Soot BBQ

Overview

Striking a balance between fun and serious dining can be difficult. Some restaurants lean one way, offering affordable meals, karaoke and 'Ring for Tequila' buttons. Others nail the full-blown fine dining experience. But Barangaroo's Korean barbecue and steakhouse joint SOOT manages to provide a mix of both, pairing vibrant communal dining and shots of soju with top-notch cuts of wagyu.

SOOT lands next to NOLA Smokehouse and The Butcher's Block on Barangaroo Avenue from the hospitality group Kolture, led by David Bae (Tokki, Kogi), whose father introduced Australia to Korean barbecue in 1992.

Each table is fitted with smokeless and odourless DIY charcoal grills ready to sizzle some high marble-grade beef for you and your friends. Hero dishes ready to hit the grill include the MBS9+ chuck eye roll steak, short rib cooked using a 50-year-old family recipe, on-the-bone rib-eye which can be ordered by the gram and marinated kurobuta pork ribs.

Pickled and fermented items also feature heavily on the menu, with SOOT making its own kimchi, sesame bean sprouts, pickled onions, jalapeños, okra, asparagus or radishes in-house.

Rounding out the extensive list of eats is Korean fried chicken or cauliflower, seafood pancakes, a raw bar featuring rock oysters and sashimi, minced wagyu bibimbap, tofu clam soup and truffle mashed potatoes.

While the food menu features cuts of meat and truffle-infused veggies that could rival Sydney's new wave of omakase experiences, the drinks list is a joyous celebration of Korean spirits and sake. Cocktails range from miso sours and soju spritzes through to grapefruit highballs and Hennessy, lemon, jasmine and minted honey tea, but the extensive range of sake, soju and Korean ju are the real highlights. Ask the staff for recommendations and expand your soju palette with a variety of flavours, strengths and rarities.

If you want to sample your way through the best of SOOT's menu and leave the decisions up to the chefs, turn your attention to The Butcher's Table set menu. This journey takes you through sections of the menu's hits including a banchan set, wagyu tartare, seafood pancake, shallot salad, assorted veggies, gyeranjjim, the dessert of the day and four carefully selected cuts of meat: the 240gm SOOT steak, the 120gm deckle steak, the ox tongue and the family-recipe short rib.