Communal eating at the Farmhouse in Rushcutters Bay is way cool

Do people still have dinner parties? Surely some do, even if it's just serving dude food-style sliders to their mates while watching the footy (if you can call that a dinner party).

But I suspect the whole dinner party thing has gone the way of cheese-and-salami on toothpicks for most people - just something their parents did in the '70s when there was more time, and people had enough money to buy a house big enough for a dining room table. The glory days.

Chefs Mike Mu Sung and Tristan Rosier from The Farmhouse Restaurant in Rushcutters Bay.

So it's really very sweet to visit this rather tiny venue on the Rushcutters Bay end of Bayswater Rd and enter what feels like a large random dinner party.

Fortunately they don't make you separate from your partner and spend the night stuck next to the office bore or anything like that; indeed, you don't have to speak to your neighbour at all if you don't feel like it.

But you can, seeing as you're sitting cheek-by-jowl with them, close enough to overhear their every utterance.

Potato bread, potato skins and garlic aioli at The Farmhouse Restaurant in Rushcutters Bay.

You'll also probably feel as though your hosts are cooler than you; and that's because they are.

All aged in their 20s, front-of-house manager Nicholas Gurney and chefs Mike Mu Sung and Tristan Rosier fly the flag for the next generation of chefs and restaurateurs (even if Gurney has a background in design rather than restaurants).

They are young men with the sorts of cool ideas older dudes can't buy.

The concept for Farmhouse is a quaint one. At one large, long table crafted out of 150-year-old Baltic pine floorboards, 20 guests gather (at two sittings - 6.30pm and 8.30pm - on busy nights or in dribs and drabs on quiet nights), each paying $55 for a daily changing four-course meal.

The Farmhouse Restaurant's communal table brings a dinner party atmosphere to the restaurant.

There's a short drinks list with a handful of beers and wines. But by and large, you just sit down and the food starts coming.

For young guys, Mu Sung and Rosier have worked in some good kitchens - est, Sixpenny and Biota among them - and devise cute, simple but interesting menus for Farmhouse.

I can't think of a more hipster-friendly dish than the opening course of dense house-made potato bread with super-crunchy potato skins, shaved zucchini and massively garlicky yoghurt.

The highlight is the mound of potato skins that are deliciously crisp and seasoned. It's naughty food that tastes good.

A chorizo, potato, apple, yoghurt dish at The Farmhous in Rushcutters Bay.

A more conventional dish of citrus-cured trout with a pile of fried rye crumbs, an over-salted shaved fennel and dill salad and "salmoriglio", a mixture of Italian herbs, follows.

It doesn't quite rise to the highs of the first entree but is fresh and light.

This week's main is genuine dinner party food: roast spatchcock on a platter laden with this and that, including a fried bread stuffing, whole roasted onions and plenty of garlic.

The bird is nicely moist and if there's perhaps too much stuffing, well, that's OK. We're all friends here. A petite heirloom tomato side salad lightens things up a bit.

Poached pear, walnut meringue, spiced crumble at The Farmhouse.

There are interesting elements in a dessert of roast pear with spiced meringue.

The pear could use more cooking but the meringue is crisp and very fine. An additional course of a slice of rustic apple cake with cream is a happy bonus.

Generally the cooking is pretty solid, with some adventurousness shown. I'd advise the kitchen to go a bit lighter on the garlic and monitor the salt levels, but I guess that will come with experience.

Despite those flaws, Farmhouse is a really fun, sweet experience. Music plays very loudly and the chefs make the effort to come out of the kitchen to deliver dishes - and even clean up the plates.

The space is decorated minimalistically, with everything carefully reclaimed or recycled to achieve a genuine rustic look.

Best of all, it feels like something very different from the average night out. You feel good eating here, as though you are part of some cool underground movement.

It's like being at the hot hipster party you could never throw yourself.

FARMHOUSE 7/10

• 4/40 Bayswater Rd, Kings Cross
• Phone 0448413791
• Web farmhousekingscross.com.au
• Food Hipster
• Open Wednesday to Sunday for dinner
• Service Very sweet
• Value Very good
• Highlight The feel-good dinner party factor
• Lowlight Bumping elbows with your neighbour

Source: The Sunday Telegraph, 16 June 2013