Best man for the job? Mark Best chases stars atop Sydney Tower

Perched 81 floors above the city, Mark Best, one of Sydney’s most emblematic chefs, dials up the volume on Sydney Tower’s iconic revolving restaurant. Infinity by Mark Best opens to the public today; but does one of fine dining’s most bankable names heighten or hinder Sydney’s tallest restaurant?

The affable Mark Best is unimpeachable in Australian food. Marque was as much the genesis of Sydney’s fine dining scene as it was a fiercely creative, cutting-edge take on the farm-to-table mentality that’s been bled into the culinary world’s collective psyche.

Just think of the restaurants that wouldn’t exist if Mark hadn’t provided a proving ground for young, ambitious chefs looking to find their own voice.

This is where Nick Hildebrandt and Brent Savage cut their teeth. Would stunners like Bentley Restaurant & Bar and Monopole exist without this experience? Would Dan Hong not have gone on to become Merivale’s star chef? Would once-head chef Pasi Petänen never have moved on to Cafe Paci? Perhaps Victor Liong would have never found that spark to move down to Melbourne and open the legendary Lee Ho Fook.

That’s what a true pioneer looks like, and so Mark Best coming on board has already pulled plenty of attention towards Sydney Tower. The man who planted dozens of fruitful culinary seeds has brought his wisdom and wit to one of our city’s major touristic experiences. If people walk away with a great experience, it looks for the entire city. If they don’t, it doesn’t.

Is Infinity by Mark Best any good?

Spoiler: Yes, very much so. Just not the main.

Mark isn’t playing with a standalone fine diner here. Sydney Tower is a behemoth operation, and Infinity is its best hope for providing both visitors and guests with the kind of “elevated-yet-accessible” experience that word-of-mouth marketing is made for.

As media and friends file into the revolving space for launch night, Mark gives a grand, graceful speech about the importance of this space and why he is excited to steer it in a new [and necessary] direction.

“[Sydney Tower] is stitched into the skyline of our collective consciousness.” On paper that line reads like something that ChatGPT (or Claude; Claude is better) would spit out without any regard for sense. Coming from Mark Best, it hit hard. This is one of Sydney’s most exciting spaces simply because it channels just how beautiful our city is, both day and night. Take in the full rotation and you’ll spy everything that makes Sydney so impossibly pretty to see from the sky; the Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Bondi Beach. Even the Blue Mountains snake in the far distance.

It deserves to be treated with a sense of occasion. It deserves clarity and a clear purpose beyond just selling as many set menus as physically possible.

“Our wine list and back bar is all Australian,” he says proudly. “But this isn’t a gimmick, it’s a commitment.”

Mark was young and rebellious during his Marque days. There’s clearly traces on that across the menu, which tonight is just a small three-course preview preceded by a round of bar snacks.

And those snacks? Some are better than the sit-down meals. Gorgeous sea urchin crumpets with clotted cream, angular buffalo fried oyster mushrooms, light and delicious cucumber cups with cream cheese and Murray Cod caviar. Mark tells me that these canapes will be served at the bar in a much more substantial format.

“I found my voice at Marque, and I’ll continue to use that vocabulary here”

I haven’t been up to Infinity in years. I’d imagine most people who actually live in Sydney wouldn’t have, either. But it still looks much of the same, with almost all of the weight leaning on that spectacular view. It looks like a revolving restaurant in a high-profile city, and that’s pretty much it.

And so while the design is standard, the food is not. A gorgeous winter salad is plated with a silky Mandarin and cheddar custard, served with a fluffy rye and caraway sourdough. The custard, the consistency of mashed potato, is Best’s Marque side coming out to play, while the light, full-flavoured greens shows his restraint. It’s a great start.

Even better is a shallow dish of texturally perfect Abrolhos Island scallops with small pops of parmesan gnocchi swimming in a hot and sour sauce.

Not a tagent, promise. I paid a visit to the Culinary Institute of America in New York State last year and took one of their “how to taste like a chef” masterclasses. Many lessons were learnt but the one that stuck to me the most: the delicacy of heat and spice. It’s the greatest test of a skilled chef; how they can balance flavour with spice in a way that pushes that tingling feeling around your palate in purposeful ways. I then realised this when I had an incredible firefly squid dish from New York City’s Atomix. I’ll never forget the way the spice danced across the tongue and supercharged the other flavours.

I’d say the same about this dish. The hot and sour sauce is an incredible base for the flavours, sponged into the squishy scallops for great depth. It’s the star of the night.

And now for the negativity. Although it’s no longer a surprise when everything else is better than the mains at a restaurant these days. That’s certainly true, at least for tonight.

The Gilmore family farm, out in the lush fields of Oberon, are typically well-regarded for producing the country’s finest lamb—Margra lamb, used by some of the city’s top kitchens including Sixpenny and Woodcut. But tonight’s roast lamb neck falls short of the promise that comes with such top-shelf produce. Instead of a nice, crisp exterior, the surface of the lamb is tough and tense. It’s perfectly tender on the inside, but the overall profile is washed out by the overload of wakame and pickled radish.

Looking at the menu, other dinner options sound much nicer on paper. Dry aged duck with smoked plum sauce and baby corn. Slow braised short rib with sarawak pepper, truffle and celeriac. a 500g 7+ wagyu rib eye on the bone with shiitake and sunchokes. The lamb ain’t it.

Thankfully the meal picks right back up. Mark has long touted his recipe with sauternes custard. It’s a brilliant use of French wine, mixed in with a surface of bitter caramel for a remarkably rich and exciting flavour. I could do without the powdery Osmanthus crostoli and opt for something softer, but the dessert, a lovely relic from Marque, is 10/10.

I have every confidence that Mark is the best man for the job here, especially after the scallop dish. But not every choice is made equal.

Infinity by Mark Best

Address: Westfield Sydney, Level 4/108 Market St, Sydney NSW 2000
Contact: 1300 391 808
Opening Hours: Lunch is Monday – Sunday from 12pm – 2pm; dinner is Monday – Sunday from 5:30pm