THE RESTAURANT – THE MENU

CHEF: POST PINK



Amuse-Bouche

Gougères au Comté

For starters, we have a solid foundation for the stomach: cheese puffs made with aged Comté. Den have mastered this opening bite, an amusing and gentle snack.



Yes, you’ve heard: Den moved out of the darkness and the chilly cold and have moved inside The Restaurant. They’ve commandeered the kitchen and present a greater depth of flavour and culinary nuance.



You might remember them first as a food track in a Marrickville back alley where they served a damaged blend of salty post punk and psychedelic hardcore, salt in the hair and salt on the skin, and then a delivery service of ultra minute, dense bites on their Deep Cell LP.



Years of experimenting and balancing flavours have encouraged them to embrace a restraint and subtlety with Post Pink, a truly new sound and direction for the band that honours their culinary legacy.

Entrée

Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée



The famous gourmand Brillat-Savarin suggested that onions were the truffles of the poor: plentifully available, delicious when cooked well, comforting. Den have mastered the charming entrée, onion soup. A meal at The Restaurant would not be complete without the comfort of this delightfully odorous fair. Truffles are sharp, domineering flavours, Deep Cell flavours. Post Pink infers a certain kind of comfort that you might not anticipate in the wake of their previous output.



By this I mean, the ears do not bleed! There is a similar density to the new album, but in place of the sharpened rapier poking deep in your head and puncturing your eardrum, Post Pink has an ethereal quality much like you’d love about Wire’s 154. The weight and solemnity of Deep Cell has lifted, the weightless lyrics will hit you with a brilliant mash of imagery in a way that you love about Brian Eno’s lyricism, some silly moments with words like “happenstance”, copulating jellyfish, a frog in a bowl of onion soup.



Heartwarming and playful music.

Plats Principaux

Entrecôte de Bœuf, Sauce au Poivre, Frites Maison



This is the essence of the Post Pink meal, this playful quality. We have all eaten a steak, but the best flavours come when a steak is slightly undercooked, and to cook it well requires skill, technique, patience.



It is so common now to hear bands who woefully overcook, either focusing on their message with heart rending condemnations of the tasteless quality of contemporary life, or writing impenetrable attempts to elevate us out of the crudity, but so often a crude denunciation of crudity compounds the crudity, the misery, the tastelessness, and so often we are left with a tough, chewy, over-cooked steak.



This Post Pink meal took a long time to cook – it was recorded in 2023 and mixed over two long years in Micky’s studio – but it wasn’t on the pan the whole time. To pound the metaphor out one last time, preparation and decoration and adornment of a meal might take a while, but the steak is juicy and tender precisely because of this elusive quality that often falls flat when it’s done poorly: this tastes like it was made with love, this tastes like it was made by people playfully discovering music and going with their instincts and their passions and not trying to make a statement, win a chefs hat or get a write up in Broadsheet.



Dessert

Soufflé au Grand Marnier



The proof is in the soufflé, and this is a perfect way to finish our meal. The descriptors I’ve used are all present in this delightful little dish: light, playful, weightless and comforting. I would say this about other records that I feel have balanced flavours with Post Pink and would have shared some gastronomic insights: John Cale’s Paris 1919 and Brian Eno’s Before and After Science are two that come to mind.



The Restaurant is a non-smoking venue, you are welcome to smoke outside in the street. You will notice from outside how warm, well lit and charming this place is. When you return your meal will be waiting for you.