The New York

First published on 22 May 2008. Updated on 27 Aug 2009.

Sydney has no middle ground. You’re either eating in restaurants where the minimum spend is a week’s rent or shovelling down a quarter pounder in an alley for the shame of it. The New York is a last bastion of restaurants offering (very) honest fare at a (very) reasonable price in a city where the dollars are enough to keep you at home eating out of a can. Yet at The New York a table of six people left us with a bill of $63 dollars, including dessert and corkage. Open since 1953 in various locations around Kings Cross, dining at the NY hasn’t changed much. In fact, it has refused to move with trends. Instead, trends for simple food come to them. Well-seasoned meat and fresh produce are hard to argue with and a lot of chefs could take a leaf out of their book. Fried fi llets of whiting are served with exceptional hand cut chips, crisp on the outside and fl uffy on the inside, and a very simple salad of shredded iceberg lettuce, a few slices of tomato and a tongue of tinned beetroot. Juicy, salty lamb chops are also served with chips and salad but if you’re feeling a little more adventurous, you might travel across the globe with the crisp, tender veal schnitzel with a side of spaghetti bolognese, mash and peas. Who ever said food combining was for suckers? Creamy slabs of rice pudding are served with stewed prunes – just what the doctor ordered when it comes to wintry desserts. There’s also a fl uorescent pink cheesecake with scoops of vanilla ice cream (or fi re engine red jelly cubes) that’s positively Nanna-riffi c. Fresh fruit salad and ice cream sees honeydew melon, rockmelon and chunks of orange dueling in glorious old school style. The New York is also BYO, so you can take anything from a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape to a bottle of Chateau Tanunda and no one would blink an eye. Décor wise, don’t expect to be wowed with 1950s European designer furniture. Instead, think hardy plastic chairs, laminex tables and framed tableaux of fruit and grains from the 70s. The other great thing about The New York is the fact very few people pay attention to its existence (apart from its many) regulars. It means you can slip in, be guaranteed a table and go unnoticed (apparently politicians in the 1980s would arrive here with cases of wine and make their deals over chops and chips, above and below the table). Eating at the New York is all about honest, well priced food for under a tenner. Because it’s so modestly priced and so heartily old school a lot of the clientele are pensioners and student in need of a cheap feed. But if you’re ready to step back in time, bring on the crumbed cutlets. BYO, around $10pp. Mon-Sat 11.30am-2.30pm, 4pm-8pm