The Pantry, Manly Beach

The Pantry is a long-standing Manly restaurant with one of the best views in Sydney. Sitting on the absolute beachfront at Manly Beach, the restaurant offers up a Modern Australian menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They also have a new Chef, Francesco Armillis formerly from Popolo in Rushcutters Bay. Come along and see what it is like!

It's Mr NQN's birthday and he has the day off from work. "I'm taking you for a surprise lunch," I told him. We arrive just after noon at The Pantry in Manly. Many years ago we used to live in Manly and it's always nice coming back here. We walk up the ramp and slide open the door. Very little has changed since our last visit at the restaurant that opened in 2010 but as the same goes if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. It’s lunchtime on a Monday on a grey winter's day and the restaurant is busy with pretty much every table taken by 1pm. The owners of The Pantry are Zeynep and Sean Blasdall who took over the location in 2015. I overhear the couple behind us tell their waiter that they come here every year around this time from interstate and always sit in that seat.

We take a moment to draw our eyes away from the view of surfers bobbing up and down and catching the waves that change from turquoise to orange to brown. The menu has a tapas menu as well as an a la carte menu. There are also 2 and 3 course set menus available and a good sized drinks list.

They have some of the most well priced mocktails on offer (we find that sometimes they're really similar in price to cocktails). I love Paloma cocktails and this pretend Paloma has ruby grapefruit, lime juice, agave syrup, soda water and fresh mint and is refreshing and perfectly sweet. The Passion fruit Fauxjito has passion fruit pulp, pineapple juice, soda water, lime and mint and while pleasant is quite light in passion fruit. "Ask for more passion fruit in it," I say to Mr NQN. "Nah it's fine," he says because he's an introvert. I ask the super lovely wait staff if they can add more passion fruit and it is perfect then.

The smoked salt focaccia with rosemary and garlic is crispy and warm and comes with some extra olive oil and balsamic. While that is great, I love it even more dipped in the wild balsamic vinegar in the kingfish dish.

The kingfish sliced sashimi and served with white balsamic, chives and Crudaiola, a raw tomato sauce usually used for pasta. It’s fresh and luscious textured.

The zucchini flowers come 3 to a serve and sit on a bed of tomato coulis. The zucchini flowers are stuffed with mozzarella cheese and battered and served with a white anchovy on top and they have a lovely crunchy and soft melting texture with every bite.

I go with a squid linguine which is generously ported with a lot of prawn meat and blue swimmer crab meat. The house made linguine is very rich and the sauce is intensely seafoody via the prawn stock mixed with the tomato coulis. There are also finger lime beads for freshness.

Mr NQN has the salmon and I have serious envy. It’s not often that we are asked how we would like our salmon done but here they do and we ask for it to be cooked medium rare aka not cooked all the way through. We cut into the salmon and it is so tender and luscious and perfectly cooked (Mr NQN isn't usually a big fan of cooked fish). The salmon sits on a bed of diced potato and cucumber that appears as though it is croutons with a green apple aioli for a fresh creaminess.

For a side dish we also try the wild rocket salad with huge, perky leaves and a perfect balance of fresh fig, walnuts and a generous amount of pecorino cheese shavings with a balsamic dressing.

For my dessert the chocolate cannolo is my pick. The cannoli are dipped in chocolate and filled with a yogurt mousse with toasted pistachios at each end and a strawberry coulis and fresh berries to finish it off. The choc dipped cannoli are delicious and remind me of a chocolate dipped ice cream cone while the yogurt mousse is so light and tangy.

Mr NQN gets to choose his dessert because it is his birthday and he goes for a raspberry sorbet. This is paired with a coconut vanilla anglaise, meringue, macadamia and spun toffee on top. While it's not something I'd probably pick he looks ridiculously happy with this very fresh dessert.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like to be taken somewhere for a birthday surprise or do you like to plan it yourself? And is there a restaurant that you go to and have a favourite table?

The Pantry

Ocean Promenade, North Steyne, Manly NSW 2095

Monday - Thursday: 8:00am - 9:00pm

Friday - Sunday: 7:30am - 9:00pm

https://www.thepantrymanly.com/