Xanthi Bar and Restaurant - Westfield Sydney

After much deliberation, I decided to make a booking at Xanthi for my girls and I.


To be honest, I was a little bit skeptical at first. I often find myself associating Westfield with food court.... not fine dining. But then again, I'm cognitively exhausted and stereotyping is so much easier.  Don't let your assumptions undermine this restaurant. 

Let me start off by saying.... Xanthi had the most jubilant hostess. She instantly lit up the restaurant, she was friendly, genuine and made us feel welcome. The staff and chef were amazingly friendly, greeting and farewells were generous. I was almost a little bit "shocked" to receive great service. I'm so used to apathetic chefs and waiters throwing menus at me.. Isn't that sad? Service really sets the mood, personally it's a big predictor as to whether I'd return or not. Maybe if department stores employed staff with similar attitudes they'd get better sales?


The decor was very unique.... exotic music, drapes.... I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of it. 

Being pedantic, I've grown accustomed to reading the menu online and googling restaurant reviews/pictures before actually dining... just so that I'd have a decent knowledge of my hypothetical meal.
So, here we go..

(Oh and excuse the poor quality pictures, I thought the camera on my phone had better pixels... rest assured, I'm crawling back to my digi cam)

Complementary bread and olive oil. We assumed it was extra virgin and sour dough.

Hot Smoked Eggplant Dip

 The dipping bread (is that what you call it?) was nice, but a little hard for my liking. I preferred the sourdough. The dip was very smokey, but I'm glad we ordered it because it's practical, you can add a spoonful to ... anything.

Herbed skordalia croquettes

 There may be a bias here, I LOVE croquettes.. and this was absolutely delicious. The dill balanced everything out.

Rabbit Stifatho

 My first time having rabbit. If you haven't tried it... imagine a crossbreed between a chicken and a pig. It tastes like that, but a tiny bit more chewy. Maybe a little bit more flavour? I put a dollop of smoked eggplant dig on it.

Pork Belly Baklava

 Good baby jesus... the combination of the pork belly and the date sauce was absolutely amazing... let me emphasis on the deliciousness of the date sauce AMAZING. The pork was a little bit dry and the crackling was a little hard. Otherwise brilliant.

One dish I forgot to take a picture of was : Lamb Fricasse --- I love my garlic lamb chops but this was exceptionally lamb-y.  Flavour was true though.

Olive Oil Ice Cream

 First time! It was very creamy. Pistachio and dried fig ice cream. It was definitely interesting.

Caramel Baklava ice cream

This was of my favourite of the night. It wasn't overly sweet. Smooth texture. Ice cream infused baklava... Seriously!? Which genius thought of that?? Only disappointment... No caramel sauce. This dish was superb but I think it could do with a piece of pastry or two in the baklava. 

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