Taste of the House

This is how the diet is going … literally minutes after I published my blog post on Friday about showing restraint I got a very tempting email from DD.

It was offering two tickets to a very special event called “Taste of the House” at Sydney Opera House.

Taste of the House is held on the last Sunday of every month and provides a five-hour wine and dine experience around Sydney Opera House.

With your own personal guide, it’s an opportunity to sample the incredible venues at the Sydney Opera House and even sip a cocktail on the boardroom balcony.

Our lovely friends Evan and Jean bought tickets to the event many months ago. But when they got the reminder and checked the itinerary they realised it was way too much food for them … so they called in the big guns and suggested we take their place.

DD is still in San Diego, so I asked my sister if she wanted to join me. She was very excited and said yes immediately.

Taste of the House with the House sisters was a go!

Our dedicated guide Steve met us at Stage Door at 10.45am, and hosted us at the various venues, offering expert commentary along the way.

The other 10 people on the tour were there for a 50th celebration, so we got to be part of the birthday girl Sarah’s (above) big day. All the birthday guests were so lovely and inclusive and made us feel like we were part of the gang. They even insisted we pose in their group photos!

At 11am the festivities kicked off with the creator of Opera Bar’s famous Sydney Sling hosting a masterclass on how to make the cocktail.

Poor Steve (a different Steve to the tour guide) had been up until 4am at his tiki bar in Surry Hills, Tucano, slinging drinks and singing karaoke, but he dusted off a fabulous Tommy Bahamas Hawaiian shirt and put us through our paces.

The Sydney Sling is a bit infamous in my household because when DD asked Chat GPT for its tips on writing my Sydney Cocktails book it said the Sydney Sling was the city’s signature drink … which is when I lost faith in AI. The Sydney Sling is a great cocktail, but it’s only served at Opera Bar. Steve created it in 2014 as a take on the famed Singapore Sling and it’s been going strong ever since.

Then we sat down to delicious seafood plates at Opera Bar, before making our way to Canteen, where we made sushi and were served dumplings, accompanied by glasses of pinot grigio.

It was at this point I should have shown restraint, but I didn’t …

We moved on to Midden by Mark Olive, the Sydney Opera House’s newest venue with an Indigenous Australian inspired menu and knockout view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We sipped Mumm New Zealand sparkling then dined on damper and wallaby shanks with delicious red wine.

I found the wallaby shank bone oddly confronting, and had basically already eaten two days’ worth of food at that point, so I only managed a few mouthfuls.

Afterwards we were given a tour of one of the theatres, then we were taken up a private staircase to the venue’s boardroom to make Sgroppino, an Italian cocktail containing lemon sorbet, Prosecco and usually vodka, but we substituted Archie Rose Gin.

We sipped our drinks on the boardroom balcony, looking out over Sydney Harbour on the most spectacular Sunday afternoon.

Then it was on to Bennelong for the finale, Peter Gilmore’s famed chocolate crackle dessert paired with cocktails, plus the gift of a cookbook for the road.