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Awards
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2007 |
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SMH Good Food Guide 2007 - One Chef's Hat |
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Related Editorial Content
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User Reviews on Oscillate Wildly
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 139 comments
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| Overall |
 
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Average |
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Food 7 |
Ambience 5 |
Service 5 |
Value 3 |
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A bit disappointed! Been trying to get a table here for months and, unfortunately, the food does not quite match the hype. The dishes are definitely innovative but does not offer a great dining experience. One of the waitress was particularly grumpy and kept shuffling my friend's arm to fit the cutleries. The price suggests fine dining but the restaurant remains a Newtown bistro. The overall experience does not match the price tag.
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Charlotte_T -
See my reviews 1 , 24 April 2008
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| Overall |
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Highly Recommended |
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Food 9 |
Ambience 9 |
Service 9 |
Value 9 |
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All the hype seems to match the experince, had a wonderful meal with my wife there last night. Warm attentive service, brave and inventive food. Incredible textures, tastes and a wonderful experience. It's not often you go out to a meal and are exposed to completely new tastes. Wonderful!!
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hjones -
See my reviews 1, 17 April 2008
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| Overall |
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Recommended |
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Food 8 |
Ambience 7 |
Service 9 |
Value 8 |
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My husband booked Oscillate Wildly for our wedding anniversary. However, it was so booked up that we couldn't get in until the week after. It is certainly a small place - definitely around 10 tables or less. The atmosphere is nice but probably a little on the noisy side. Service was great and corkage was only $3pp.
The degustation menu was very good, but did leave something to be desired. Some combinations of ingredients were genuinely surprising and original - but others felt thrown together for the sake of having an unexpected ingredient in there.
Obviously, I felt Oscillate Wildly's menu leaned towards the pre-prepared too much. The first 2 courses (Cauliflower and white chocolate panna cotta topped with salmon roe, and creamed cottage cheese with cucumber and tomato snow) could have been prepared totally in advance. And I also felt they relied far too heavily on purees for incorporating extra ingredients into the dish - presented in the same manner (a smear on the plate) in every course in which it appeared. I think it must have been in 3-4 courses (of an 8 course menu).
I think desserts were probably the let down for me. The Long Pepper and Ginger Panacotta with Pineapple Granita was refreshing, but the coffee-soaked sponge topped with ice-cream and candied kumquat and coconut ice was not nearly sweet enough. Perhaps a course with chocolate (and I mean dessert, not the venison) would have been a nice touch.
I felt the portions were too small for 8 courses ... granted, some flavours work best in small portions - so given that, I think this menu really needed one more course.
I guess the problem lies sometimes in trying too hard to be creative. When every course is a pile of ingredients you don't usually associate with each other, then by your last courses, it's not unexpected anymore. There's nothing wrong with doing a traditional dessert but doing it brilliantly. Or pulling back on one course to let the next one shine even more. It's definitely a pleasant dining experience, and one I would go to again but I see definite room for improvement.
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chinalilly -
See my reviews 1, 26 March 2008
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| Overall |
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Highly Recommended |
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Food 9 |
Ambience 8 |
Service 9 |
Value 10 |
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I had waited 2.5 months to get into Oscillate Wildly and I was not disappointed.
The place is small, really small. There couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 tables but it didn't seem crowded. I am assuming they only take one booking per table per night as there were no hordes of people coming in and out (and degustation probably takes 3 odd hours). It's good to see they aren't trying to maximise profit at the cost of the dining experience.
The service was great. We were seated without a fuss. Each of the meals was described well and the pacing between the meals was good. Very attentive with serving the wine and water.
Now to the food. I haven't been fine dining for long, but this was the best I've had. There were some unusual flavours and textures but they all worked a treat. Examples include "tomato snow" (or tomato slushy, lol), pineapple slushy served with a ginger ice cream topped with coriander and a vanilla biscuit served with fish and some sort of foam. Wow! So refreshingly different and damn tasty. It was hard to choose a fave but it would be a toss up between the perfectly cooked beef cheek dish and the veal with a coffee/chocolate sauce.
Last but not least is value. $95 for a superb degustation and BYO with $3/person corkage. If that's not good value, I don't know what is.
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Sillybugger -
See my reviews 10, 20 March 2008
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| Overall |
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Recommended |
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Food 8 |
Ambience 8 |
Service 8 |
Value 9 |
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This is one of the best restaurants in Sydney, hands down, no argument, the cats pyjamas and the bees knees all in one! What these guys are doing with food is everything that the more established places are trying to do and so often getting wrong. Working with food and texture and flavour all together to create something genuinely different and exciting is not new, but doing it with this much finesse is.
Our only comment and I make this obtusely (lest I risk libel) is that some of the dishes had characteristics of dishes I have eaten before at other restaurants, no outright copy, but certainly similarities… This aside the fit out is cute, the restaurant size is tiny and the service friendly. This place is definitely worth the wait (up to two months) and the price at $95 pp is cheap for the quality that you receive. It will be an experience you won’t forget.
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Blairegourmand -
See my reviews 111, 16 March 2008
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| Overall |
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Highly Recommended |
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Food 9 |
Ambience 8 |
Service 9 |
Value 8 |
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Degustation is unique form of fine dining and this restaurant guarantees you a memorable cuisine experience but don't go there if you're looking for "old favourite" comfort food or you are "starving".
Each course is a mini masterpiece of skillful food preparation, innovative integration of tastes and textures and thoughtful sequencing and timing of each component of the whole experience. The servings are not generous but adequate for three entrees, three mains and two desserts.
The wait staff are enthusiastic, informed and interested. You can choose whether you want to spend the whole night lingering over each course, you want to vary the pace (ie, slow down after the entrees or before dessert) or you want to be "in and out" in a couple of hours. Just let the wait staff know your preference.
A bare bones menu is left on the table to guide you through the degustation process but an optional information sheet explaining degustation, how the menu was put together, how each course is prepared, BYO/Corkage, etc would be really useful for patrons new to degustation. The bread starter is delicious and served with real butter.
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BuffaloHead -
See my reviews 1, 11 March 2008
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| Overall |
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Highly Recommended |
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Food 10 |
Ambience 8 |
Service 10 |
Value 10 |
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Great little restaurant just off the main drag of Newtown. I took my girlfriend here for a meal and wasn't disappointed. Apparently they are booked out about 3 months in advance. We managed to sneak in after a cancellation which was quite lucky.
Great value at $55 for 3 lovingly prepared courses. Beautiful fresh produce and an interesting mix of flavours (venison and chocolate gravel) made each dish not only aesthetically pleasing, but delicious as well. Hats off to the chef and owner for bringing another great restaurant to the inner west and congrats for the chefs hat. Well deserved.
The only possible complaint I have is the size of the restaurant. It is quite small, so space is limited. It also gets rather loud with all tables being quite close together and many conversations taking place at the same time. I hope they expand into a bigger space so more people can enjoy the wonderful meals they prepare. All in all a great experience and I look forward to revisiting soon.
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pcantlon -
See my reviews 12, 07 March 2008
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| Overall |
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Recommended |
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Food 8 |
Ambience 7 |
Service 8 |
Value 7 |
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The 8 course degustation menu is $95 pp. Beautifullly presented and innovative in the matching of unlikely foods (eg. white chocolate and cauliflower soup) most of which came off well.
Staff were very knowledgable about the cuisine and preparation of it. While very enjoyable overall, still came away feeling peckish and agree with an earlier reviewer, that would have liked to be able to just concentrate on a couple of courses. Not sure why this is so isn't a prejudice against degustation meals!
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christabelle -
See my reviews 3, 27 February 2008
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| Overall |
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Recommended |
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Food 9 |
Ambience 8 |
Service 8 |
Value 6 |
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Went here with another couple and had the degustation menu. There was no other choice, and I found this disappointing as I can't seem to satisfy myself with only small bites of what is truly great food. How I would have loved to crack into a whole serving of their venison, or a full steak of their salmon. The food was excellent, just not enough and at $95 per head, a bit steep for the quantity served.
The place has a very nice cosy atmosphere, and the service is very efficient although we did find it overly attentive. I couldn't get a sip of my water down and it was already refilled. By the end of the night I was sculling water just to see how many times they would refill my glass. I kid you not I had 8 glasses of water in a matter of 15 minutes. It did get a bit annoying especially since the place is small and cramped, and this meant our waitress was alway leaning over our table.
Thankfully B.O. wasn't an issue. Anyway, I would definitely come back here in the future if they brought in an a la carte menu, and they put a limit on water refills.
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Dionysios -
See my reviews 24, 14 February 2008
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| Overall |
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Highly Recommended |
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Food 9 |
Ambience 8 |
Service 9 |
Value 10 |
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Had dinner here recently and it was exceptionally good. I hope they can keep it up as they deserve their success. I have eaten here several times, it has always been solidly good but the last time really was at another level of dining. It is quite small so it is not really suited to large groups.
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smileysimon -
See my reviews 8, 12 February 2008
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