Lotforty, like many of Sydney’s Tapas joints offers Modern Australian cuisine at a price where you can afford to try a selection of dishes. This is the thought behind Lotforty, according to manager, Timothy Elchah, whose restaurant offers a menu that’s a mix of Modern Australian with an Asian infusion from their Asian Chef.
Lotforty is a place you’ll decide you’re going to before you arrive. You don’t have much of a chance of stumbling across it, as it’s hidden way up the top of Kings Lane. If you are fortunate enough to find it though, you’ll be in for a treat. The warmly lit restaurant is divided over two equally tiny floors, seating 50 all together. You’ll want to book for this one as the word is spreading fast; we managed to reserve the last two seats for the night.
Elchah has created a warm feel with polished wooden tables and tea candles, wooden and padded four leg stools and walls of wood and dark rich colours. Lotforty is great for a fun-filled night out and whilst it looks perfect for a date, the wooden floors can make it quite noisy depending on your neighbouring tables!
The attention is in the details with modern, nicely present menus, friendly, helpful staff, slices of lemon in the water, a wipe down of the table in between Tapas and dessert, and a complementary appetiser of a toothpick salad in a shot glass, which was very cool!
The one page menu is arranged in ascending price order with dishes ranging from $7.00-$14.00. We ordered six dishes to share between the two of us.
First to arrive was the Thai Chicken Salad ($12). The salad came in four portions and had authentic Thai flavours with a hint of spice. It was served in a similar style to the Chinese San Choy Bow – in a lettuce leaf. I noted however that we were only given tiny cocktail napkins to eat finger food, which left us with greasy fingers and not a lot of room to wipe them on.
Next to arrive were the Scallops ($10), two portions served in the shell. When the menu said they had prosciutto, I imaged it to be thin and crispy or thin and soft. It was neither and seemed more like diced ham. The olive tapenade was delicious though and the dish had a wonderful texture – a mixture of the fleshy scallop with something chewy and something crunchy all mixed in!
We were off to a fantastic start with the food. The bruschetta ($7) arrived next and this was one of the two dishes my partner was most looking forward to. He was let down though as the tomato was quite soggy and we found the dish lacked flavour. Perhaps the tomatoes they were using weren’t great or the dish was left out too long?
Not to worry, the seared beef ($12) was up next and my partner loved this. It was very peppery and quite salty. Personally however, I thought it was too oily.
This was followed by the Pear and Gorgonzola salad ($8) which looked wonderful on the plate. The cheese was very strong and the sauce was sweet, which gave the salad a great mix of sweet and savoury.
The second dish my partner was eagerly waiting for arrived, the duck pancakes ($12). This is also their signature dish. I was intrigued as they weren’t what I was expecting. Usually, duck pancakes are served on a small bland crepe (think Peking duck), but these were rolled up in thick breakfast style pancakes with some crispy onion on top. They were very hot and very sweet. My partner easily could have polished off another order and later said this was his favourite dish.
Chowing our way through each dish, we were sad to see the end and so decided to see the dessert menu! We ordered a dessert each with the intention to share and although I was quite full, my partner assured me he could finish them both off if needed (how generous!).
The desserts were each $9 and we decided on the flourless chocolate cake and a banana tart. The cake surprised me as it was served as a slice, whereas I was expecting a small, yet whole cake. It was served with sugared nuts, caramel sauce and fresh strawberries. The sauce gave moisture to the cake, which was very rich. The banana dessert looked fantastic on the plate and was a yummy mixture of warm coffee cream and cool mascarpone. The banana and coffee cream were sweet, so the mascarpone broke up the flavour well.
We had a fantastic night with well presented, great tasting food and friendly service. It was great to see that the staff were so efficient, considering that we were seated upstairs, away from the counter and door. The dishes are well priced and the tapas style menu worked really well, allowing us to sample a range of different flavours, which would perhaps be overpowering if we had just the one large dish.
40 Kings Lane
Darlinghurst 2010 NSW
Phone: (02) 9380 2728
Opening Hours
Wed-Fri noon-11pm
Sat-Sun 6pm-11pm
Price Range
$7.00 - $14.00
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