Spice Temple

The wok, the floor, the pass

Stir-fried crab lands in a soupy Chinese broth, built for speed from the wok. Neil Perry, chef and owner at Spice Temple in Sydney CBD, Sydney, Australia, sets that directness against a room made for sharing rather than ceremony. His route to this pass began on the floor as much as in the kitchen: waiting, then time at Mishas Balmoral Beach, management at Sails restaurants in McMahons Point and Rose Bay, head chef work at Barrenjoey Restaurant in Palm Beach, and menu authority at Perry's in Paddington before Blue Water Grill in Bondi Beach. That sequence matters here because Spice Temple depends on timing between table, bar, and kitchen. Perry has held the chef and owner role at Spice Temple since 2009, alongside long-running work at Rockpool, Qantas, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Margaret, and Next Door. The lineage published around him names restaurants and responsibilities more than kitchen mentors; the evidence is in the breadth of stations he has held. At Spice Temple, that breadth turns into a modern regional Chinese restaurant where heat, fragrance, service rhythm, and the shared table have to arrive together.

Regional heat, measured at the table

The kitchen works through regional Chinese references rather than a single house style: Sichuan, Hunan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Nanjing, Jiangxi, and Guangxi appear in the restaurant's account of its range. The method is broad but not loose. Stir-frying carries dishes that need fast texture; tea-smoking gives duck its deeper register; steaming holds fish and hapuku in a cleaner line; dumplings bring the hand back to the bench. Chillies arrive dried, fresh, salted, pickled, brined, and fermented, used for shape as much as force. The menu is built for family style eating, with à la carte choices and set menus, so the progression matters: cooling dishes, dumplings, poultry, seafood, beef, lamb, vegetables, rice. Tea Smoked Duck, Hot and Numbing Wagyu Beef, Lamb and Fennel Dumplings, Kung Pao Chicken, and Steamed Hapuku Hunan Style give the room its working vocabulary. The beverage program follows that heat rather than fighting it, with a curated wine list of 100 handpicked bottles, Chinese beers, and a Zodiac cocktail program built around 12 signs, using herbs, spices, tea, fruit, natural sodas, infusions, premium spirits, and Baijiu.

Below street level, the room keeps pace

The room sits underground, away from the bright edge of the Sydney CBD. Black and red carry most of the visual weight; round globe lighting softens the dark, and Chinese-style decoration frames a dining room that feels more enclosed than hidden. Sound is part of the texture: diners talking across shared plates, glasses being topped, plates moving back toward the pass. It is an intimate room, but not a hushed one. That suits the food. A table might move from cucumber, ginger, and mint into prawn wontons with black vinegar and chilli, then toward Kung Pao Chicken or Hot and Numbing Wagyu Beef, with the back bar working in parallel. Perry has been chef and owner at Spice Temple since 2009, and the room still turns around Tea Smoked Duck.