W hotel may be mind-blowing inside and out, but its restaurant still needs fine tuning

Cars are whizzing by my window table as they take the expressway into town, and they’re just that little bit close for comfort. You will have seen the W Sydney building slowly rising between two flyovers leading in and out of the city, like a futuristic alarm clock waiting to buzz Darling Harbour to life.

Inside is equally mind-blowing – one escalator framed in electric blue neon is like driving through the disco lights of the NorthConnex tunnel.

English-based design group Bowler James Brindley, a favourite of W Hotels, has taken all the high-energy, kinetic visuals of a daily commute and poured it into BTWN, the long, lateral dining room for 140 people. At night, the ceiling is streaked with illuminated ribbons of light like a long-exposure shot of commuter tail-lights, while golden lamps reference headlights, and columns are tagged with aerosol art.

The menu, from W Sydney’s culinary director, Richard Millar, and young head chef Chris Dodd (formerly of Aria and The Blue Door), is titled “a metropolitan mash-up of texture, taste and tales”, but that’s probably not their fault.

It’s great to have W back in Sydney after nearly 20 years, and I’ve been curious to see how such ambition translates into the dining experience. Will it be as exciting as the NorthConnex, as flawed as the Rozelle Interchange, or somewhere BTWN the two?

An early dinner back in January had highs and lows. Duck neck sausage with bunya nut cream ($35) was well-made, although its citric Davidson plum sauce garnish jarred, and a scotch (neck fillet) of Bangalow pork with sweet and sour radicchio and beetroot ($50) was plain old tough. I left unconvinced.

So here’s the thing I’ve always said about restaurants. If there’s a problem, you have to ask yourself, as a reviewer, is it fixable? Or is it so baked into the system that they don’t even realise it’s a problem? Seven weeks later, I’m back, ordering the pork again. The new rendition is softer and more yielding, giving off a char siu vibe in its glossy barbecue sauce, accompanied by dandelion-yellow sweetcorn puree and some charred onions. It tells me they’re on the right track.

Snacks here are fun (but then, snacks are always fun). A Paroo kangaroo tartare “cheeseburger” ($14) is a top idea, well executed. Instead of a bun, there’s the crunch of hash browns, then the soft fruity sweetness of the diced and seared meat, the umami lift of burger sauce, and a shower of grated Monte Nardi cheese from Nimbin Dairy. I’ll take another, thanks.

Service is warm, friendly, and inconsistent. A glass of crisp, refreshing 2020 Lias Finas Alberino from Rias Baxinas is brought in a small glass jug. The next one is spat frothily from a Coravin device. And pouring sparkling mineral water by holding the bottle upside down in the glass is a pub trick, not a restaurant skill.

There’s a bay lobster (bug) tartare ($25) that doesn’t work for me on any level – bland, raw and slightly stringy – and calamari teamed with house-made chorizo and taramasalata ($32) is pleasant enough.

Plating is colourful, with a carefully segmented, harissa-basted, brined half chook from the Hunter Valley ($60 to share) all electric yellow, vibrant green and glossy brown, with bunya nut tarator, labne, golden raisins and sorrel. The meat gives to the touch, and it’s good with an unoaked 2021 Teusner “Joshua” GSM ($18/80), a juicy, rocket-powered grenache, mataro and shiraz blend from the Barossa.

The hotel has installed an outpost of Singapore dessert impresario Janice Wong’s degustation restaurant, but that requires a separate reservation. In the meantime, a peach dessert from BTWN’s short and sweet list comes with Malfroy’s honey-thyme ice-cream, honeycomb and macadamia ($22), teepeed with toffee shards.

Like many things here, it’s a combination of a lot of different nice things, rather than a single, solid idea. Neither exciting, nor flawed, but something BTWN the two.