A grill restaurant that grew up inside a casino
BLACK Bar & Grill opened at The Star Sydney with a simple bet: a serious charcoal kitchen could hold its own next to the loudest room in the city. Nine years on, the coals are still lit and the bet keeps paying off.
Nine years at the coals
From a 40-seat grill counter to the restaurant The Star's regulars plan their week around. Scroll the timeline sideways.
The counter opens
Forty seats, one Josper oven and a menu of twelve dishes. The first rib-eye goes over coals on opening night.
The dining room grows
The grill counter proves itself and the restaurant expands to 110 seats, keeping the coals as the room's centre.
The Chef's Table
An eight-seat marble counter goes in behind glass at the back of the kitchen, and sells out its first year.
The cellar program
The list passes 300 bottles and the cellar room opens for sommelier-led tastings.
Today
400 bottles, three private spaces, ten workshops a year and the same Josper that started it all.
The founder's note
"Everyone said a fine grill could not survive inside a casino, that the floor would always eat the restaurant. We took the opposite view: the casino brings the energy, and we bring the reason to stay for dinner. The room works because both halves respect each other's craft."
M. Whitfield · Director, Aust Eats & Drinks Hospitality
"Fire is honest. Everything else is technique."
Our head chef's rule is that a dish earns its place on the menu only if the coals improve it. Sauces, ferments and garnishes exist to serve the fire, not to hide it. That discipline is why the menu is short, seasonal and written around what the Josper does rather than what trends demand.
Fire first
Every savoury dish must justify itself at the coals.
Source named
Producers are printed on the menu, not hidden in the kitchen.
Nothing wasted
Trim becomes stock, bone becomes sauce, ash becomes seasoning.
"A casino gave us a room full of people who came to be entertained. The fire gave us something worth showing them."
Head chef · BLACK Bar & Grill
Cooking over open fire is older than every recipe we own
The Josper is a Spanish invention, the dry-aging is a British tradition, and the native seasonings are tens of thousands of years older than both. The menu works because the old techniques carry the new ideas.
The Josper
A closed charcoal oven that holds 400 degrees and seals the crust in seconds. The heart of the kitchen since day one.
The cabinet
Our dry-aging room keeps primals at one degree for a minimum of thirty-five days. Patience, refrigerated.
The natives
Lemon myrtle, pepperberry, wattleseed and finger lime: Australian seasonings that predate every technique we use.
Nothing happens behind a wall
The grill sits in the middle of the dining room because hiding the work never made sense to us. Guests watch the coals get raked, the steaks get marked and the pass get called. The team works in full view and takes pride in it.
- Grill lead: runs the Josper through every service
- Sous chefs: two per service, one for fire, one for garnish
- Pastry section: arrives at 4am, leaves after the last dessert
400°
Oven temp
9
Chefs per service
04:00
Pastry start
What the guides wrote
"The rare casino restaurant that locals choose over the harbour options."
Good Food Guide · 2025
One Hat
SMH Good Food · 2024-26
Best Steak in Sydney, reader's vote
Time Out · 2025
"A wine list that takes Australian producers as seriously as the kitchen takes fire."
Gourmet Traveller Wine · 2025
Original reviews are linked from our journal when each feature goes live.
Reviews through the years
"The pass seating turns dinner into theatre without a single gimmick."
Restaurant critic · National reviewer of the year
"BLACK treats steak as a discipline, not a commodity, and the cellar backs it up."
Food & wine editor · Sydney press
"Nine years in and the coals still draw the city's most interesting tables."
Dining editor · Australian guide
What responsible looks like at the grill
Big fire, small footprint. The kitchen runs on measured commitments rather than slogans, and we publish the numbers because they are the only part that matters.
94%
of produce from Australian farms within 400km
87%
of kitchen waste diverted from landfill
0
single-use plastics in service since 2023
12
partner farms and fisheries named on the menu
The farm partnerships
Beef comes from one Riverina station. Oysters travel two hours from Port Stephens. Native ingredients are bought from Indigenous-owned growers wherever a supply exists. The names go on the menu because the farms earned them.
The walls rotate too
Every quarter a local artist takes the dining room walls. The work is for sale, the artist takes every dollar, and the room looks different each season.
Current exhibition: Smoke and Salt, large-format photographs of the NSW coastline by a Sydney artist, on the walls until the summer solstice.
Opening nights are on the events calendar
The loop the kitchen runs on
Every input gets a second life before it gets a bin. The four-step loop below is how 87% of kitchen waste stays out of landfill.
Trim to stock
Beef and vegetable trim becomes the stock and sauces the menu runs on.
Ash to seasoning
Clean charcoal ash seasons vegetables and cures fish for the raw courses.
Surplus to staff
What cannot be served becomes the staff meal, which the brigade takes seriously.
Rest to compost
The remainder goes to a composting partner, weighed and logged each week.
The figures above are audited quarterly by our waste contractor and published internally. Targets move each year; the loop does not.
Work the coals
The kitchen brigade is small, stable and trained from within. Most of our seniors started here as juniors, which is the culture in one sentence.
Junior sous chef
Full-time · Grill section · From AUD 78,000
Sommelier
Full-time · Floor & cellar · From AUD 82,000
Section waiters
Part-time and full-time · Evenings · From AUD 36/hr