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.