Chippendale's favourite set-menu venue, Automata, hit the ground running with two hats and its wine expert, Tim Watkins, named Champagne Taittinger Sommelier of the Year.
Rather, step inside Wells’s sleek and masculine restaurant to mine a somewhat austere menu that at once manages to challenge while retaining enough elements of the familiar to offer comfort.
The most exciting opening in past 12 months, the finalists of this award set the eating agenda, start conversations and represents everything that's fresh, hot and interesting about eating.
The eye of a restless creative teamed with the hand of a gifted technician.
Automata is crowned no. 9 of this year's AFR Top 100 Restaurants.
Former Momofuku sous-chef Clayton Wells gets his own gig at Loh Lik Peng's innovative repurposing of the Old Clare Hotel project in Chippendale. The steampunk two-level space mixes heavy-metal and street-glam, and the five-course fixed-price menu is at once intriguing, minimalist and delicious. Tim Watkin's fresh, mostly natural wine list is a good match for storm clams with rosemary dashi and fried fish skin or hapuku fillet cloaked in laver.
The Year of the Monkey looks like it might also be the year of the collaboration. Kicking off next week, Sydney's Automata opens its doors to its friends in food and wine for a monthly lunch series called co.lab kitchen.
"We did a Pinbone takeover last December, which was really popular and that got me thinking about a lunch series concept," says chef Clayton Wells.
Clayton Wells worked closely with designer Matt Darwon a.k.a. Matt Machine on the raw, industrial look of the restaurant design that plays on the theme of machinery and non-electronic automation.
The words ‘chic’ and ‘car garage’ have not been familiar friends, until now, thanks to the recent opening of Automata at Sydney’s Old Clare Hotel. The new restaurant, which has opened in the midst of Chippendale’s neighborhood food renaissance marries raw, industrial style with contemporary interior design.
