Overview
If you emerge from Sydney Festival's House of Mirrors this weekend just barely clinging to your sanity, rest assured there's plenty of comfort to be found in the festival's culinary offerings. Keep an open mind, though. Sometimes a shipping container and a pizzeria can be the same thing.
In the Festival village, Porteno's Ben Milgate and Elvis Abrahanowicz from have run riot for the second year in a row. At the Porteno Pie Shop, they'll be shovelling a few of their best-loved Argentinian-influenced combos into pastry parcels and expecting you in turn to shovel them into your gobs. No egg and cheese here — think barbecue brisket and jalapeno, or marinated peppers with eggplant and salsa verde. The gents will also be serving up a range of South American street food at the nearby Bodega Cantina. Tamales, quesadillas, check.
Also in the village, the chefs from Sake will be cranking out prawn shumai with ponzu for as long as you can eat them. Fratelli Fresh have an envoy in the mix too, with squid-loaded hotdogs (not for those traumatised by HP Lovecraft) and a duck ragu penne with orange and bitter chocolate. Taking over Gelato Messina's usually lauded Sydney Festival spot, Cow and the Moon will be lurking at the dessert end of proceedings. There'll be coffee and fresh pastries in the Double Roasters Caravan and the inevitable summer frose from James Estate Wines' pop-up bar.
Over in the Cutaway, after you've finished soaking up the fake surf and sun of The Beach at Barangaroo, grab a next-level sausage sandwich from Newtown's Sausage Queen Chrissy Flanagan, or continue the nautical theme with a visit to Pizza da Mario Pop-Up, a Da Mario-run pizzeria disguised as a shipping container. Apparently this is for mobility purposes, but the novelty alone makes it worth a visit (there's a three-tonne pizza oven inside).
There are plenty more pop-up establishments squirreled away in the village, including numerous spots for a quiet or not-so-quiet drink. We're told that these will only be revealed to those who have stared into infinity and wrestled their doppelgangers back into the mirror-realm, though. Good way to build up an appetite.
Check out what to see at Sydney Festival over here.