Sausage rolls are one of life’s small pleasures. Golden, flaky, buttery pastry envelops a little meat (my preference is pork), and a couple squirts of tomato sauce give it that extra depth. Is there a better affordable snack? To me, joy can even be found eating a bad, perhaps not-evenly-heated sausage roll.

So when I was invited to experience what I’m calling Sydney’s most lavish food and drink meal deal, I was interested. It’s Bennelong’s suckling-pig sausage roll paired with a glass of Krug Grande Cuvée 166ème Édition champagne. The price? A cool $110.

The luxe pastry roll isn’t new; it’s been on the menu at the more casual Cured and Cultured Bar since it, and the more upscale dining room of Peter Gilmore’s Opera House restaurant it overlooks, opened in 2015. Next to the knockout red-claw yabbies with buckwheat pikelets, it became a must-order dish at the elegant bar.

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Clearly we’re not talking your average corner-shop roll here. “The suckling pig is braised for eight hours; its meat shredded with reduced pork stock and a mirepoix of celery, eschalots and garlic is cooked in butter,” head chef Rob Cockerill says. “We then add hazelnuts, sesame seeds and fermented mushrooms to the mixture before it is wrapped in puff pastry and baked.”

There’s no tomato sauce in sight either – the roll is sliced into six thick discs, placed on an earth-coloured plate and neat blobs of black-garlic sauce are artfully dolloped on top of each slice. The sauce is the colour of Vegemite, and it’s thick, jammy, rich and vastly less runny than what we usually splatter on sausage rolls. But from now on I demand this, and only this, for dipping my savoury pastry goods into.

This drink-meal “special” is available until the end of August, but after that you can try this fancy sausage roll for $24, which means the pricy component is the drink. Some quick calculations reveal the glass of Krug is worth $86. But Bennelong and Quay are the only places in Sydney serving this champagne by the glass, so if fancy champers is your tipple, it’s also a chance to try it without completely blowing the rent money on a whole bottle ($254).

And what a robust, effervescent glass of champagne it is. We’re informed by Bennelong’s incredibly knowledgeable head sommelier Seamus Brandt that Krug’s Grande Cuvée isn’t made like other champagnes, which might explain its price tag. For the 166ème Édition, the maison blended 140 wines from 13 different years, the youngest dating back to 2010 and the oldest to 1996. As he fills a delicate flute with the bubbly booze he tells me that approach imparts a fullness of flavour and aroma, which can’t be achieved from a single year.

I cut a bite-sized mouthful of the sausage roll and taste. It’s rich and creamy and I already know I’m going to be sad when I finish it. I lift the glass and sip the Krug and I understand why they’ve matched these two guys: the bubbles are almost aggressive, punctuating the roof of my mouth with a slight tart dryness that perfectly balances against the pastry’s shortness and butter.

It’s a clever pairing and I can’t lie, it’s very good and I would eat and drink it again (as would I absolutely come back to Bennelong’s Cured and Cultured Bar to order the yabbies with buckwheat pikelets because it is one of Sydney’s great dishes, and the bar space is more casual and comfortable than people think it may be). That said, at $110 it is very expensive. Hmmm, reason 1459 why I need to become independently wealthy.

The Krug X sausage roll is available until August 31 at Bennelong’s Cured and Cultured Bar. For $110 you get a suckling pig sausage roll and a glass of Krug Grande Cuvée 166ème Édition Champagne. (A glass of champagne is also available for $89 by itself).

bennelong.com.au