Sean's Panorama

Ph: 9365 4924; 270 Campbell Pde, BONDI BEACH 2026 www.seanspanaroma.com.au

Contemporary, $$ +, *** for Food & Ambience
Open Lunch Fri-Sun noon-3pm Dinner Wed-Sat 6-9.30pm, Closed Mon Tue some public holidays; Licensed, BYO , Corkage $15 bottle; MC V
Chef Sean Moran & Griff Pamment (29-11-08) Owner Sean Moran & Michael Robertson (29-11-08)

Mietta's Review
When it started in 1993 Sean's was a slightly ramshackle, sun drenched cafe, perched high on a cliff at the "wrong" end of Bondi. It served better food than could be expected to a crowd of bohemian Bondi locals. Time passed, owner/chef, Sean Moran, worked away maturing his skills but always keeping the old feeling alive. Today Sean's is a wonderful conceit. Refined, tasteful food with well matched flavours masquerading as simple home cooking. It's pleasantly served by low key waiters who, though you'd never know it, are experienced professionals. You'd swear that the room too is untouched but it's cleaned up its act over the years. Nothing is quite as it seems at Sean's. It's the art that conceals. Without apparent effort, good food and good times are enjoyed by (almost) all who cross the sometimes confusing threshold. After all, the restaurateurs' prime task is to create a mythical 'world' that transports customers away from their normal existance for a few moments. In this, Sean succeeds supremely.

Other published opinions

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2009 Score: 15.5/20, One Hat "Dining at Sean's is like eating with your extended family - hard to find a suitable time, sometimes too close for comfort but with a cosy, surrounded-by-friends feel, and food Mum would love"

Gourmet Traveller 2009 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: ** "Where else in Sydney can you have lunch at three 'clock on a Sunday afternoon in a room full of people who've also just sat down for lunch at three. Sean's has an any-time, any-way feel about it that is liberating"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2008 Score: 16/20, Two Hats "Adored by many, Sean's sandy, wickerchaired Bondi nonchalance is achieved with anything but casual grace. From the swinging squares of neatly chalked blackboard that speli out dishes of the day to the wallboard scrawled with vintages, chef Sean Moran and his tight-knit team share a serious philosophical devotion to seasonal, local and plain old yummy eating and drinking"

Gourmet Traveller 2008 Australian Restaurant Guide "Tables are paper over cloth, bathrooms are out the back of the kitchen and there's a frying pan welded t the facade"

Sydney Eats 2008 "Apart from our signature linguine or white chocolate nougat," the website will tell you, "most dishes change either weekly, daily or even mid service." And that more or less sets the tone for this effortlessly charming place, cited by every visiting food critic as one of their favourite Sydney restaurants"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2007 Score: 16/20, Two Hats "Bondi 's perennial beachfront fave continues to live up to its every promise, from the relaxed but polished service to the parade of beautifully balanced, mouth-watering offerings (and we don't mean bronzed bathers heading across to the beach)."

Gourmet Traveller 2007 Restaurant Guide Score: ** "The most telling thing about Sean's is that, on any given Sunday lunch, everyone in the room is having a good time. Even, dare we say it, the people who work here. From the floor to the kitchen, they're quick to laugh, and there's a sort of democracy about the place - the waiters meeting diners as equals in the business of a good service, not servitude."

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2006 score 16/20, 2 Hats "In another life, Sean Moran could well be Epicurus ... or your mother - his cookery and good heartedness fulfilling senses with simple pleasures of food and drink. But Mum never had upturned sea urchin lamps glowing henna on the table or oyster shell salt cellars, and the kitchen table never overlooked lifesavers rowing flush into Bondi breakers."

Gourmet Traveller 2006 Australian Restaurant Guide ** "Now this is Sydney. Few places express the soul ofthe city better than Sean's. A small room overlooking the northern reaches of Bondi Beach, it's like the beach house you never had with food so good you never need an excuse to give in to temptation."

Sydney Eats 2006 "High on the list of every serious Sydney foodlover's favourites, Sean's continues to deliver Sean Moran's curious but lovable blend of boarding school and intelligent Italian to a faithful crowd that gathers in size every year."

SMH Good Food Guide 2005 Score 16/20 Two Hats "Despite the first impression that this is just another casual casualty of Campbell Parade's popularity, Sean's continues to woo. It impresses with the blackboard menu that focuses on benchmark Australian produce. It impresses with the courage to use oyster shells as salt cellars in a restaurant charging nearly $40 for most main courses. And it impresses with its commitment in offering great things to eat and drink, courtesy of the gifted hand of Sean Moran."

Gourmet Traveller Australian Restaurant Guide 2005 ** Good Vegetarian Options "A bottle of Billecart-Salmon picked from the concise, expertly chosen blackboard wine list gets Saturday lunches at this beachside landmark off to a rollicking start. Segue smoothly into a pile of yabbies halved, floured and delicately deep-fried"

Sydney Eats 2005 "The newly comfortable surroundings now match Sean Moran's always comfortable food at this outpost of larrikin charm and friendly service. The blackboard menu never stands still and the kitchen pumps out his unique brand of 'boarding school Italian cuisine'."

SMH GFG 2004,Score 16/20,Really Lovely,'Combining enduring beach-house kitsch with sunny Bondi boho-chic,its menu is seasoanlly adjusted,the specials on the blackboard having a life of minutes or months depending on produce and kitchen whims...It's Sean's,and it's all good.'

Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide 2004, 3 Black Stars,'a defining Sydney experience.The view and charming, hunky waiters are part of it, but the food is where it's at.Elegant without being pretantious...suggests care, intelligence and an understanding of good food and good fun.'