More Than a Meal

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What is your favourite restaurant?

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I have never been able to answer questions about a favourite restaurant in the singular, as though one place could do all the work required of it. Restaurants are not interchangeable. There are restaurants for celebration, for conversation, for family, for beauty, for comfort, and for memory. To ask for a favourite is really to ask, favourite for what?

Celebration, for us, is often Nikan. A Persian restaurant at Top Ryde in Sydney. Persians do not have much to celebrate at the moment, which perhaps makes gathering feel all the more important. What stands out there is the sense of community. When something significant happens at work, this is where we often go.

Conversation needs something different. It needs quiet, or at least a room that does not make hearing each other difficult. Firedoor in Surry Hills was excellent for this. Expensive, yes, but well suited to a long conversation.

Family is different again. Family needs atmosphere more than refinement. Kong’s BBQ at Macquarie Park works well for that. There is usually a line outside. It has the kind of energy that suits family life.

Beauty is Jonah’s at Whale Beach. The daytime view is hard to beat. Some places offer more than a meal. They remind you where you are.

Comfort, for me, belongs to a restaurant that no longer exists. There used to be a place in Avalon called Yoda which served Asian street food. The food was excellent, but what I remember most is that it felt easy and welcoming. Then the lease ran out, the landlord had other plans, and it was gone. I still miss it.

And memory belongs to a forgotten restaurant in an old castle next to a youth hostel beside Larochette Castle in Luxembourg. I remember very little now except the setting and the dessert, which remains the best I have ever had.

So no, I do not think I have one favourite restaurant. I have different favourites for different parts of life. That seems closer to the truth. We do not just eat in restaurants. We locate small pieces of our lives in them.