Restaurant Balzac
Restaurant Balzac is based in Randwick. It moved recently from a non-descript position in The Spot to the place where Al Dente used to be on Belmore Road, in a large historic sandstone building on an intersection corner. It’s a much more fitting venue as they have more space and a better decor. The inside is well lit, although a little noisy.
Balzac probably has the most affordable 2-hatted restaurant tasting menu in Sydney at $80pp ($125 formatching wines). About half of the seven-course menu was seafood based. The meal was worth it – pretty tasty, but the desserts were the best part (including a course they called “pre-dessert”, whatever that means). The restaurant is a good place for a late night dessert. Service was patchy. I liked how they talked about the dishes when they brought them out in a down-to-earth manner, and how the waitstaff didn’t put on any airs. On the other hand, the timing between courses was erratic. Some courses were served 15 minutes apart, some 45 minutes apart. After we got in, we had waited about twenty minutes without anyone coming to take our orders, so we had to fetch a waiter ourselves. Granted, it was a very busy night, but still. Nonetheless, the food is very good.
5:11pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow 
As I couldn’t work out how to comment on the quicklink above (design flaw, much? … or me flaw, perhaps?) I would just like to say, you linked to me! *feels famous*
However, better to use roslyn.livejournal.com as my ‘home’ url – my roslyncook.com website is dodgy, and the blog feed there leaves quite a bit to be desired. And is very unlikely to be improved upon or updated in the near future.
See you Friday!
Hey Ros, you can get to the quicklink comments by clicking on the little red zero in brackets next to the link – the one that looks like this, except red –> (0). I changed your blog link too!
I went there about two weeks ago with a friend of mine for a Thursday night. I called earlier in the day to make a booking and got the last table for two, so it was a full house.
We didn’t go for the degustation, and just shared an entree and had a main each. I’d agree about the quality of food (highly recommend the venison main). We had a different experience with service which I also couldn’t fault.