Overview
If you've ever been wandering through Surry Hills and noticed a bright blue door on Waterloo Street, you may have wondered what lies behind it. Located down the road from the Dove & Olive, the unassuming yet eye-catching facade hides an intimate dining experience unlike any other.
The Blue Door is a tiny 18-seat restaurant opened by Dylan Cashman and Angelica Nohra following the second lockdown. The effortlessly charming fine diner operates as a hyper-seasonal love letter to New South Wales produce, completely revamping the menu top to toe every single week depending on what's fresh and available.
If you manage to snag one of the limited bookings each week, you'll be greeted by an equal parts welcoming and knowledgeable team, with Nohra being your main guide through the night. For each course, you'll be taken through where the ingredients have been sourced, the sustainable practices involved and the inspiration behind the dish. It's a meal you can feel good about and one that tastes damn good.
Before you even arrive for your dinner at The Blue Door, you're sent some required reading for the night — an email running you through that week's produce in detail.
Of course, with the menu changing so regularly, you never know what you're going to get. Each dish is bursting with creativity and designed around utilising the most of any produce the kitchen has each week. Past meals have featured just about everything from salt tasting platters, cheeseburger tartare and katsu duck, to lobster tail, pasture-raised wagyu, bibimbap and house-made charcuterie.
There's also an optional wine-pairing which, as expected, is also centred solely around NSW-grown drops from mainly small-batch, sustainable and minimal-intervention wineries. The Blue Door team's love for the state's vino is so apparent that the venue has taken out the Best NSW Wine List in a Sydney venue at the Wine List Awards 2022 and 2023.
But if you can't quite justify splashing the extra cash on the pairings, consider booking on a Thursday when The Blue Door offers BYO.
The seven-course dinner at the Surry Hills stunner will set you back $159 per person. If you want to add the wine pairing, it's an additional $90 per person, or couples can opt for a shared wine pairing for $100 all up.
All housed within a quaint mood-lit Surry Hills terrace, The Blue Door is a classic special occasion diner. It's an experience that will leave you feeling fresh and connected to the food you just ate, with a better understanding of the state's variety of independent and sustainable farmers and producers.
The Blue Door is located at Shop 8, 38 Waterloo Street, Surry Hills. It's open for sittings at 5.30pm and 8.15pm Thursday–Saturday. To read more about the restaurant's ethos and make a booking, head to the venue website.