Masons of Bendigo – Dani Valent

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25 Queen Street, Bendigo, 5443 3877

My score: 4/5

Bendigo’s 19th century gold boom is still writ large and lovely in its grand, optimistic buildings and broad streets. Less immediately evident but more easily devourable is the local food boom forging ahead now – people are growing and cooking with passion and nowhere with more gusto or appreciation than at three-year-old Masons.

Chef Nick Anthony’s menu is enthusiastic with nearly 40 savoury dishes and nine desserts, most of them reasonably complex, and plucking from Asian, Middle Eastern and European flavour profiles. I feared the plethora might be a sign of scattergun fervour leading to a slapdash dinner. But after stoically making deep inroads into the menu my verdict is no: chef’s vision is focused, his aim is true and he does a lovely job of showcasing central Victoria’s bounty and augmenting it with canny combinations and careful cookery. Juicy meadow-raised chicken is cooked slow and low, then crumbed and served with yuzu mayo and pickled kohlrabi. Sticky pork hock and tiger prawns are the heroes of a towering super-fresh Thai-style salad. A pork assiette honours McIvor Farm old-breed black Berkshire pigs, grown free-range and happy down the road a way. Roasted belly comes with caramel-crisp skin. Cheek is formed into mini-schnitzels of jelly tenderness. Just-pink fillet slurps up pumpkin puree. Crackling is coiled, crisp and sparky as a firecracker. This is pork shown to absolute best advantage with deep, honest flavours that speak of oodles of TLC.

Desserts are technically precise, fun and crazy delicious and the tasting plate means you’re not left making tricky decisions between, say, vanilla and pear brulee and yoghurt panna cotta with blueberry gel. Service is friendly and capable and the dining room is elegant and comfortable, wrapping up an experience so good it may even prompt a browse of Bendigo real estate.

See their website.

More farm to plate:

Attica, 74 Glen Eira Road, Ripponlea, 9530 0111.
The Attica team grows much of their own produce at nearby Ripponlea Estate but also has close relationships with suppliers. Mussels from Lance Wiffen’s Portarlington farm, for example, are a menu highlight.

Estelle by Scott Pickett, 245 High Street, Northcote, 9489 4609.
Scott Pickett’s impressive and ambitious new fine dining restaurant is driven by produce as well as technique. Delicious White Rocks veal is from a West Australian dairy farm with a sideline in milk-fed veal.

Ten Minutes by Tractor, 1333 Mornington-Flinders Road, Main Ridge, 5989 6455.
The winery restaurant is one of a number of top restaurants using Gamekeepers, supplier of games birds such as pheasant, partridge and guinea fowl.

First published in The Age, August 30, 2015.

2018-05-04T11:42:20+10:00

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