Fiction

Grub

The gastronomic temple Grub made headlines a few years back for serving Sydney’s bored pleasure-seekers a Mediterranean dreamfish that caused diners to hallucinate for several days. Since then, Grub opened bookings once a year, an event earmarked in the calendars of a thousand stressed PAs, and the prices grew if not prohibitive, then as gluttonous as the clientele. Like Grub, when Dave called triumphantly from his study that they had secured a date in the summer, Mira was hit by a maelstrom of reservations.

It didn’t matter that Dave’s credit card, held hostage by the booking system, would be pillaged at the slightest infraction of the lengthy disclaimer they signed upon arrival. They would adapt to the dining room floors rotating on nauseous conveyor belts, each row of tables zooming off in different directions at different speeds like a haywire solar system model. And hey, they were once young: they could handle the techno pulsing at decibels that transformed all conversation into screams.

What troubled Mira most was the menu, written in soot upon paperbark:

Summer Menu

Poulet De Poubelle

Taste of Sydney Harbour

Plat du jour: naturally smoked koala

Eel (live, eaten whole, with assistance)

The moving floors, their waiter explained, guiding them by hand across to their table, gave the “elevated diners” equal vision of the city below. “Equality,” said Mira, looking out the window. “Here?” Burning snowflakes fell from a pyrocumulonimbus that had begun its funeral march in the west and arrived overnight to devastate the city. The circular room, usually aglow with light pollution, was dark and sepulchral.

“Any dietaries?” the waiter asked.

Mira lowered the menu. “Anything but this?”

She looked at Dave, hidden behind charred paperbark, and reminded herself that this was his love language: he spent heaps of money on weird foods in restaurants where waiters got involved in your meal.

“A vision underlies your experience tonight,” the waiter shouted.

“Want to sit down?” asked Mira.

“Not everyone can see it,” said the waiter. “It requires certain sensory realignments. Pah!” – he really did spit on the floor – “Why should soul food ‘comfort’ us? Why be confined by gustatory orthodoxy? What about the darker aspects of the soul? Ah, here it comes. Quickly now.” He retreated solemnly, hands clasped in prayer, as a cart zigzagged towards their table.

Upon the cart was an ibis, the poulet de poubelle, its wings outstretched. A dismembered beak, enormous chopsticks, lay nestled amid city rubbish and was used to serve slices carved from the breast.

As Dave worked through the meat, his wife’s face pixelated into low definition.

“Are you crying?” Mira asked. Dave wiped away tears and reached over to eat her share, which she would otherwise leave to go cold. He wanted to understand. He craved realignment. Mira would survive this night, then roam Circular Quay in search of Macca’s.

When The Taste of Sydney Harbour was served, Mira dragged her chair further from the table. It was accompanied by an odour of pungent decay.

“A bouillabaisse honouring the Marseillais tradition,” said their waiter, choking with emotion or stench. “Ghost pipefish, Port Jackson shark fin, the flesh of fairy penguins, tube worms and, most importantly, the human essence. Microplastics, ciggie butts, industrial waste. All replicating our beloved drowned estuary.”

Dave dunked his spoon into the soup, swirled it, placed the spoon on the table and stared into the whirlpool, as if seeking divine instruction.

“Forget the money,” said Mira. “Let’s bounce.”

“They’re trying to tell us something,” Dave replied, so quietly it was lost in the techno.

Neither of them tried the soup. The waiter, lingering tableside for a complete revolution, pressured them onwards. “You’ll be surprised. Trust us. Brillat-Savarin said each new dish was like the discovery of a star.”

“These are dead stars,” said Mira.

“Ha! Yes, so good. Oh, except for the eel.”

Dave breathed heavily. Then he raised the bowl and slurped, once, twice, again, until everything was consumed.

Mira examined her husband’s revolting face. “You’re… into this?”

Dave, indigesting, couldn’t respond right away. He did elaborate breathwork, looking close to unconsciousness. “Enough fine dining is like being forced to attend church,” he said. “You don’t swallow everything, but neither do you leave untouched.”

Mira shook her head. Who was this man?

“We deserve this,” Dave said. “It’s our fault.”

“Your fault,” said Mira. “I suggested the pub.”

By the time the koala arrived, Mira had drunk several bloody grubs, a house variation of the bloody mary. After her third, the waiter informed her that the secret ingredient was human blood. The koala, skewered by eucalyptus, butterflied open, had no eyeballs. Its fur was singed away. “You,” she said, pointing at the waiter, “pure evil.”

“It’s not like they’re shot out of the trees,” said Dave. Mira glared at her husband of 365 days and wondered whether she could survive another one.

“Our specialists work closely with fire and rescue teams,” the waiter said. “All ethical. Quite sustainable, no?”

“And seasonal!” added Dave.

Mira left to navigate the dizzying floors. The bathroom had moved to the other side of the dining room and by the time she finished it was somewhere else. She wandered the outskirts until her husband rotated back into view beside the desecrated koala, his head tilted back, his mouth agape. The waiter, standing on a foot stool, lifted a ruler-sized, writhing eel from a tableside aquarium.

Distracted, Mira missed a segment of moving floor. She fell and was carried away from Dave, although she could still hear the waiter shouting over the music.

“I’ll help you,” he screamed. “Don’t resist. Let it wriggle in. Work together.” He began to lower the eel into Dave’s willing mouth.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 19, 2025 as "Grub".

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