Yellow’s inventive cooking made our critic ask ‘how is this vegan?’ Now it’s even better

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Can a menu change have an instant mood-boosting effect? It did, in an undeniable way, at Yellow in 2016. When the Potts Point bistro became a vegetarian restaurant, diners reacted with a surge of gratitude. Anyone who has MacGyvered a “meal” from hot chips and garden salad at a place with no meat-free options will recognise why they responded with enthusiasm. Plant-based offerings can often be underwhelming (not another mushroom risotto!), if they exist at all.

A fine-dining vegetarian restaurant overseen by the award-winning Bentley team of Brent Savage and Nick Hildebrandt was a win for everyone. It introduced some truly great dishes to Sydney, such as an eggplant steak evoking pork belly, first executed by head chef Adam Wolfers, then remixed by successor Chris Benedet. Yellow turned fully vegan in 2021 under head chef Sander Nooij. It was a smart flex given pandemic-era staff shortages and further improved Yellow’s reputation for plant-based cooking. Even actress Zendaya became a fan when she was in town last year.

In March, Nooij bought Yellow from his bosses and now runs the restaurant with business partner Mark Hanover. Like a before-and-after shot, I can point to dishes I’ve truly loved on previous visits (hello, smoky tomato and roasted peach salad charged with cashew cream, and braised leeks with buttery mash-like potato sauce that activated the “how is this vegan?” part of my brain) and recognise the current tasting menu (a six-course for $115) is the best food I’ve experienced at Yellow in close to a decade of visits.

Nooij’s dishes often get their origin story from local growers. A rich tart encased in purple straw wheat was inspired by B-class cauliflowers a farmer couldn’t sell. By bronzing and blitzing the unwanted veg with an oloroso sherry reduction and presenting it with toasted hazelnut shavings, his deep, caramelly snack is like biting into a glorious nutty chocolate.

The chef works hard to coax flavour from ingredients. For a carrot skewer, he shaves, steams, cures, smokes, dries, pan-fries and blow-torches the vegetable, and serves it with sunflower cream and a chilli oil crunchy with fried garlic.

The diversity of Will Mussett’s mushrooms is highlighted by fermenting shiitakes, pureeing buttons, pickling chestnut varieties and wilting black pearl mushrooms in herb oil – a trick he learnt at Quay, where shiitake shavings were cooked in jamon butter.

The best “plate-clearing” item for this creamy mushroom dish is sourdough baked with Wholegrain Milling’s khorasan and white flour. The loaf is already designated for a vegetable-flavoured dipping oil feisty with fennel seeds and chilli flakes that Nooij created after tipping too much oil into his soffritto when making Tuscan soup.

Explaining the cavatelli dish is like rolling expansive credits for a Marvel movie. Many elements deserve shoutouts (pasta shaped with stone-ground Yecora wheat from Burrum Biodynamics; pepper collected from Boon Luck Farm, run by Chat Thai owner Palisa Anderson), but essentially, it’s served on a luscious bank of Jerusalem artichokes and bathed in kombu and thyme consomme. I wish I could eat an XL-sized cauldron of this, but a normal-sized bowl is also acceptable.

If you have doubts about vegan cheese, say yes to Yellow’s version produced from heavily smoked almonds. It’s top-tier. Swipe it with seed-studded lavosh by sous-chef Yoon Park. He also authored the dessert resembling sticky date pudding, served with whisky-infused caramel and Korean-style riffs including walnut and sesame crisps and sweet potato ice-cream.

Collaboration is evident across Yellow. Sommelier Jean-Luc Prasopa-Plaizier’s wine program was created with restaurant manager Kegan Bothma and their list highlights noteworthy winemakers such as Noella Morantin, who moved from French cider country to stomp on gamay grapes in the Loire. At the bar, Tim Grimes draws on the kitchen’s koji reserves to ferment intriguing drinks: yuzushu with citrus-bright sake notes, but none of the booze, and a sunny passionfruit and persimmon kefir.

The year Yellow went vegan, Eleven Madison Park in New York did too: a big milestone for a fine-diner once ranked the world’s best restaurant. But Eleven Madison recently announced it’s bringing lobster and duck back. More locally, Newtown’s Flora dropped its all-vegetarian focus in July – despite hat-worthy greatness, diners resisted its meat-free menu.

Notably, Nooij describes Yellow as “botanical cuisine”, much like Michelin-starred De Nieuwe Winkel does in The Netherlands. If people are hung up on what the dishes leave out (rather than what the kitchen brings in), maybe this rebranding is necessary. If “vegan” inspires off-target preconceptions, should we just call this inclusive food that’s inventive and unreservedly delicious? Because when you erase all the labels, that’s what Yellow wholeheartedly offers.

Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.