Melbourne Series - Nobu, the Global Japanese

http://www.noburestaurants.com/melbourne/experience/

When I am travelling overseas, I have a general rule when thinking about which restaurants I'm going to check out.  If the restaurant has an outlet in Australia that I can easily get to, then I'll pass and eventually get to the Australian version.  So, when I was in New York last year and listing out the restaurants I wanted to check out, the original Nobu was on the list, but quickly discounted.  After all, I was in  Melbourne often enough...

I've walked by Nobu at the Crown complex dozens of times in the last couple of years and each time I've stopped at the front, looked at the menu, thought about walking in, then gone somewhere else. This trip to Melbourne was different, I finally stepped through the front door for that long awaited visit.  It came about after a tweet..  I was in town for a conference and as lunch time approached, I'd sent a text out asking if anyone wanted to come to Nobu for lunch with me and my mate LS jumped at the chance.  I knew LS was up for a great meal as we'd grabbed dinner in Singapore earlier in the year at Jaan (one of Singapore's top restaurants.)

Nobu is recognised as one of the worlds great restaurant chains and was established by renowned Japanese chef Nobuyuki (Nobu) Matsuhisa.  With two restaurant brands, Nobu and Matsuhisa, Nabuyuki is a chef that is instantly recognisable to millions around the world.  With many incredible accolades, including many Michelin Stars and James Beard Awards, and an AGFG Chefs Hat, Nobuyuki was named one of the 11 Most Influential Chefs of the Decade by Madrid Fusion (2009). Nobu is actually the collaboration between Nobuyuki and Hollywood heavyweight, Robert De Niro with the first Nobu opening in New York City in 1994.

I was pretty excited about finally getting along to dine at Nobu....

Melbourne Series - Hardware Societe

Facebook - The Hardware Societe

There is a cafe in Melbourne that seems to be the most popular spot in the universe!  I've been wanting to check out uber cafe, the Hardware Societe, the last two or three times I've been to Melbourne, but alas, its been closed for a while.  You can imagine my excitement then having been told that the cafe had re-opened after a fire had partially destroyed the premises.  I had to get along and check it out.

I only really had one morning available to me on my trip, which was a Friday morning.  When in Melbourne, I normally make my way to The European in Spring Street, which had been my favourite breakfast spot down south (see post here), but I was willing to make an exception. Knowing that Hardware Societe was pretty damn popular, I thought that I'd get up early and make my way over at around 7:15am, a little while before it's opening time of 7:30.  I was pretty glad that I did, there was already a decent queue forming and I managed to join it about twenty people deep.

Melbourne Series - Flower Drum - exquisite Chinese in the heart of Melbourne

http://www.flower-drum.com/

Melbourne is a city where the restaurant rules, a place where there is almost a never ending supply of fantastic dining spots to enjoy.  You could literally eat at a new restaurant every night and never need to revisit any.  But it's refreshing to know that in the hotbed of Melbourne eating, there are some stalwarts that almost transcend the dining scene and enter legendary status.  There is a restaurant that has most certainly reached legendary status in Melbourne that I've had on my list for such a long time, one that I've just never been able to get into....  The Flower Drum.

'Flower Drum' is known in China as a traditional dance, famous for its beauty and elegance and it's these traits that have been incorporated in philosophy of the restaurant.  One of only three The Age Good Food Guide three hatted restaurants at the moment, The Flower Drum has pretty much been the major constant in fine dining in Melbourne.  You only have to look at it's history to understand the scale of it's magnificence.  Not only accredited as restaurant of the year by the Good Food Guide from 1999 to 2002 and again in 2004, it topped the Gourmet Traveller restaurant of the year in 2002. Flower Drum also made the world's top 50 list by Restaurant Magazine in England from 2002 to 2005.  And of course its kept either two or three chef's hats for as long as anyone can remember!

The magic of the Flower Drum started when in 1975, Gilbert Lau opened his soon-to-be-famous restaurant in Chinatown on Little Burke Street.  Setting high standards for himself and his team, Gilbert brought Cantonese food to the people of Melbourne and was able to compete with the more established European fine dining establishments.  Looking to capitalise on its popularity, Gilbert moved the Flower Drum to larger premises in Market Lane and appointed Chef Anthony Lui as the restaurant's executive chef.  It was in 2003 that Gilbert sold his beloved restaurant to his three employees,  including Chef Anthony Lui, and they have continued to provide Melbourne with the finest of Cantonese cuisine.

Melbourne Series - Gradi at Crown - The Best Pizza in the World

http://www.400gradi.com.au/

It's been a pretty good year for me, both personally and professionally. Earlier in the year I was lucky enough to have travelled to Singapore to compete in the World Contact Centre Awards, where my business did very well.  More recently, I was able to represent this great state in National Awards for my business, where we also did pretty well....  So yeah, its been a good year.  Whenever I travel, I always make it my business to try to check out the local restaurant scene, which included some amazing restaurants in Singapore (see posts here).  One of my favourite places to travel to, especially for the food, is Melbourne, so I used my time recently to continue to check out some amazing restaurants.

My flight into Melbourne saw me arrive at the hotel right on lunch time, so it was only natural that I sought out decent spot to have a quick lunch.  I'd initially thought that the Nobu lunchtime special would be the way to go, but as I was walking through Crown, I'd recalled that a very special new restaurant had opened.  I couldn't remember the name, just that it was a pizza place and that it had only just opened.  It only took me a few seconds to 'Google' the parameters to come up with the name Gradi and as luck would have it, I was only a few meters away.

You might be wondering why I was so keen to check out a pizza place and why it might have left such an impression on me, and it's a good question.  Gradi is not just any old pizza restaurant, it's actually the new restaurant from Johnny Di Francesco 'VPN', who apart from his family hailing from home of pizza in Naples, is also the guy who took out the 2014 title for 'world's best' pizza.  In fact, Johnny is the first Australian ever trained in Naples to the 'Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana VPN' rules and he's the association's Australasian principal, travelling the region ensuring pizzerias are of the highest standard before officially inducting them into the Association.  Quite an honour.

Melbourne Series - The Meat and Wine Co

http://themeatandwineco.com/

With so many restaurants to choose from and usually being the guy that makes the choices, it was unusual for me to hand over the decision to others to choose a spot for dinner.  I'm not sure if I'd have picked the Meat and Wine Co as an early choice when visiting Melbourne, but it was the last day of a conference I'd been attending and the Meat and Wine Co is where we'd been booked.

I'd not heard of the Meat and Wine Co but quickly got up to speed.  Established in 2000, the Meat and Wine Co was created to create a family friendly steakhouse dining experience.  With a number of outlets around the cooler suburbs around  Sydney and Melbourne, the Meat and Wine Co has adopted an African meets Australian theme inside the restaurant.

We were booked into the Southbank outlet of the M&WC, which was just across the street from the Crown complex.   Our reservation was for 6pm sharp, with express instructions that we had to be out for the second sitting of the night at 8pm.  I was really surprised by this, given it was a Thursday, it was impressive that they could maintain a double sitting on a week night.  I was even more impressed when we finally hit the restaurant and saw how big the dining area was, over several floors.

It was pretty easy to see where the wine section came from in the name, with an extraordinary array of wines on display as we made our way upstairs to our table.  Walking up the stairs, there was a three story high stack of crates, filled with bottles of wine of all descriptions.  Of course, not being a connoisseur of wine, they could have all been ordinary, but visually, the stack was spectacular.  I was keen to see if the meat side of the name would be as impressive.

Melbourne Series - Bistro Guillaume Crown Casino

http://bistroguillaumemelbourne.com.au/

I'm pretty fortunate in that I get to travel around the country a bit, which allows me to go to some pretty awesome restaurants outside of Queensland.  I was recently in Melbourne for a week and stayed in one of the best foodie complexes in Australia, Crown Casino.  Now I'm not a gambling man and don't really love the concept of gambling in a casino, but Crown sure does know how to put a whole complex together.  Some of the best restaurants in Melbourne are located at the Crown complex, which makes it really easy to get access to great food when staying at one of the Crown hotels.

I was down in Melbourne for a tech conference, which the geeky side of me always finds pretty exciting, but like the saying goes 'all work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy'.  So I took the opportunity in between bouts of serious work (well, as serious as you can get at a tech conference) to check out some nice dining spots.

We were in Crown Palladium for the conference, which is coincidentally just a few steps away from some amazing restaurants, including Rockpool Bar and Grill (see post here) and Number 8 (see post here), just to name a few.  I'd been to many others in the complex, but all prior to commencing my blog, so I really wanted to get in to write about one of my favourite little French bistros in Melbourne.  

Bistro Guillaume is one of the many restaurants around the country set up by Guillaume Brahimi and has been awarded an Australian Good Food Guide chefs hat, which is usually a pretty good indicator of quality.   Inspired by many of France's neighbourhood bistros, the restaurant has a very chic and Parisian feel about it, while maintaining a modern edge.  What I really love about Bistro Guillaume is their lunch time special, which comes in at a very special $49 dollars for two courses or $59 for three courses.  The prices are actually pretty unbelievable, considering many of the mains on offer start at $40 dollars anyway.

Melbourne Series - Manchester Press

https://www.facebook.com/manchesterpress

It was our final morning in Melbourne and we only had time for one last meal before heading to the airport and our flight home.  I'd really been struggling to find a breakfast spot in the Melbourne CBD that would be a little different from the dime-a-dozen cafes in the more popular lane-ways.  I was really looking for somewhere quintessentially Melbourne to have our last breakfast and most of my efforts in sourcing places to eat had been on lunch and dinner spots.  

To make matters worse, it was a cold and drizzly morning and we had to get our umbrellas out to wander around and look for a breakfast spot.  We'd been wandering around the city's more popular streets and lane-ways, so we wanted something a little off the beaten track.  Looking on our trusty mobile devices (yep, iPhones) we found a little spot that looked like it could be pretty good, so we trundled off to Rankins Lane in search of Manchester Press.

We found Rankins Lane easily enough and noticed that it was a little different from many of the other popular lane-ways, it looked a little grungier and a little edgier.  We'd slept in a little bit on our final day but even so, by the time we arrived at Manchester Press, the little cafe was not quite open, so we stood around in the rain, with our brollies up thinking that we were definitely having a Melbourne moment.  

Melbourne Series - Cutler & Co

http://www.cutlerandco.com.au/

We were drawing to the end of our Melbourne food safari but we'd left one our most anticipated restaurants until last.  There are an astounding number of well regarded restaurants in Melbourne and while Sydney might currently hold the record for the most number of three hatted restaurants, Melbourne has its fair share as well. People often wonder why I'm so focussed on visiting hatted restaurants around the country and it's simply this....they represent the pinnacle, the absolute best in what food has to offer.  The chefs behind these three hatted restaurants dedicate their lives to be the best, often with an unwavering focus that can be a little maniacal.

I'm slowly crossing off all of the country's best restaurants off my 'must visit' list and on this trip I was able to visit two of the best.  Vue De Monde was now a 'notch on my belt' (see post here) and our last dinner of the trip would see Cutler & Co join the list of prestigious restaurants I've dined at.  Amazingly, Cutler & Co is currently the seventh best restaurant on the Gourmet Travellers top 100 list and sits above eight ranked Vue de Monde.  Chef and owner of Cutler & Co Andrew McConnell, was also named the Gourmet Traveller Chef of the Year for 2014, which is an outstanding recognition of excellence.

Cutler & Co is located in up-and-coming Fitzroy, we'd initially found the restaurant when we had taken a wander around Fitzroy and Collingwood after our trip to the James Bond exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. We'd heard from a friend of SC's that Gertrude Street in Fitzroy was a place to check out and still had that cross over feel that was not quite gentrified and not quite grunge.  We had an early 6pm booking for dinner and since we'd already checked out where Cutler & Co was, and it was quite a lovely evening, we chose to walk the 15 minutes from our hotel.

Melbourne Series - Mamasita

http://www.mamasita.com.au/

There has been a restaurant that I've tried to get to a couple of times during visits to Melbourne and in fact, I had already tried unsuccessfully to get into it during my Melbourne food safari (see post here).  I've always had a problem with queuing at restaurants and on the whole object of the concept, which is why I've had trouble getting to Mamasita.  When it comes to queuing at restaurants, Mamasita has a unique reputation in foodie circles - it's just accepted that you will get along and spend time watching the back of someone else's head while waiting to get in (or if you are more industrious, make new friends).

After our failed attempt on Valentine's Day to queue and get in, we decided that we would try again the following day and get in for a Saturday lunch.  Mamasita opens from 12:30pm on a Saturday and to avoid queuing for a long time, we thought we would get there around 12pm and hopefully get towards the front of the queue.  No such luck, there were already about thirty people ahead of us in the queue and some of those were single people propping up the queue waiting for their friends to join.  Thinking that it would be 'now or never', we set in for a wait with the hope that we would score a table (like we did at Momofuku Noodle bar in NYC - see post here).

While we waited in the queue, we did strike up a conversation with some people in front of us, just to see if they had been before and what they thought about the wait - clearly not too impressed either.  I could hear lots of comment from people in the queue - in particular a hope and desire that the food at Mamasita would be worth the wait, thoughts echoing through my own mind.  12:30 came and the queue slowly moved forward and up the stairs that led to the dining area.  As we slowly shuffled forward, we wondered how big the restaurant was and if it would fit us all in before we were told that there would be another wait.  Inexorably the queue move forward and all of a sudden we were standing at the top of the stairs and we could see that we would definitely be getting a seat.  Things were looking up.

Melbourne Series - Cumulus Inc

http://cumulusinc.com.au/

It had been an awesome first couple of days in Melbourne for our food safari, with some excellent food and great adventures already under our belt.  A lot of food had been consumed but there was a lot more to go, and with a huge day planned we needed to start the day off right.  When you look at the lists of top breakfast spots in Melbourne, not a lot of them are right in the CBD, which is a bit strange given all of the amazing laneways that proliferate through the city.  One very popular breakfast spot that I've heard is a 'must-do' in Melbourne was The Hardware Societe, which was pretty much the most popular dining spot of any type in Melbourne.  Unfortunately, The Hardware Societe was closed forever, so I'd missed that boat.

After looking around on the internet and Urbanspoon, we finally got a case of analysis paralysis and couldn't make up our mind so thought that we would just go local and hit up Cumulus Inc, just around the corner in Flinders Lane.  I had heard amazing things about Cumulus Inc over the years and in particular how great the dinners were, but I had picked up that the breakfast offering was not too bad and after a quick check on their web site to see if there was stuff I'd eat for breakfast, we set out.  We hadn't made a reservation as the restaurant only takes reservations for more than seven people, so we hoped we would be early enough to score a seat.

It was a lovely morning in Melbourne, with the sun out and birds singing (well, I made that last bit up) and we were just happy to be walking around and exploring a different city.  As luck would have it, we arrived at Cumulus Inc just as the morning rush was starting, but we did manage to score a table inside the main dining area.  In fact, we were really really lucky and scored a table that could sit four and were able to spread out - a fact that seemed to annoy a group of four that came in after us and had to sit at the bar!

Melbourne Series - Coda

http://www.codarestaurant.com.au/

We knew that we'd be on our food safari in Melbourne one one of the worst possible days to book into a restaurant, Valentine's Day.  I'd actually forgotten we would be down for arguably the most romantic day of the year when I went to book into Vue De Monde for dinner, only to be told that it was a special Valentine's Day menu.  I backed out of that pretty quickly and ended up at Vue De Monde on the day before (see post here).  I've a personal view that Valentine's Day is the worst day for seasoned diners to go out for dinner as restaurants are booked out by 'loved-up' couples who want to be treated special.  What was worse was that Valentine's Day fell on a Friday this year, so restaurants would be even more packed than usual.

The plan was to skip the restaurant booking merry-go-round and head for a restaurant that had a no bookings policy and then just wait in the queue to get in.  Mamasita was that restaurant.  I'd heard of some pretty horrendous wait times at Mamasita at the best of times, so we thought we'd get in quickly by hitting the queue at 5:30pm and hopefully be in by 6pm.......  Wrong!  The madness that is Valentine's Day had taken over Mamasita and they'd, for some strange reason, taken bookings for the day, which left only a few tables for walk ins.   Even though we were there early and queued right at the bottom of the stairs, we were told it would be a one hour and thirty minute wait!  Well, we were there and thought we would see it through, but after thirty minutes of waiting with still no movement we decided to 'blow that popsicle stand' and go somewhere else.

You might be thinking that it would be lunacy to look for another dining spot at 6pm on a Friday night in Melbourne that just happened to be Valentine's Day!  Well, believe it or not, we lucked out and got straight into Coda, albeit sitting at the bar, but we were in!

Melbourne Series - Huxtaburger Collingwood

http://www.huxtaburger.com.au/

I'm always on the lookout for a great burger.  With something as simple as a hamburger, you would think that they would be easy to make, but it doesn't work out that way.  I mean, how hard can it be to combine a meat patty with some salad and a bun?  Plenty hard, especially when I try to make a good burger at home!  I've been trying to find the best burger around and recently found a brilliant one in Brisbane (see post here) and a seriously good burger in Perth last year when I was there for Eat Drink Blog 4.  Knowing that Melbourne sees itself as the food mecca of the country, I was sure I'd be able to find a great burger on my Melbourne food safari - but I only had time to fit one burger joint in, so it had to be a good one.

I had pretty much every step of our food safari worked out, except the burger place.  Looking around online and trying to get a handle on where we should have visited was a little more difficult that seeking out a fine dining restaurant.  We'd just been to visit the James Bond exhibition at the Melbourne Museum, which had been super, so we were in the north east of the CBD and Collingwood was nearby.  Feeling pumped from looking at the gadgets and gizmos of Bond, James Bond we decided to go for a walk around from the museum and having never been to Collingwood before, thought that Huxtaburger could be the go.

Melbourne series - The European

http://www.theeuropean.com.au/

Melbourne is my second favourite city in Australia, right behind Brisbane, and I try to get down  at least once a year and twice if it's a good year.  There are a couple of reasons why Brisbane is my favourite city, mainly due to the weather and the fact that I moved away from a southern state because I hate those long and cold winters.  Another key reason is because Brisbane is improving as a food destination and while it's not in the league of Sydney and Melbourne yet, it's definitely getting there.  One key area of food that Brisbane kicks butt with is it's breakfast culture, which combined with the amazing climate, is second to none in the country.

I've tried quite a few breakfast spots over the years in Melbourne with mixed success, and mainly leaving me a little disappointed.  There is one breakfast spot that I go to every single time I am in Melbourne and it's my 'go to' place for breakfast when I am in the food capital of Australia.  The European in Spring Street produces the best breakfast in Melbourne in my opinion and I wouldn't miss a visit when in town.

We'd a pretty big day planned for our second day in Melbourne, which would start off at the European for a hearty breakfast.  As a bonus, the European is just a short walk to the Melbourne Museum and in her mind, SC's primary reason for visiting Melbourne in the first place, the James Bond exhibition.  I have to admit that while it was not front and centre in my mind so far in our planning, not that the big day had arrived, I was starting to get a little excited.  SC and I love James Bond and see every film the second it's out and will always watch a Bond movie on TV over anything else.  We've also got the entire book collection, which we also read a lot!  It's quite a thing between us, whenever we see a Bond reference, we will start to sing that famous song (check this out Bond).

Melbourne Series - Vue de Monde

http://www.vuedemonde.com.au/

In my first post about our Melbourne food safari (see post here), I talked about our thought process and planning to get down to Australia's food capital. What I should have mentioned was that there was a completely different script going through SC's mind, and it was a little different to what was going on in my mind.  As soon as I heard about a possible trip to Melbourne, I was instantly fantasising about the great food I'd get to eat.  What SC was actually thinking about was visiting the James Bond exhibition at the Melbourne Museum!  I'll admit that I was a little bit excited about this when she first mentioned it, but once the planning for the trip started, it was all about the food and I quickly forgot about James Bond.

No food safari to Melbourne would be complete without going to arguably the country's best restaurant with, in many minds, Australia's most innovative chef - Shannon Bennet.  I'd been so keen to get to Vue de Monde for many years and I almost got there a couple of years ago when I was flying solo in Melbourne for work.  I'd even called up and arranged a table for one but at the last moment decided that this was an experience best shared, then opted for another iconic Melbourne restaurant in Grossi Florentino (before I was blogging, so no post).

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling a little giddy at the prospect of getting in and trying the incredibly inventive food of Shannon Bennet.  There was no restaurant in the country that I wanted to check out more, and that includes Sydney restaurants like Quay.  While currently not sitting at the top of the restaurant awards tree, Vue de Monde has it all, three hats with the Australian Good Food Guide and the Age Good Food Guide along with three stars from the Gourmet Traveller and ranked number seven on the top one hundred list from the same magazine.  It simply does not get much better than that for a restaurant, well maybe being included in the San Pellegrino top 50 restaurants in the world might be pretty good too...

Melbourne Series - Chin Chin

http://www.chinchinrestaurant.com.au/

We were sitting around at home one day thinking about where we could go to eat, which is a pretty normal activity for us.  As we worked through the list of places we felt like visiting, the talk turned to some of the restaurants we hadn't visited in Melbourne yet.  The talk intensified and before I new it, we were at the computer booking some flights down to Melbourne and had mapped out a clear line of attack.  Four days in Melbourne and each and every meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner mapped out for the entirety of our trip.  Sweet plan.

We'd picked an early flight, one that would get us to Tullamarine airport with enough time to get into the CBD for lunch, but not so early that we had to get up at 4am.  I called it our 'goldilocks' flight as it was juuuuuust right!  The big question when going to the airport is do we drive and park short term (hoping that the car is still there) or cab it, with our eventual decision to cab being the smart move.  There are lots of stories about flights being delayed and baggage being lost, but this is not such a story, in fact we arrived in Melbourne right on time with baggage in tow.

After jumping in a cab and taking a seriously different route to our hotel, we deposited our bags in our huge hotel room and hoofed it towards Flinders Lane, one of the coolest streets in Melbourne and our final destination.  I'd been dying (not literally) to get to Chin Chin for a long time.  Not only is Chin Chin one of the most popular restaurants in the country, it's also over a wicked little bar called the GoGo Bar, a place that I had in fact been to a couple of times.  Amazingly it was much easier to get into the GoGo Bar than Chin Chin, with each time I'd visited the bar noting the ridiculously long queues and absolutely pumping vibe at Chin Chin.

Number 8 - Southbank on the Yarra River

http://www.crownmelbourne.com.au/number-8

What do you do when you are at a conference and the food is not so good?  Well, if you're like me, you will head off and look for the closest decent restaurant and rectify the situation.  That's pretty easy to do when you are in Melbourne in the Crown complex, in fact, there are an abundance of great restaurants to choose from.  The only minor problem is choosing one of the many on offer, and when you are with a couple of other people, one a vegetarian, it makes the deciding a little more interesting.

We spent a few minutes considering our options, which all ranged from fine dining to ultra fine dining, thinking that we didn't want to break the bank for a quick lunch, but also didn't want just any old food. Luckily, we came across a restaurant called Number 8, which had a great looking menu and an even better looking special deal going.  The 'Lunch Indulgence Offer' jumped right out at us as being almost too good to be true, a two course meal for only $45 dollars, or a three course meal for $55.  What really stood out about this was that all of the mains were over $45 dollars anyway, so it was like getting an entree for free...  Sweet.

Rockpool Bar & Grill - Part of the Neil Perry Empire

http://www.rockpool.com/melbourne/

I love living in Brisbane, the climate is the best in the country and the food culture is developing at a rapid rate, but if there was one other capital I would live in, it's Melbourne.  There is a lot to love about Melbourne but the two things I love most about it are the food scene and the fact that it's the world capital of Australian Rules Football.  It doesn't hurt that it was recently voted the world's most livable city again (not sure why Brisbane didn't make the top 20).  The major problem with Melbourne, and really the only problem for me is the fact that that it's so cold in winter.  The cold is not my thing.

I recently found myself in Melbourne for a few days with a pretty full schedule, but had a couple of free moments and one free night, so I had to decide where I would go for dinner.  My flight arrived late(ish) which meant I couldn't get out of the city at a reasonable time to visit any foodie haunts, and since I was staying at the Crown Metropol, there was an abundance of options available at Southbank.  I thought I would hit up some of my twitter followers to check on recommendations (thanks for the RT Booma) and the restaurant most tweeted about was Rockpool Bar & Grill.

It was a good option.  Rockpool Bar & Grill is one of the fleet of restaurants by food genius Neil Perry and is one of the most awarded and celebrated restaurants in the country.  Its currently ranked in the top 25 restaurants it the Gourmet Traveller top 100 restaurants in the country and has had two hats from the Age Good Food Guide for a very long time.

Attica, Really high expectations are always hard to meet

http://attica.com.au/

I recently flew down to Melbourne for a football (AFL, of course) and food weekend.  It was all part of a annual pilgrimage to visit friends, who for the last few years have secured us MCG members stand tickets and always put on a good show for SC and I.  This year was an added bonus of being my birthday too!

For such a special occasion, we needed a special restaurant.  While there are a number that fit the bill, Attica had caught my eye.  The fact that it has recently confirmed for a second year in the S. Pellegrino worlds best 100 restaurants, number 63, only added to the allure.  It is also a mainstay in the Gourmet Traveller top 100 awards, currently number 8 and of course the Good Food Guide has awarded it three chefs hats

As the weekend away approached, I scoured the internet and read everything I could find about Attica and studied the menu (which was risky, as it changes quite regularly).  I was really excited because I love a good degustation and really look forward to how a great chef constructs a meal that takes the diner on a gastronomical journey.

After an amazing day at the football and a huge win to Carlton (which is great as the host for the day is a big Carlton fan), we made our way back to our hotel to get ready.  Finally, the night arrived and after a short taxi ride to Ripponlea, we met our dinner guests and were seated at a table, right underneath the dessert kitchen area, a view which kept me amused most of the night.  I was really surprised by the layout of Attica, its quite dark and spread out in different rooms.  While it was cool that our table was right under the dessert kitchen area, there were only a few tables in this section of the restaurant, so we were quite isolated from the majority of the other tables and diners.  I'm not sure this is a good thing, as it took a little bit away from the vibe of the room as a whole.

On Saturday nights its the $175 per person degustation only & I was ripped with anticipation of the meal ahead.  Unfortunately, I did not get many photos, so I will do my best to describe the courses.

Art on a plate!

An assortment of breads and amuse-bouche came to the table prior to the meal proper, one in particular stood out, manly due to how pretty it looked on the plate.  We were treated to a visual masterpiece with an intricately painted shell and some bites that represented fruit on a tree.

The first dish of crab and artichoke was the first course.  The flavours for this dish were really subtle and well balanced, you could taste each of the components on the dish.  It was presented quite simply on the plate, which surprised me as I was expecting a little wow factor.

Next was marron, pepperberry and sour petals.  Once again, this was a very simply presented plate of food, yet at the same time elegant.

A theme was starting to become apparent to me with this meal.  While there had obviously been a significant amount of effort putting the dish together, using foraged material from their own garden, there was a subtlety to the flavours coming out of the kitchen

The August Degustation Menu

Next in line was 'a simple dish of potato cooked in the earth it was grown'.  I had been looking forward to this dish as it seems to be a bit of a staple on the Attica menu.  Once again, you could see the care in which the meal had been cooked and put together on the plate.  The texture of the potato was soft and luscious and really enjoyable to eat, but I again found myself asking if the flavours were too subtle.....  Something to ponder over.

Next was 'meat from the pearl oyster pinctada maxima with black radish', which while it contrasted with the dark plate upon which it was served.  The textures were interesting with the oyster and the black radish mixing well but again was quite subtle.

The fifth dish on the menu was probably the pick of the dishes of the night from a flavour profile viewpoint, 'kumara, almond and pyengana'.  Kumara is a type of sweet potato and those of you that know me know that this is perhaps my least liked of the root vegetables.  Pyengana is a region in Tasmania well know for it's cheese.  The dish itself had the pyengana melted and poured over the kumara at the table by the waiter and had a perfectly cooked soft boiled egg yolk to mix in.  Of all the dishes on the night, this is the one that stood up and 'slapped' me in the face.  The flavours were strong, but well balanced and complimented each other extremely well.  I really liked this one.

Next was the obligatory meat dish, which was 'Flinders Island wallaby, bunya pine and ground berry'.  At the risk of repeating myself too often, this was a very elegantly plated meal and visually stunning, however the flavours were once again quite subtle.  Every element was cooked to perfection and the wallaby was so tender, but I really wanted more depth of flavour.  Perhaps it was spoiled a little from the previous dish, which had such a strong profile.  I think it may have been a good idea to have this one before the pyengana.

On to desserts and there were two.  The first was quite controversial at our table.  I am a fruit lover and quite like a diverse range of fruits, which is what this plate delivered on.  There were some very unusual tastes on the plate, which I appreciated but was in the minority at the table.  The final dish of the night was fantastic and clearly had a lot of thought and effort put into it.  I had been watching the dessert chefs putting this together all night, so was intrigued with what would eventually be put in front of me.  What appeared before us was a box with complex layering of different textures of honey, pumpkin and shaved ice (maybe sorbet) flavoured with kiwifruit.  Again this polarised the table, with fifty percent of the table loving it and the other fifty percent 'meh'.  I really liked it and would have happily eaten everyone else's at the table.

Finishing up the food was a lovely and delicate 'Pukeko's Egg', which was a beautifully presented (ie, real looking) egg made of chocolate with a really interesting 'yolk' or filling inside.  It was delicate and lovely to eat to finish the meal.

I'm quite conflicted about our Attica experience.  On one hand, you could tell that the meal was immaculately planned and literally 100's of hours worth of planning and effort had gone into constructing a meal as journey.  However, for me, I really wanted more dishes that stood out, that 'grabbed my by the lapel and smacked me in the mouth' and there weren't that many moments in this meal.  I am sure that in a few month's time when thinking about this degustation, I will struggle to remember most of it and this is a real shame.

Don't get me wrong, technically it was a masterpiece, and as befitting a three hat restaurant the service on the night was faultless.  Maybe I was suckered into the hype of some of the previous reviews and its ranking in the S. Pellegrino world list, perhaps my expectations were a tad too high for this one.  When paying $175 per person before drinks, the last thing that you want to hear is that the meal was forgettable.  Of the three hat restaurants I have eaten at around the country, this will be the one least likely to get a revisit.

FoodMeUpScotty




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