In a quick summary: Wow! Boy was I wrong and the reviewers so right. After all El Bulli and Osteria Francescana were in the top 10, so the reviewers do like innovation and so they liked Attica - simple, but brilliant. "Vue de Monde, eat your heart out" is what my facebook status said while I was there. This is the best food I have eaten in Australia in the last one year, almost without doubt. Yes, big call, but if it isn't the best, it's very very close. I have not been to Tetsuya's but I have been to Quay, Vue de Monde, Est., Pier, Rockpool, Claude's, Jacques Reymond and many others and Attica was good, very good.
Attica is in Ripponlea - which I had never heard of. Assuming it was in woop-woop (despite Google maps telling me otherwise), I headed out early. That was probably a good thing. It's not that far from the city really, but once I got out of the train station and turned the wrong way, I knew this wasn't quite South Yarra. Eventually, with a few people giving me a look of - "what the hell are you doing around here", I turned back going back to the train station and walked in the right direction. For those of you who go, turn right once you get out of the train station, past the train lines and then some of the suburbian looking shops. There I checked out some antique shops and waited to meet my dining companion Jag.
The minute we entered the restaurant however, the world changed around us. The warm ambience and the even warmer and very friendly service (perhaps the most friendly in fine dining in oz, Pier is pretty good though), just made us feel so comfortable. On offer was a standard degustation and a vegetarian degustation. Jag took the vegetarian and I took the standard. After umming and aahing for some time due to the recent Vue wine match disaster, I ordered the wine match. I was not disappointed.
There was some confusion as to why my first wine match hadn't arrived with the first dish, but it was in fact another amuse bouche of sorts. All good, I had my nice manzanilla in my hand for the selection of Heirloom Carrots with Yellow, White, and Red Carrot Juice, Aged Goat Cheese, Walnut Powder, and Nasturtium Leaves. Beautifully cooked carrots - really juicy, almost like I hadn't really had carrots before. It was a clean, simple, nice dish. 6/10
Next came another opener not on the menu, an Asian Style Broth, Raw Abalone, Purslane, Shiitake Mushrooms, and Crispy Chicken Wing. I don't have any notes in this dish, so I won't rate this.
Then the real menu started. Before it started, i met one of the most friendly sommeliers in the world - Ainsley (I have found out subsequently that she the restaurant manager). Not just for the first dish, but every dish, we discussed and debated the merits of a particular wine with a dish; Ainsley explaining her interesting choices and once or twice offering me a small taste of an alternative. The pouring was generous and this made the whole experience of the restaurant richer.
- Snow Crab - crab meat, salmon roe, berries (unknown), puffed rice covered with horse raddish "snow". This dish apparently was made in the mould of Mount Taranaki in New Zealand where the chef grew up. The flavours and textures were like an avalanche in the mouth. The cool/room temperature raddish melted on the top of one's mouth disappearing at times like an illusion. In one mouthful this coolness contrasted with the sweetness and cooked temperature of the crab meat and while salmon roe popped in your mouth. The puffed rice added another texture while the sourness of the berries once every few mouthfuls providing another source of contrasting flavour and texture. The champange served with it was beautifully textural. Amazing dish; never had anything like it. Would definately fly to Melbourne just to have this. Pretty close to 10/10
- Light broth of osmanthus and chrysanthemum, abalone, cuttlefish - Very light broth and interesting strong flavour of the leaves of osmanthus or chrysanthemum (couldn't figure of which or maybe both). But I found the dish too salty and generally nothing special. Points for experimentation. 5.5/10
- A simple dish of potato cooked in the earth it was grown in. The potato was cooked using the hangi method from NZ and the Pacific Islands.It was placed on fromage blanc, dried saltbush (and cured trout. I am not a potato person and this was one of the nicest potatoes I have ever had! The potato itself was delicate and did not crumble. The subtle sweet taste of the potato when accompanied by the sweet, slightly sour taste of fromage blanc tasted like baked potato and sour cream. The saltbush leaves added a little zing and texture, almost Indian flavours. Another comparison for the fromage blanc for those of you with an Indian bent was almost the dahi you get with Dahi Wada. Great dish. 8/10
- Blue eye, almonds, garlic - wow! one of the best fish dishes ever. In essence it was just simply cod with almonds and garlic. But, what more do you need. The garlicky sauce, the juciyness of the perfectly cooked cod whereby you really could taste the fish, hints or maybe a little more of garlic with chives and generous amount olf roughly chopped almonds which provided unbelievable texture. Truly an outstanding dish 10/10
- Squab, beetroot, licorice, bitter onion - After the amazement of the blue eye, I didn't know what to expect as we moved into the meat section. The people next to us we chatted to while waiting for course 5 told us that it just gets better. It can't, I thought! And although it didn't, this dish was still very, very good. The combinations of flavours were again perfect, a little more texture would have been nice, but hey, you can't have everything. 8.5/10
- Beef, seagrass, white cabbage - After the amazing flavours of the last two dishes, it was going to be hard to impress. Really good Angus beef, marbled, cooked perfectly rare. But, nothing amazing. Nice dish. 6/10
- Terroir ( fromage frais sorbet, fresh and dehydrated berries, beetroot and almond cake crumbs, sorrel shoots and sorrel ice, avocado oil jelly, golden kiwi fruit, borage flowers, brewing malt and white pepper - I hope i have these right, I got them from the web, will confirm with attica ). Was this a dessert? Was I having breakfast of cereal and berries? Oh wait, there was beetroot. Was is it mirage? I dunno, but it was completely amazing. Flavours oozed my my mouth of sweetness of the beetroot and sourness berries, the crunchy cereal. I can still taste it in my mouth. 9-10/10
- Apple, olive, warm shredded wheat - To make a final hurrah to a great meal, one of the pastry chefs brought us what was essentially a deconstruction of apple crumble. But what an apple crumble it was. He put the apple concoction on the warm crumbs and boy, even though I was full, it was so good! 8.5/10
We finished off with just the one deliciously dark chocolate. What a meal. As I understand it, Jag thought the vegetarian meal was extremely good too. What I liked is that the veg meal and the meat meal looked almost exactly the same for many dishes. They had simply replaced some of the meat ingredients with yummy veges. Like replacing the crab with cauliflower thus creating close to the same experience of taste and texture while not being "mock crab". For me, the highlight of Shrewy's food was most how much you could really taste the ingredients - almost like I had never tasted those ingredients before. The carrots, potatoes, blue eye, squab. These were just perfectly cooked ingredients and around it was amazing accompaniments which lifted the dish.
If you go to Melbourne, book ahead and check this restaurant out. I am off today to once again check out what is claimed to be it's highest competitor - Quay. Let the battle begin!
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