Sean's Kitchen

Sean's Kitchen closed on 1 January 2011

Yorkshire-born chef Sean Connolly has taken a sidestep from fine diner, Astral, to create a casual, buzzy bistro in Star City. And the gamble has paid off. The idea of eating in the neon jingle-jangle of pokie nirvana might daunt some but you don't need to run the gauntlet of one-armed bandits to find a table; you can even walk around the outside to get to the restaurant. And there's something addictive about the atmosphere that is totally unlike any other Sydney dining experience you're likely to have.

Part tapas bar, part a la carte restaurant, Sean's Kitchen is like two different designers pitted against each other in an extravagant bull fight. The tapas bar features bright tiles, stuffed leather armchairs painted in a Day of the Dead motif while the room's middle features a giant bull (whose, uh, equipment had to be shrunk lest it offend diners, Connolly told us). The main dining room is lower key: double cloth over fluoro paint, roses and grinning skulls.

The menu is as huge as the space. Seafood even has its own area, where a giant king crab the size of a small child rules just about every cephalopod and crustacean you care to name - it's like being in a Spanish fish market, only with fewer thick- armed women yelling at you for touching the scampi. Grills include some very impressive looking pieces of dry-aged Angus and wagyu, tapas features the likes of pieces of lightly salted blue eye with aioli, baby squid paella with squid ink sauce or classic garlic prawns with paprika, but we stick to the a la carte menu.

Slices of rare roast beef dressed with a tangle of salad greens and a drizzle of horseradish cream and finished with a slash of beetroot relish should, by rights, be a dish with plenty of attitude - but it lacks backbone. The same goes for the salad nicoise: aesthetically very attractive but not much personality.

The Macleay Valley rabbit pie, however, is incredibly rich with the shortest of short crust melting in the mouth with chunks of sweet rabbit. It'd be great to see a selection of mustards offered with the pie to cut the richness a little instead of the ubiquitous jus but the green beans brighten up the affair. It's a festival of fat at Sean's Kitchen - deep fryers are on full throttle including - wait for it - Chips. Cooked. In. Duck. Fat.

These may just be the best chips ever fried in a Sydney kitchen. And speaking of things fried, there are also onion rings - light as air, crisp, sweet and totally yum.

If there's one dessert you need to eat this month, it's the crema catalana - a take on the traditional Spanish baked custard, here it's tarted up with duck eggs. Oh, baby. Also worth the pounds is the caramelised apple and Quicks cheddar - a bit like an apple crumble, only cheesy.

After a drink? Bartender to the stars Julian Serna (ex-Foveaux bar) is pouring Estrella beer on tap (the only place in Sydney to be doing so) as well as mixing a few Spanish-influenced cocktails but will make just about anything you want.

To have a good time here, the best bet is to get little bits of everything and share: keep it casual and fun. Andeven if casinos are not your natural environment, there's a certain chintzy out-of-this-world glitz that makes it worth a flutter.