Bistrode Ph: 9380 7333 ; 478 Bourke St, Surry Hills 2010 www.bistrode.com.au Modern Australian, $$ +, ** for Food & Ambience Open Lunch Fri noon-2pm Dinner Tue-Sat 6pm-10pm; Licensed, BYO, Corkage $10 bottle; AE DC MC V Chef Jane Strode (30-8-10) Owner Jane & Jeremy Strode (21-12-09)

Photo Tony Knox

Mietta's Review
Look, it's really lovely. A cute little room almost consumed by the bar and spilling out into the lightwell behind. Wonderful looking white jacketed staff flicker through the darkened room - momentarily lit from the bar before they fade away. Then the kitchen, a splash of light beyond the bar, and chef Jeremy Strode (bearded these days) hard at it. One of the last chefs in Sydney to be seen at the stoves! The food is refreshingly plain and minimally garnished - a piece of protien, a splash of sauce and a straight vegetable garnish. Which for a bistro is absolutely correct. You want flash, go to a restaurant. With mains at around $30 the prices are also correct but misunderstood, if website postings are anything to go by. So expect plain - wooden chairs, bare tables though unlike Bills with linen napkins, polite but not obsessive service and a harmonious aesthetic. All in all a sophisticated almost Melburnian experience.

Other published opinions

Gourmet Traveller 2011 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: * "With Jeremy Strode soon to be fronting the new branch of Bistrode at the Hotel CBD. Jane Strode has taken more of a hand in the running of the tiny former butchery that is the couple's Bourke Street premises"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2010 Score: 15/20

Gourmet Traveller 2010 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: * "Is this the perfect local? Set in an old butchery. Jeremy and Jane Strode's bistro offers a concise, highly edited yet incredibly edible menu. The pair have taken their fine-dining talents and applied them to this often loud and always crowded little restaurant on the leafy"

Sydney Eats 2009 "Understated, out ofthe way and cutting edge - that's the lowdown on this surprise diner resembling an old-fashioned milkbar"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2009 Score: 15/20

Gourmet Traveller 2009 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: * "In a world blighted by overlong menus, overworked dishes and overreaching chefs, Bistrode offers sweet relief. Jeremy Strode has put in hard yards at some of France and England's finest, and has a shining local reputation, but his menus are as unadorned as this small, appealingly plain former butchery"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2008 Score: 15/20

Gourmet Traveller 2008 Australian Restaurant Guide Score: * "Jeremy and Jane Strode are such quietly dazzling talents that it's tempting t skip the dark, poky hubbub of the typically packed dinner services in favour of a quieter lunch s you can sit and better marvel at the cooking"

Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2007 Score: 14/20

Gourmet Traveller 2007 Restaurant Guide Score: * "It's cheerfully noisy, busy, simply decorated and sympathetically lit for people of a certain Age. Everything a bistro should be, in fact. The waitstaff have an almost evangelical love of the place, happily guiding diners through the menu."