Restaurant Review: Burnt Orange, Mosman

Has Laura Ashley opened a café? A clientele of middle aged, middle class women. Check. Floral designs. Check.

If Laura Ashley ever does open a café, surely it would be a lot like Burnt Orange in Mosman. I don't mean any disrespect by the analogy as I very much enjoyed my lunch there on Saturday. There was just a certain 'Laura Ashley' style about the place.

The shop and kitchen of Burnt Orange is located inside the converted golf clubhouse that it occupies. The restaurant tables are located on the covered deck which wraps around two sides of the building, with wonderful views out into Sydney Harbour.

I'm not really a fish pie fan. However, to my uneducated palate it tasted good. With decent amounts of fish, and a white wine and leek sauce that added a good flavour to the pie.

The poached chicken and avocado salad with asparagus and pink grapefruit dressing looked a treat. The citrus dressing gave the salad a very light feel. Even though it was a rainy spring day this salad went down very well.

I decided that we couldn't leave the café without something orange, so ordered the orange and almond cake with citrus syrup for dessert. The cake was good, I particularly enjoyed the orange syrup. It was doubtless very bad for me, but utterly delicious.

The location (without a car) is a bit remote, the café is surrounded on three sides by the ugly HMAS Penguin base and the service can be a bit slow. However, sitting on the deck and enjoying the good food; the 'Laura Ashley ladies' didn't seem to mind. In fact they were lapping it up. And who can blame them?