Hartsyard, Newtown

Hartsyard has been on our to-eat list for a while, but it’s not easy to snare a spot at this popular joint in Enmore. By chance, we managed to get ourselves in thanks to a friend’s booking and finally experienced their take on indulgent American diner food for ourselves.

Their menu is designed to share, with a selection of small and larger plates for you to mix and match. The prices are fairly steep on first glance, especially when you see the serving sizes. But once you taste the richness of the food, you can see why they recommend that you share about 4-5 dishes between 4 people.

We started off with some piping hot Oyster Po’Boys which lived up to their billing with juicy oysters sandwiched between crispy English muffins and smothered with Old Bay mayo and some zesty coleslaw. These tasty bites weren’t big but were so flavoursome that our tastebuds were ready to go for more.

Oyster Po’Boy, $24 (2 per serving)

Next up, we had the Duck Terrine, served with some Melba toast. The richness of the foie gras was cut through with the sweet, fruity flavours of the cherry, apricot and acidity of the pickled onion that it came with. We could’ve done with more toast to slather the terrine on though, as it was pretty intense to eat on its own.

Duck Terrine, $39

From the larger plates, we picked the Handmade Maccheroni which was their upmarket take on mac and cheese – featuring stracciatella cheese, shredded crab, corn and garlic butter. All these elements melded together to create one of the best (and most indulgent) mac and cheeses we’ve ever had – we couldn’t get enough.

Handmade Maccheroni, $33

For a more substantial meaty dish, we went for the classic Fried Chicken which was thankfully not too oily at all, covered with a light, crispy batter that hit the spot. It was served with buttermilk biscuit and low country sausage gravy, for some traditional American flavours to break up the dryness of the fried chicken.

Fried Chicken, $33

The rich diner flavours continued with the Poutine, the classic North American dish turbocharged with some delicious braised beef shin and fried potatoes that were covered with an intense beer and cheese sauce. Definitely a dish you’d need to share – after a few tasty bites each, we were almost all cheesed out.

Poutine, $28

We couldn’t leave without trying some of their famous desserts, but we made the rookie error of ordering 2 for the 4 of us to share. We should’ve known from the richness of their savoury dishes that 1 should’ve been enough…but we couldn’t pick between the amazing looking Bombe Alaska we had spotted on other tables and their Sundae.

Bombe Alaska, $20

Sundae, $20

Sadly we couldn’t finish either of the desserts, but both were fantastic in their own way. The Bombe Alaska was an incredible mix of fluffy puffs of meringue on the outside and a refreshing passionfruit filling, with coconut ice-cream, kaffir sherbet and lime jelly for good measure. On the other end of the dessert spectrum, The Sundae is like their idea of a typical American dessert on steroids – they threw in pretty much every sweet treat they could think of – rum & raisin, banoffee ice-cream, chocolate doughnuts, pecans and topped it off with a warm banana sauce. Each spoonful had about 4 different elements in it and gave us a major chocolate and banana overdose.

A dinner at Hartsyard is not for the faint-hearted – come with your comfy pants on because the big American flavours will leave you absolutely stuffed (and your wallet a lot lighter). Best to come with some friends to share the dishes as well, or else your tastebuds may struggle to get through much of the richness of the flavours on their menu!

Hartsyard
33 Enmore Road, Newtown NSW 2042
Phone: (02) 8068 1473