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Andrew Christie

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fennel

399 Spencer Guthrie – Worth the wait

November 8, 2014 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

399spencerguthrie

Spencer Guthrie, you will remember of course, is the place we tried to get into on the infamous Tuesday night outing with Uncle Carl when we ended up at Bloodwood instead. And got a bit cheerful.

This time we are staying within the Spencer Guthrie comfort zone. It is Friday night and King Street is buzzing as usual, but the only other people in the restaurant when I arrive (right on time, I’d like to point out), are the four blokes in the up-the-front kitchen. As I was led down the back to our table I realised how small Spencer Guthrie is. You don’t really get a sense of it from the street but there is just a row of two seater tables lining the corridor past the kitchen and a small room out the back with tables for a few larger groups. I was offered a drink while I waited for Strop and Wendy, our self-invited guest for the evening. I decided on a glass of Riesling, as I had already downed a few beers in my slow journey from the station to the restaurant.

I had run out of amusing things to tweet, and was wondering if I should ask for some bread or olives, when I got a text message from Wendy: What number is it? Good question. I had no idea and all the staff were up the front deep in conversation, so I decided to take a walk and stick my head out the door. I’d either see the number or perhaps spot a perplexed looking Wendy and be able to guide her in. Or maybe the staff would ask me if I needed help.

Nope.

No sign of Wendy, but there was the number 399, up high on the window. By the time I got back to the table to send off the coordinates, Wendy appeared at the door. And by the time she had sat herself down, Strop appeared. Then it was time for the drink indecision.

“Cocktails? Wine?”

“What are we eating?”

“Where’s the menu?”

“No, that’s the drinks list.”

“It’s dark in here isn’t it – pass that candle over.”

“I’ve got a torch in the car.”

“Umm…”

“Beer?”

“IPA? What’s that?”

“Do you even drink beer, Wendy?”

“Why yes I do.”

“What’s a Negroni?”

“No idea.”

“What’s that your drinking?”

“The Riesling, it’s good.”

Somewhere in amongst all these questions I ordered some bread and olives, and the menus appeared. The restaurant was filling rapidly by this time and the noise levels were building.

Eventually Strop and Wendy settled on cocktails (Negroni and Champagne) and we got stuck into the bread and olives while we nattered about travels and family and friends. The bread was excellent (baked on site with fennel), but there was something a bit frugal about the three thin slices and the little dish of olives – especially for an appetiser we were paying for.

It wasn’t until the waiter hovered expectantly nearby that we stopped Catching Up and started to seriously consider the menu.

It’s a fixed price arrangement, for either two or three courses: $55 or $65. Within each of the of the courses (a bit cutely named: To Start-To Follow-To Finish) there are four choices. Intriguingly, the menu doesn’t discuss how the dishes are cooked, it just lists the ingredients. In order of quantity presumably. Strop and Wendy weren’t going to put up with this level of blatant ambiguousness though, and immediately began extracting a detailed description of each dish from the waiter. There were a couple of heavily French-accented pauses along the way but he got through the menu in the end, with Strop and Wendy helpfully filling in the gaps where necessary. “He’s nice, isn’t he?” Wendy said when the waiter was safely out of earshot.

Once we knew the choices, we were able to proceed straight to the food indecision phase.

“What are you going to have?” Wendy started.

But I was onto their little game now. “The ocean trout and the beef.”

“Really? That was quick,” Wendy said, disappointed that I had short circuited the game. Eventually she chose the asparagus and the kangaroo, while Strop went for the mussels and the mulloway.

The food was excellent and it looked fantastic served on big white plates with lots of carefully arranged splodges and scatters of the more obscure ingredients from the far end of the descriptions. They’re not big servings but that is not what this place is about. It’s about flavour, and ingredients, and interesting combinations. By the end of the mains I still had plenty of room for dessert, especially as the first one combined chocolate, mandarin and fennel. My choice was made, but Wendy and Strop still had to work their way through the dessert/sharing indecision. Our bottle of Riesling had failed to last the distance so we enquired about a dessert wine. The only one available was a Muscat, “We had a botrytis, but that ran out on Wednesday,” the waiter explained, not exactly apologetically. Luckily the Muscat did the job very nicely.

My dessert didn’t disappoint with a cigar of chocolate mousse and splodges of surprising mandarin and fennel (I think) puree. Wendy and Strop’s dessert came with caramel ice-cream and champagne granita on a bed of what seemed to be coffee muesli. “Mmmm,” said Strop, “Could be a bit more caramelly.”

The place was still crowded as we were leaving at 10pm, and more people were coming in. Spencer Guthrie deserves to be thriving even if it isn’t open on a Tuesday.

399-2

Filed Under: Quest Tagged With: Cocktails, fennel, indecision, Mandarin, Muscat, riesling, Tuesday

Off the map to St Kilda – Fine dining in the principality of Luxembourg

August 23, 2014 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

Intense activity behind the bar Photo: Felicity Watson
Intense activity behind the bar
Photo: Felicity Watson

The first thing was the smell – I wasn’t on King Street anymore. The sea; not fresh-pounding-waves sea, but briney-lapping-seaweed sea.

This is Strop, going off the map to the smart new Luxembourg Bar and Bistro at the suave end of St Kilda, up near Albert Park.

It is a special ladies-only treat at one of the other ladies’ favourite haunts. Favourite because of the flavours, as will become obvious, but also because her favourite (and only) sibling is Head Chef.

I have seen so many succulent Instagram pix of the food here, my mouth is watering before I’ve even sat down. I creep up on Flick who is sitting at the business end of the counter, consorting with the staff. Hugs, kisses and exclamations ensue.

We settle and get on with catching-up. We used to work very closely together, but in the last few years we have only seen each other once in a blue moon. There is lots of interesting news to share, but I can’t help noticing the activity in the kitchen – there is unexpected busy-ness with extreme tweezers. The best kind of micro-management.

Looking back on the copy of the menu (liberated for research purposes) I realise I missed an entire section of the menu entitled Raw. Ahh well, next time.

Some delicious interestingly-presented homemade bread and butter came first, ‘Mum made the hessian sacks’ says Flick – that is dedication. They were swiftly followed by Potato skins, whipped cod roe and avruga (caviar).  Very good; crunchy, soft, light and creamy all at the same time.

Our other choices to share came from the Plates – Small area of the menu. Fried broccoli with caper & raisin dressing, and salted ricotta, I love a brassica and this was so very tasty. Radicchio, smoked duck breast, grape and walnut – was delicious too – it was one of the dishes requiring extreme micro-management (tweezers used to arrange the grape slivers, amongst other things), and it paid off. Finally, a dark, fragrant bake was delivered in its cast iron pan, it was the Tripe and cuttlefish braise with brioche crumbs. A more unlikely-sounding combo is hard to imagine, but it too was scrumptious.

Head Chef delivering a dark, fragrant bake Photo: Felicity Watson
Head Chef delivering a dark, fragrant bake
Photo: Felicity Watson

The stylings here are nice, all the staff have an old-fashioned green and white tea towel usefully attached to their simple uniforms. There are two very groovy wall-light fittings – the best I’ve seen.

All the flavours are delectable, one after the other, interesting and unlikely combos to delight.

Being so close to the kitchen action can be very distracting. I admire the deft slicing of vegetables on the super sharp mandolin. I’d have bandaids on every finger …

The waitstaff are charmingly helpful, especially because Flick is ‘family’, but I suspect they’d be friendly to all.

Our conversation meanders around our respective jobs, Flick’s is expanding in wonderful ways and she’s excited. My work life has changed minute by minute these last couple of weeks and the phrase ‘HR people are so shit’ is uttered – even though some of my favourite people work in HR – but in this one particular instance…

In order to take our minds off the HR crisis we decide to order dessert. There are wonderful fruity options, and we decide on Buttermilk panna cotta, blood orange, fennel granita & meringue as well as Mille-feuille, spiced quince & brown sugar cream.

While we’re waiting, I decide to seek some kitchen interpretation. I wanted to understand the roles of the people I had seen working so hard. Jess, a delightful waitress (do we say that still?) and aficionado, as it turns out, of the Garden History Society, explained some of the intricacies of the kitchen.

We’d been watching at close-hand the Cold Larder blokes, putting together the cool elements of the dishes with their tweezers. The Pastry Chef also got in on the assembling action – but mostly with the sweet things.

Slightly further away was the Sous Chef, the Head Chef’s right hand – presumably able to step into the breech when the Head Chef’s partner goes into labour – not imminent, but soon. The two of them worked closely together to get the timing right and also with tweezers, to get the dishes just-so as they left the kitchen. Both unexpectedly relaxed and happy, on the outside at least.

Further still are the people on ‘meat’ and ‘fish’ – literally slaving over a hot stove and various proteins.

Waaaay at the back is the washer-upper working hard. I didn’t get their proper name.

Gorgeous green fennel granita wins the eye-candy award Photo: Felicity Watson
Gorgeous green fennel granita wins the eye-candy award
Photo: Felicity Watson

The very beautiful desserts arrived. So many flavours, and all of them delicious, together and separately. Who knew fennel could be granita-ed? Head Chef, Chris Watson did.

We shared the desserts like ladies, not fighting over the crumbs at all.

All-in-all it was a wonderful experience – I would recommend our kitchen-view seats for entertainment and learning, and Luxembourg for the flavours and the textures.

As we watched the rapid and continuous delivery of beautiful food, Flick said ‘I just can’t believe my brother’s a boss’, but Boss he is, of a great bar and bistro – go there when you can.

Filed Under: Off the Map Tagged With: avruga, fennel, fine dining, granita, HR, mandolin, St Kilda

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