William Blue Dining, The Rocks

Matt and I head to William Blue Dining recently for a high quality meal which has been getting rave reviews particularly on tripadvisor. So what's the catch? It's actually a student-managed restaurant which provides for the training ground for the William Blue College of Hospitality Management. This means you can get high quality meal at a value price while supporting the next generation of fine dining chefs and hospitality staff.

Matt and I enter the former Rockpool site and are greeted with a nervous and friendly student - staff member who seats us. It's really nice inside and I can see some profiles at the front on the left wall. You can get a three course meal for $43. WOW!

I start off the night with a glass of Pinot Noir and Matt goes for a glass of beer. We cheers and start chatting away with our future life plans of property, travel and family. 

I am served the complimentary house made bread with pepe saya butter and alto olive oil. I munch on the warm bread and switch up dipping it in the olive oil as well as butter.

All the entrees are $13. I order the sweet corn and lemongrass soup which is perfect for Winter. It's also served up with seared scallop, coriander and crispy onion and chilli. The soup is silky smooth with savoury and sweet tones. I enjoy the chilli and lemongrass flavours with the textures of the scallops with the crunchy crispy onion. Soup is perfect in this cold weather.

For entree, Matt orders the Pork Belly which has been twice cooked and is served with a waldorf salad, sherry jus. The pork belly is enjoyable to eat. Matt comments that it's very enjoyable to eat with the apple salad but would like a little bit more crunch from the crackle. Aside from that, Matt says it's very flavoursome. What a great entree.

All the mains are $20 and I order the Roasted Milly Hill Lamb cutlets rillettes of lamb shoulder, confit tomato, crispy cauliflower and jus. The lamb is cooked quite rare and I personally prefer more medium but luckily Matt likes rare meat so we end up sharing our mains. I really like the crispy cauliflower which adds a nice smokey crunchy flavour and the jus is very flavoursome.

I have a bit of food envy. Matt orders the pan roasted duck breast, leek, mushroom, pithivier, parsnip fondant, buttered silverbeet, lentils, du puy. The duck breast is delicious and the combination of leeks is quite nice, I also love the mushroom pastry which is very moreish. What a cracking main.

For dessert which are all $10, I order the Dark Chocolate delice, burnt white chocolate, marshmallow whip, peanut butter brittle, turkish delight. My dessert looks like a masterpiece with the central focal point being the dark chocolate delice which is soft and rich. I like the peanut brittle with the turkish delight along with the chocolate delice as this adds textural contrast as well as a cut through how rich the chocolate is. You'll love this dessert!

If you don't like chocolate, you could order the the Orange Savarin, Marmalade ice cream, citrus salad, candied kumquat. This dessert is sweet in flavour and presentation. The Orange Savarin (ring like cake) along with the ice cream is creamy and light on the palette.  I love grapefruit and really enjoy the citrus salad.

Summary: Overall, I thought it was a really nice experience and I highly recommend. The food is delicious and of high value. It's a great location and the staff are so friendly. It was really nice to see the students in training delivering such a high quality experience. The highlights for me were the desserts!

Make sure you book as it was completely booked out when I went. 

Price: $43 for three courses. 

Location: 107 George St, Sydney (where Rockpool used to be)

Opening Hours: 
Closed Sunday and Monday
Tuesday to Saturday 12pm to 3pm; 6pm to 9:30pm

Weekend Food Escapes dined as guests of the venue or their representatives. All photos, opinions and words are my own.