Ishizuka
If you talk to Japanophiles about their eating adventures, they won’t just tell you about rollicking izakayas and exceptional sushi. They’ll also talk about getting lost while looking for restaurants.
Brae
Brae has three Good Food Guide hats. It was named 44th in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Its owner Dan Hunter could fill a barn with ‘chef of the year’ awards. So, you would expect this five-year-old country restaurant, two hours west of Melbourne, to be very, very good. What you might not anticipate is how great it makes you feel.
IDES
Two years is often a sweet spot in the life of a restaurant: the mania of opening is long past, wrinkles have been ironed out once, twice, probably thrice and, best of all, there's a settling of identity which means more attention can be focused on the diner experience. In short, it's less "look at me" and more "how are you?".
Estelle by Scott Pickett
Sometimes a restaurant’s trappings are so many layers of distraction. At ESP, they serve to shine an ever more focused light on the food. Yes, there’s crisp service and excellent, interesting wines. Yes, you’ll be cosseted in a gleaming, comfortable dining room replete with gorgeous furniture and tableware. And yes, these accoutrements are all profoundly enjoyable. What you don’t get is smoke and mirrors. This is a chef’s restaurant and the trappings are there to support the sublime efforts of the kitchen.
Highline
It’s 2009. You’re a young chef working at a hot restaurant in London. You’re charged with a serious duty – making the bread sauce that’s served with partridge. Overtasked and distracted, you make a terrible mistake: you leave the sauce too long and instead of being smooth and silky it becomes sad and sludgy. The bollocking rings in your ears for days.
Woodland House
I was sitting in the grand dining room at Woodland House, sunset bathing my padded table in a luxurious golden glow, nibbling on a fried duck tongue, wondering if this kind of restaurant matters anymore. Fine dining has been buried a thousand times. I’ve written stories declaring it dead myself. People want casual. They want to get in, get fed and get out. They don’t want to spend.
Ezard
The pork hock is gone. The sticky, spicy caramelised pig’s knuckle that’s been an Ezard signature for 16 of the restaurant’s 18 years made its last trot to the dining room in December. The hock’s departure is symbolic of a shift at this Melbourne fine dining institution.
Amaru
Eating a multi-course tasting menu can feel like being bludgeoned by well-meaning butterflies. Each morsel is delicate and dancingly pretty, tickling the senses with glancing blows, and so modest in size it seems unlikely any pain could ensue. Then, all of a sudden, around course six, one notices deep bruising to the appetite, desensitised taste buds and general torpor. How can butterflies be so brutal?
Masani
Imagine running a restaurant for more than 30 years, opening every day for lunch and dinner, tallying more than 20,000 sittings and an awful lot of “Would you like to see the wine list?” That is the reality for Richard Maisano, who opened Masani in 1983, when Bob Hawke was prime minister and carpetbag steak (beef stuffed with oysters) was the height of sophistication. Maisano’s parents were hoteliers in fancy Italian resorts; they moved to Melbourne in 1971 when Richard was 13. He studied hospitality locally then boned up at Les Roches, a white-glove Swiss hotel school, and returned with the spit, polish and gumption to take on this handsome 1889 Gothic revival edifice.