Sydney’s Lotus restaurants now have a quirky little brother in Papa Bo Min; a casual eatery and bar experience serving modern Chinese food, cocktails and tunes in the CBD’s Grosvenor Place. Papa Bo Min serves dine in and takeaway lunch and dinner, six days a week.
Papa Bo Min is a playful and slightly more relaxed version of sister restaurants Lotus Galeries and Lotus Barangaroo and also smaller in scale, seating 50 across low tables and banquettes. Paul Papadopoulos of DS17 (Lotus Barangaroo, Alpha, Beta Bar) has designed a simplistic indoor/outdoor space with a neutral colour palette of concrete, raw ply timber and exposed brick.
The name is a nod to owner Michael Jiang’s father who the family and Lotus Dining team affectionately call ‘Papa Bo Min’. The menu includes some of ‘Papa’s’ favourite Chinese dishes such as steamed fish fillet with pickled chilli and crispy skin chicken Maryland with spiced soy sauce.
The menu highlights ‘better for you’ Chinese cuisine and proves Chinese food isn’t all heavy. Local grown vegetables, ginger, soy and fish sauce are hero ingredients. Papa’s roasted duck pancakes with cucumber, coconut sugar and soy is a twist on the popular dish, as is wok-fried favourite; king brown mushrooms with five spice tofu, celery and garlic.
The bar is a key part of the Papa Bo Min experience. Cocktail artist Kate McGraw’s ‘Papa’s frose’ with orange blossom and rhubarb; and the made to share ‘Kate’s hard lemonade’ with gin, lemonade fruit, lemon aspen, milk oolong and prosecco, are obvious summer winners. An ever-changing wine list by sommelier Annette Lacey offers more than 25 wines by the glass. Off the booze? House-made sodas and juices are your go-to.
Group pastry chef Tiffany Jones’ Asian twist on a lamington is as pretty as it is delicious. A Valrhona flourless chocolate cake with black sesame, Satilia Valrhona chocolate mousse, raspberry and hibiscus jam. There’s also ‘Papa’s macaron ice-cream sandwich’ – a firecracker macaron with lemongrass ice cream and burnt vanilla pineapple jelly.
Papa Bo Min stays with the food’s ‘better for you’ vibe by donating a portion of proceeds from selected dishes to the Barnardos Australia ‘reconnect’ program. The program helps troubled youth with life skills, nutrition and finances. All takeaway packaging is biodegradable and for every six takeaway soda bottles you bring back, they’ll give you a soda on the house.
Papa Bo Min
Grosvenor Place, shop 3, 225 George Street, Sydney
Open M-F: 12pm-9pm | S: 11am-10pm
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