the foodies club

Table for 20, Surry Hills: May 2009

Our feeding in May, 2009 is at Table for 20 in Surry Hills.

About Table for 20

There are 193 normal restaurants in Surry Hills. This is not one of them.

Table for 20 was opened in September 2006 in the tradition of “hood” dinners. It can be found on 182 Campbell St, Darlinghurst. Sticky bar can be found upstairs.

The building is owned by Hope St who are a mission who do a lot of good work in the Surry Hills area with people who are less fortunate than us. They think what they do is really important and are proud to be part of their community, so 10% of their takings go towards Hope St every night.

About the Chef – Michael Fantuz

Michael Fantuz and his mates who live in the local area get together for regular “hood dinners” meeting up for a good feed & a bottle of red. Usually they would take over someone’s house for the occasion.

His background is hospitality so he would usually end up in the kitchen, others would bring dessert or something to start with. Everybody brings wine & even then there’s never enough

…and Table for 20 works in pretty much the same way. His mates are in the kitchen cooking, friends drop round with bits & pieces and His mum is a fantastic Italian cook so he is still partial to serving a bit of her home made Tiramisu on occasion. The philosophy is communal eating – a big shared dinner party where everything gets passed around. Here you find big platters of roast meat, potatoes, vegetables, hunks of parmesan and a giant slab of tiramisu.

Signature Dish

They do a 3 course set menu every night and the idea is that it’s a dinner party so we all eat the same thing. You can BYO (no corkage) or drink theirs. The cost is $60 for the meal and homemade limonchello. (Special options for dietary restrictions & vegans)

Sticky Bar

Sticky takes that admirable sharing principle and gives it a twist in a refreshing new bar space. Nights at Sticky are about fun – they have a musician who plays covers during dinner and the music is piped through upstairs into the bar. Although the bar’s rather hidden and only open when the restaurant is you don’t have to eat downstairs to drink upstairs.

Upstairs you’ll find the room stuffed with old school video game chairs (those plastic stools for table style games like Space Invaders), little leather Ottomans for perching on and a mixture of Victorian parlour lounges for sitting up straight on and over-stuffed, round armed deco armchairs for sinking into.

Website

Table for 20

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