BEROWRA WATERS INN

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that dining at this restaurant is no small undertaking: It involves a lengthy drive north followed by a nervy descent to the water by way of a narrow, sinuous road and ending with a trip over water to the restuarant by way of two ferries. For dramatic effect i'd like to add that the waters were treacherous and that we were imperiled by a terrifying tempest and an array of sea monsters.
Moving back towards reality though, the trip is really rather tranquil, and while the ferry ride across the glassy expanse of still water is a matter of necessity given the isolated nature of the venue, it feels like a great novelty; a piece of fun that the restaurant has engineered to add value to the experience.

Things are no less impressive once inside the restuarant either, tables lined up against the windows which form one side of the building allow the sun to stream in and gives the diners a view of the water, docked boats and beyond, bushland. The service is also very friendly and helpful, welcoming us warmly and enquiring as to whether we are aware of their unique menu and ordering process. As it turns out, there is a set list of dishes- in our case twelve- arranged in order from lightest to heaviest, then cheeses and desserts. Price is determined by the number of courses you choose to endulge in. We went for five each and tried our best to order different dishes so that we could try as many things as possible- a good strategy as it turned out, as everything was excellent without exception.

Of note was my first course of steamed marron, served with a lovely peppered duck prosciutto and mimosa salad, over which was drizzled truffle vinaigrette and adorned with a generous array of WA black truffle batons.

Amazing presentation was present throughout the meal, especially in the venison dish, which was accompanied by a line of foie gras, cleverly made to look like distinct 'crumbs', and in the dish of veal shank, last on the list of savoury dishes and as such adjudged to be the 'heaviest' offering on the menu. A tian of fall-apart tender veal shank was wrapped, first in spinach and then in a coating of bone marrow, which, amazingly, was transformed into a spongy blanket for the meat. I first mistook this covering for pasta, but as soon as i tasted it, i knew precisely what it was and was astonished at the feat of kitchen wizardry that had produced it. It was accompanied simply with sauteed spinach, diced tomato and a caramelised shallot. It was, and is still, my favourite dish of 2009.

Following on from this was always going to be a big ask, but the cleverly designed cheese plate, each cheese served with its own unique accompaniment, and the sticky date pudding with creamy grand marnier ice cream proved a fine end to the meal.

Taking the ferry back across the water to my parked car was a suitably relaxing end to the experience and on the way i already found myself longing to return as soon as possible, possibly using a friend's upcoming birthday as a means to justify to myself the expense of the occasion. In closing, because i want to go watch neighbours, this restaurant is awesome and you should go there.

Amuse Bouche

Marron, duck prosciutto, mimosa salad, truffle vinaigrette


Grilled scallops, caramelised witlof, cauliflower, green apple reduction


Slow cooked ocean trout, mint oil, green peas, guanciale


Venison medallion, pumpkin, pine nuts, foie gras, blood orange


Side of spaetzle

Cauliflower and white truffle veloute

Veal shank, steamed bone marrow dumpling, spinach, shallot jus

Lamb cutlet, smoked eggplant, baby green beans, olives


- Organic goats cheese, VIC
- Raw milk gruyere style cheese, Switzerland
- Organic cows milk stilton, England
- Ossau Iraty sheeps milk cheese, France
- Tallegio washed rind, Italy


Sticky date pudding, butterscotch, orange fior di latte, grand marnier ice cream

Attica

Attica

Attica, the second restaurant on my Melbourne hit list and the current '2009 restaurant of the year' as voted by The Age. Attica is also a region in Greece (bless google), and a suburb of New York, which in 1971 was home to a prison riot of sufficient infamy to warrant a fairly lengthy wikipedia entry. Luckily, this restaurant does not serve anything like Greek prison food, but what it does serve is delicious, creative and generous.

Tucked away in what seemed like a nondescript location in Melbourne's Ripponlea, Attica is nonetheless a restaurant with serious ambitions. The service is what you expect from a fine dining restaurant: friendly, unobtrusive and accommodating. The ambience is similarly warm and comfortable, the decor modern and tasteful. And as for the food, well, to start with, a platter of goodies arrived, including almonds, olives, bread and butter and some kind of braised carrot. Accompanying this was the amuse bouche, a very nice morsel of fried balsamic chicken- intensely flavoured and sticky, this was a very nice start to the meal.

Next up was the Snow Crab - described to me by my waiter as being, more or less, a play on words, in that the dish used both snow crab and incorporated a horseradish powder, looking, as it does, like a drift of powdery snow. Thankfully, beyond the playfulness exists a terrific dish, with a myriad of textures, temperatures and flavours in each mouthful, creating a complex but successful interplay.

Excitingly, the next dish to arrive had also been awarded by the Age as 'the best dish of the year'. Described on the menu as 'smoked trout broth, crackling, basil seeds, fresh smoke', what arrived was, for the second time in as many days, a plate with a glass dome which gave way to swirling smoke and smoked trout. Hmm.. At any rate, this was a great dish, though i personally would have preferred a more intensely flavoured trout broth. Also, the crackling was doused in the broth and as such failed to deliver any onomatopoeic 'crackle' - a shame, as i like that crackle.

Intriguingly, the next dish was listed on the menu as 'potato cooked in the earth it was grown'. On the back of this ambiguous desciption i began to conceive all manner of fantastic techniques which they may have employed in the creation of the dish. Perhaps the potato fields were subjected to periodic blasts of heat from a farmer's flamethrower? If so, i wanted that job.
This potato was accompanied with fried saltbush leaves, truffle which was shaved at the table by Ben Shewry himself, and the ash of a charred coconut husk, which i also would be eating for the second time in two days and yet wouldn't be surprised if i never saw likes of it again. Anyway, the dish was pleasant and earthily aromatic and showcased the simple and delicious flavour pairing of potato and black truffles. Had i eaten this on another occasion i'm sure i would have loved it, but as it was, i inevitably drew comparisons between this and the superior black truffle dish i had eaten the day before at Vue de Monde.

Moving on, a generous slab of kingfish was set before me, on a bed of rice and squid, sliced so as to make one virtually indistinguishable from the other. I enjoyed the interesting textures present in this dish, and i'm particularly partial to kingfish, so all in all, this was a great dish. As good as it was though, the best was certainly still to come.

Pork lion with fennel pollen and morcilla was a knockout dish- it was, honestly, the best piece of pork i have ever eaten. The fennel pollen worked wonderfully well with the pork and the house-made morcilla had great depth of flavour. Following on from this, the squab was also terrific. Perfectly cooked, it was served with crisp and moreish onion rings, bitter onion jus and, best of all, a beautiful smoked beetroot puree, all of which worked to elevate this dish to the
extraordinary.

Nearing the end of the meal, at the point of a degustation where a cheese course might ordinarily appear, arrived a dish simply called 'terroir'. The waiter explained to me that Ben prefers to serve a dish of his own creation, rather than a cheese procured from elsewhere. I was about to enquire as to why, then, did the loafer not produce his own damn cheese, but thought that it could have been perceived as rudeness.
Anyway, this 'terroir', consisted of beetroot, sorrell ice, fromage frais, cinnamon and more besides. Like the snow crab, this offered an array of textures and flavours - at once crispy, soft, sweet, grassy and sour. I really liked this dish, and in retrospect, it was probably one of the most successfully innovative dishes i have eaten in recent memory.

Finally, the dessert, a 'violet crumble'. Here Ben Shewry has delivered a clever take on the snack item, rather than actually serve the diner the purple wrappered Nestle confection. Which is disappointing, because it would have been nice to have observed the reactions of the diners, which i imagine would range from confusion, to surprise, to apoplectic rage. Maybe i can live out this fantasy myself while hosting my next dinner party, and i can observe my guests reactions through a hidden camera or perhaps from behind a portrait with the eye holes cut out of it.
My delusions aside, this was a lovely end to the meal, with the violet ice cream combining better than i anticipated with chocolate powder and honeycomb, a very nice dessert indeed.

Although i am typically wary of chefs overly fond of experimentation and innovation, believing that their boundary-pushing can sometimes push their food into unfamiliar and unpleasant territory, I really enjoyed my meal at Attica and sincerely look forward to coming back when i'm next in town.

Starters and amuse bouche


Snow Crab


Smoked trout with smoked trout broth with basil seeds, crackling

"A simple dish of potato cooked in the earth it was grown"

Kingfish, chorizo, almond, squid.


Pork Loin, morcilla, fennel pollen.


Squab, celery, bitter onion

Terroir


Violet Crumble

Vue De Monde

Vue De Monde

A couple of weeks ago, while watching masterchef, i realised that there is a strong Victorian presence in the show, from George Calombaris and Matt Preston, to many of its more insufferable contestants.

Insufferable contestants notwithstanding, i was drawn to the conclusion that this strong presence in what has been billed as 'the search for Australia's best amateur cook', combined with ceaseless boastful bleating of Melburnians claiming theirs as the food capital of Australia means that i must venture south to see if these claims had substance.

My first port of call - almost literally, as i arrived there only a couple of short hours after my plane had touched down- was Vue De Monde, renowned as Melbourne's consistantly best restaurant, akin to Sydney's Tetsuya's, I supposed. Having such a reputation carries with it a serious burden of expectation, however, I was determined to not let this colour my interpretation of the experience and simply enjoy each course as it came.

My first impression of the restaurant was that it was really rather small, set to accommodate far fewer patrons that i had imagined- this was to be explained by one friendly waiter later on that this was in line with the restaurant's philosophy of delivering a personalised dining experience for each individual. This philosophy was made apparent upon my being seated and approached by my waiter, who proceeded to enquire as to what food, and in what quantities, i would like to be served. Slightly ill at ease with this staged theatre, and realising that the comfort of a printed menu was certainly not forthcoming, i stammered that i was there to see what the restaurant had to offer, so we agreed for me to be served five savoury courses, after which point he would return to see how i would like to proceed from there. The benefit of this system of dining though, was that i was completely unaware of what dishes i would be served throughout the course of the meal, and i do like surprises.

To begin was an amuse bouche, scallop osso with a champagne flute of angelica veloute. When i was a lot younger I never understood why someone would take something as naturally sublime as an oyster, lobster, or in this instance, a scallop, and cover it with bacon, cheese or worcestershire sauce, that is, until i realised that these particular dishes were usually found in casino buffets and the lesser establishments within the fish markets; from this i concluded, quite rightly, that oftentimes this was done in order to mask the lack of freshness of the core ingredient. It was something i have never reconciled with, and seeing this poor scallop before me, unrecognisable from its original state, brought horridly vivid flashes of bain maries and cheap packet cheese slathered over halved lobsters.

Shaking myself back to reality, i realised i was in a top restaurant and whatever concerns i may have had over the freshness of this ingredient were clearly ill founded, and to be honest, I did enjoy this, though i was slightly perplexed by the presence of the veloute- was i to take the scallop and combine it with a sip of the veloute in my mouth? Was i to drop the scallop into the glass and swallow the lot in one gulp? As it was, i ate the scallop and then proceeded to drink the veloute from the flute. It didn't really combine fantastically and certainly was not mind blowing. Maybe i wasn't doing it right.

Less confusing, at least, though, was the terrific selection of breads and gorgeous echire butter which i nibbled on prior to the arrival of my first course. I'm a huge fan of butter, and for me, this was a whole new standard . I'm not sure where or how to acquire this butter, but i'm going to find out.

So up next was the 'salade de jicama'. I had never tried 'Jicama' (it turns out, it's yam), but in this dish, paired with abaloine, yuzu and watermelon, stunning though the presentation was, the overwhelming flavour was watermelon. Sure, it was bright and refreshing, but i had to wonder about the chef's decision to serve such a dish in the middle of a melbourne winter.

In negotiating my meal with my waiter earlier, i had agreed to pay the additional money for the 'truffle supplement', the cost of which i had to press the waiter for after his consistent attempts to sell me the virtues of this special ingredient. Perhaps, in the milieu of this establishment, it is rather gauche to be so concerned with the topic of money, but it turned out to be $60, which is a not inconsiderable amount, and as such i found it slightly disingenuous that this information was not made apparent at the introduction of his spiel.

Anyway, i decided that the money was worth it for what is often considered to be VDM's signature dish and so was rather excited about the truffle risotto which was to arrive next, especially with the arrival of the truffle and its subsequent grating at my table. I was not disappointed: deep, rich, earthy, slightly sour and complex, this was an absolute hit. The truffle aside, the risotto was also cooked to absolute perfection - this was probably the second best risotto of my life (first is the white truffle risotto at London's Locanda Locatelli), and i eat a lot of risottos.

Next up was a french-toasted brioche, foie gras mousse, 5 spice powder, serrano jamon and green apple puree. While the jamon was beautifully soft, salty and yeasty, and the foie gras mousse silky and rich, i didn't understand or appreciate their being paired with a saccharine french toast brioche and a green apple puree which, despite being coloured green, failed to deliver any of the granny smith's crisp sourness and was instead also rather too sweet.

Up next was another theatre piece: a plate delivered to my table covered by a glass dome, which, through which a beautiful piece of trout could be glimpsed amongst the swirling smoke inside. The dome was lifted, the smoke dissipated, and the dish was explained as ocean trout, smoked at the table with coconut husk, which burned down to create a piece of charcoal, which, i was reassured, was edible, though it my understanding that it is usually only consumed under the supervision of a medical professional when it is being employed as an agent to soak up poisons in a person's stomach. The spectre of the scallop flashed before me as i contemplated the waiter's enthusiastic encouragements for me to eat the charcoal. Anyway, this was a magnificently fresh and generously sized piece of trout. It was prepared sous vide, which i usually don't care for, but in this instance it was superbly textured, with a perfect amount of smokiness. Loved it. Will wonders never cease? Not with the david copperfield magic of the palate cleanser which followed - liquid verjus which had been kept at -8 degrees celsius, but through the physics wizardly of continuous vibration, had prevented the water molecules from solidifying - until, that is, it was poured out of the beaker into the martini glass set before me and appeared to rise in a spectacular crysalline column - for an instant - before impotently flopping over and vanishing into the chilled hibiscus tea. An interesting technique i suppose, but i'm not sure that the extra eight degress of coldness carried with them a corresponding amount of additional refreshment to justify the gimmickry.

Still, a palate cleanser usually means a strong dish to follow, and this was what i suppose could be termed a main course - lamb lion, rillette and sweetbread with a sherry reduction and a cylindrical potato crisp. This was terrific, not overly complicated, perfectly seasoned and plated with flair. These sentiments could also be used to describe the dish which was to follow, which arrived after the promised visit from the waiter to help determine my path through the cheese and dessert options now open to me. I opted for one cheese dish and two desserts.

So, the aformentioned dish, gouda with carrot, was, well, exactly that. Immaculately sliced layers of carrot and a sweet, creamy gouda demonstrated an interesting and successful marriage of flavours combined with fine technique and superb plating.

Now onto the desserts:
The first pre-dessert came as a tall shot glass with an iced banana 'lollypop'. This was tasty and vibrant. Less so, was the dessert to follow - a deconstructed pina colada comprised of coconut sorbet, caramelised pineapple with coconut sago pudding, accompanied with drops of intensely rum-flavoured jelly. As with my first dish of the day, i again called into question the rationale behind serving such a summer-themed dish at this time of year, but even so, i wouldn't have minded had the dish been amazing. Sadly, it was not. Naturally, pineapple, coconut and rum are ingredients which will combine well on the palate, and they did so here, but there was nothing particularly notable about this dish. It was nice, but nothing more.

The final dessert arrived after a fashion, with the waiter arriving to tell me that the chef was unhappy with how the final dish had turned out and had thus decided to do it again from scratch. Not that i minded the short wait, and i appreciated their being forthright and apologetic when it would have been too easy to pretend as though nothing had happened. At any rate, arriving in tandem with the dessert was a complimentary glass of muscatel, which i happily downed with the dish of almond parfait with nougat. As a final dish it was, again, quite nice, but not magnificent, though it must be said that at this point i was exceedingly full and as such probably did not appreciate the dish as much as i would have otherwise.

Bascially, i found that VDM's desire to deliver a fashionably unique dining experience means that there is bound to be a good deal of experimentation with flavours and textures. Unfortunately, i found that many of these simply did not work as well as intended, though there were still enough moments of brilliance to warrant my giving it another chance when i next head down to Melbourne.

Scallop Osso with Angelica veloute


Jicama and braised abalone with jicama noodle, watermelon and yuzu bubbles


Black truffle risotto


French toast, green apple puree, foie gras mousse, jamon serrano Gran Reserva


Ocean trout with horseradish and baby beetroot


Liquid verjus at -8 degrees


Poached loin and rillette of lamb with caramelised sweetbread and Pedro Ximenez reduction


Gouda with carrot


Fruit salad


Coconut sorbet, caramelised pineapple and rum powder served with a coconut sago pudding


Almond parfait with nougat and flavours of the earth


Petit fours