Delicious Riley Street Garage - Sydneys latest hip hotspot

Old friend, new friend;-)

While in Sydney, we met up with a former colleague of my husband, named Carlos.

Former colleagues and good buddies Carlos (left) and Frits in Riley Street Garage.

I never met him before, but heard of him via my husband and I knew that they became friends with a lot of respect for one another. He turned out to be a lovely guy indeed, and great company. Interesting, open, intelligent and talkative. Yep, my kinda person for sure!

Riley Street Garage - Sydneys latest hip hotspot

One day we wanted to go out for dinner with the three of us and Carlos made -timely- reservations at Riley Street Garage, apparently Sydneys latest hip hotspot. Being a very popular restaurant, they were only able to fit us in in the later round, so we were expected for dinner at around 9 pm earliest. Normally by that time I either fainted or fallen asleep. Yes, I lead an adventurous life, I know, hahaha…. That night I succeeded to do neither-), so that was good.

Riley Street Garage sits at the Woollomooloo end of Riley Street (no. 55) in a converted car depot and garage from the 1930’s.

Frits and I walked there from The Rocks. The contrast between the beautiful, Victorian architecture with a lot of grandeur, and a significant homeless population, surprised me. Some nooks and streets reeked of urine and other unpleasant smells.
(As I mentioned before, I will write more about homelessness in Sydney in a separate article, to be expected soon.)

One of my favorite facades in Sydney. Very beautiful architecture and ornamentation.

This looks like a once interesting mural. Now in decay in a gloomy part of Woollomooloo.

Art Deco architecture from the 1930’s

Walking up Riley Street, we came across this garage facade and wondered if that might be our restaurant, but no, we had to walk a little bit further up the road.

There it was, at no. 55. :the beautiful art deco facade of Riley Street Garage, designed by E.B. Wilshire in 1931, with Wunderlich colortex bricks and textured cement render.

The entrance and facade of Riley Street Garage.

Raw, edgy and chic decor

Once inside, the first thing you notice is an enormous, oval, backlit bar that seats at least 25 - 40 people, I’m guessing. The ambiance feels raw, edgy and chic at the same time. Me likes!

We took a bar seat, ordered a drink (they have a wonderful drinks menu, from champagne to cocktails and everything in between) and waited for Carlos. After he arrived, we stayed at the bar, sipping our drinks, until our table was available.

Shared dishes and desserts galore!

Riley Street Garages dishes are designed to be shared and so we did. They serve modern Australian food, raw seafood and oysters.

Here’s what we chose:

• crispy fried lemon sole with ponzu mayonnaise
• slow cooked lamb shoulder with dijon gremola
• a dessert platter

Lemon sole.

Lamb shoulder. Delicous, but a big, big dish!

We had some more side dishes and all in all it was way too much! But it was yummie, oh so yummie!!! It was truly a culinary experience and the beautiful and original presentation certainly added to that.

Look at the presentation and display of the dessert platter. Quite spectacular, I find.

Being a sweet tooth, of course the dessert platter was my favourite. Unbelievable! So many different desserts and they all were delicious. Highly recommended if you are a dessert fan like me.

A closer look at some of the desserts of the platter. Mouthwatering!

Sometimes I am a bit reluctant towards restaurants like this, fearing that the staff might be arrogant, the portions too small to even see;-) and the clientele a bunch of snobbish wannabes. But I found nothing of that all here. The staff was super-friendly and very professional and the whole atmosphere was classy yet laid-back.

So if you have the chance, be sure to have dinner here.
Tip: make a reservation as early as you can. Preferably at least a week in advance.