Mint Garden Bar and Sage Restaurant: Canberra, ACT

Last Saturday Phil surprised me with a booking at Sage Restaurant in Braddon for my birthday. I had heard a lot of good things about Sage, and wanted to try it since arriving in Canberra- what I didn’t know was that connected with Sage Restaurant was their more casual outdoor bar Mint Garden Bar, which shares a kitchen with Sage and dishes up woodfired pizzas and nibblies.

We had a few drinks at Mint Bar while we were waiting for our reservation. Great place! I highly recommend it for a clear summer/spring evening. The outdoor area is filled with fairy lights, mint plants, and the bartender plucks fresh flowers and herbs from miniature terrariums hanging from the ceiling to use in cocktails.

Keep reading after the jump!

Dates wrapped in bacon! The surefire way to improve any date experience.

For dinner you can choose the 6 course degustation option (there is a vegetarian degustation menu, as well as an “omnivore” degustation) with or without matched wines; or you order from the a la carte menu (2 courses for $60 or 3 courses for $75).

We decided on 2 courses each: For my entree, I had the kingfish crudo (slivers of raw kingfish with some sort of zingy dressing) decorated with black sesame, dried chilli strands, and avocado; for my main I ordered the beef short rib, which was slow cooked for 14 hours and came topped with these amazing puffs of pork crackling, and a side of truffled potato mash. I was really happy with my choices- the kingfish was fresh and flavoursome; the beef short rib was melt-in-mouth tender and generously marbled with delicious delicious fat.

The wait staff would periodically bring over freshly baked bread, which meant that I was pretty full towards the end of the meal, but big eaters may need to order extra sides.

Neither Phil or I are really dessert people, so we finished off the festivities with a cheese board (very tasty).

We both had a really enjoyable evening at Sage and Mint – and since it will be around the corner when we move into the new apartment, we will probably be frequenting Mint quite often for bacon wrapped dates, pizzas, and champagne.