Here at Stately Prick Manor we no longer describe someone as being drunk, trollied, pissed, or maggot. The new preferred term is, “non-sharia compliant”.

Which pretty much, with all due respect to this site’s Islamic readership (I know you’re out there, the traffic logs say there’s a few people who pop in from Saudi Arabia … though often by way of some fairly esoteric and disturbing search engine requests) described the Pricks’ Sunday afternoon. Restaurant Atelier in Glebe has been pulling out the stops for its tenth birthday, and the final event on the calendar was nothing less than a couple of pigs done over the coals with all the trimmings.

This is not the first time this site has plumped for Atelier, or been to one of their pig roasts, though we did bring the Three Little Pricks along. To say they were keen on the idea would be an understatement. On the morning, they were as excited as if it were Christmas. Hell, it might even have been Hour of Power for all they were bouncing off the walls. And they were well rewarded, with their own plates of trotters, tails – even a nose. You can never get kids started on the good stuff too early.

Nose to tail, with a bit of trotter in the middle …

The point of this is not just to report on a pig roast, as fun as it was to have a feed and catch up with various twitterati and fellow foodies including the brains behind such sites as Local Sprouts and The Adventures of Miss Piggy. Atelier is a restaurant that despite a clearly loyal following deserves wider fame. The food easily holds its own with the one and two-hat joints around town (see here for a previous account of a meal). Great wines too: At Piggy Sunday, I was treated to a splash of an Oregon pinot gris of the sort one never sees out this way (its sails perfectly trimmed to cope with a taught, acidic headwind and not get pushed off-course by creamy crosscurrents). Other meals have brought other treats: a Mont-Redon white Chateauneuf du Pape, for example, stands out in the memory.

Far more important, the business is an honest one. Chef Darren and his partner Bernie have done – are doing – an incredible thing to keep going in the present climate. And they do so without buying into the frippery of the Sydney publicity-industrial complex, that bizarre secret society that needs its own Stonecutter’s Anthem (“Who makes Mexican a trend?/Who wants to be Terry Durack’s friend?/We do! We doooooo!”). They’re just turning out great food and great times.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Do yourself a favour. Book in for a meal. And tell ‘em the Prick sent ya.