acquired excellent taste and a heritage architecture budget.
It’s easy to label time away at a health retreat ‘for yourself’ as indulgent, or a luxury even.
But the older I get, the more I see it differently. Taking deliberate time out isn’t about escape. It’s about maintenance. A reset. A considered pause that allows me to return sharper, calmer and frankly, a little bit better company for everyone else.
