Bligh Street's Sichuan-and-Hunan Basement
Spice Temple on Bligh Street is Neil Perry's regional Chinese, Sichuan, Hunan, and Yunnan cooking, taken at the heat profile and regional discipline the cuisines demand. The format is unusual for Sydney CBD: a dim subterranean dining room, careful regional sourcing, and a kitchen that refuses to soften the cuisine.
The cooking is regional Chinese at proper restaurant standards: mapo tofu at the proper heat, Hunan smoked-pork dishes, Yunnan mushrooms in considered preparations, and the dishes that Sydney's broader Chinese restaurants too often skip.
What to Order
Mapo tofu at the proper heat level. Hunan dishes, the smoked-pork-and-chilli-bean preparations the cuisine is built around. Sichuan ma-la dishes with the proper numbing-spice profile. The wine list handles a confident Burgundy or Australian white.
The Format
The basement dining room is dim and well-staged. The crowd is mixed business-and-locals; the format handles a group well.
Best Occasion: Team Dinner
Spice Temple handles a CBD team dinner with quiet authority. The shared format absorbs a group; the regional Chinese discipline gives the meeting a different register from the predictable Cantonese alternatives; the price point is honest enough that the bill is not the headline.