High Tea in the Globe Bar, Observatory Hotel

When you think of afternoon tea, a world of dainty sandwich fingers, squares of soft-crumbed cake and fruit-jewelled tarts is unleashed. This meal, neatly sandwiched (pardon the pun) between lunch and supper, is normally overlooked on the grounds of over-indulgence and extravagance. The Duchess of Bedford is credited with inventing the afternoon tea, and if portraits of her are accurate, this should come as no surprise. In fairness, the traditional gap between lunch and dinner is purported to have yawned for around eight hours, thereby warranting an afternoon pit-stop. However, I very much doubt that anyone from that time would recognise either the foods or the size that a modern afternoon tea has bloomed to. Not that I’m complaining.

Last week, I took a colleague (herself English, so she should know!) to a full-blown high tea at the Observatory Hotel. We felt like the Duchess of Bedford as soon as we walked through the entrance hall; it gleamed with the cool marble tiles, smooth swooping banisters and glinting chandeliers. After wafting his way between the perfectly laid tables and crisply folded newspapers, we were greeted by a smiling waiter who settled us into comfortable bachelor-green leather armchairs with the exciting prospect of champagne. A sign of good things to come.

Neat triangles of crustless bread filled with a variety of egg mayonnaise, ham and cheese, smoked salmon and, of course, cucumber were arranged neatly on the lowest tier of our china cake stand. Our eyes swiftly climbed up to the next level of our cakey pyramid: the scone layer, featuring four freshly baked miniature scones accompanied by dinky jars of clotted cream and strawberry jam which emanated a sweet, summery fragrance. More often than not hotel scones are claggy, insipid and fridge-cold, so it made these - sweet, raisin studded and misted with a haze of icing sugar - irresistible. The menu goes on, with miniature ramekins of crème brulee, cones of chocolate mousse, powder-pink macarons and fruit tarts. Not all of it was as fresh as the scones as tiny squares of cheesecake tasted of fridge,  but overall the glorious array of afternoon treats  didn’t just plug the hole between lunch and dinner, but substituted both.

It couldn’t be called afternoon tea without at least a pot of freshly-brewed foliage. The Observatory boasts an impressive list; from the familiar Ceylon, Darjeeling and Lapsang Souchong, to the more intriguing and exotic Dragon Eyes Jasmine, Warm Spice and Sencha First Flush. Served in mismatching teapots, each prettily patterned, was a welcome change the customary institution-white was.

It’s a shame that afternoon tea isn’t more popular. In this era of carrot-crunching health professionals advising to eat five (albeit small) meals per day, perhaps it will make a comeback, and the Observatory Hotel would be a spectacular place to return to when the time comes.

The details
Observatory Hotel
89-113 Kent Street, The Rocks, Sydney NSW 2000
Click here for high tea bookings

Greenhouse by Joost: where sustainable practice and living meets the urban environment

Designer, horticulturalist and eco-friendly pop-up restaurateur extraordinaire, Joost Bakker has chosen Campbells Cove on glorious Sydney Harbour as the Sydney location for his ground-breaking venue.

Joost Bakker speaking at the Greenhouse launch

This eco-friendly restaurant is built using 100% recycled and recyclable materials. Think shipping containers and packing crates with straw bales for insulation. All furniture, light fittings, crockery, glasses and staff uniforms are also made from recycled and recyclable materials. It gets better … water is collected, waste is recycled and the generator runs on cooking oil.

First impressions are intriguing – shipping crates, strawberries growing up the exterior walls, herbs growing on the roof and a white walled interior covered with menu written in graffiti style, apparently by Joost, and completed in one night. Is there no end to this man’s talent?

I was delighted to officiate as MC at the launch and finally I got back there last week to see the venue completed and try the whole experience.

Greenhouse by Joost’s exterior during construction.

Now the outside is covered with strawberry plants.

The staff are lovely, from the gorgeous multi-talented maître’d (industrial designer by day and member of Joost’s hospitality team by night) and the cornucopia of friendly young’uns working the floor to the über chef-of-the-moment, Matt Stone, formerly of the Greenhouse in Perth.

Matt’s menu is short but well-crafted with a workable assortment of snacks, salads and bigger offerings. Many of the components – bread, pastries, pizza, yoghurt and butter – are made on site. The drinks list is also short with one red, one white, one beer and one cider for those who fancy the hard staff. All are served in glass jars.

The food presentation was as much fun as the venue, served either on pieces of recycled plywood or in wide-necked glass jars.

I loved the Wagyu on romesco, especially as it was a little used cut, girello – perfectly cooked beef (grass-fed of course) served sliced on a well-textured romesco sauce heady with smoked paprika. Mint added a lovely freshness to the quinoa and avocado salad. Oysters sang with freshness, the spiced cauliflower in a paper cone left me wanting more, the deep-fried school prawns were hot and crisp and you can’t go past the pizza of the day from the wood-fired oven.

Greenhouse by Joost’s interior.

The tables are made from old signs.

If you are a Sydneysider, my advice is get down there! This is a totally new concept which works because the food is so good. It’s an alternate view of the world and how we can co-exist sustainably. The bonus is the million dollar view and the soundtrack of water ebbing and flowing against the harbour wall. Go knowing you are learning vicariously how to make better food choices while, if you are like me, being equally thrilled by Joost’s flair and vision.

Greenhouse by Joost is open until the end of March 2011.

Celebrity dish … Michael Moore, owner of The Summit Restaurant and author of Moore to Food

Michael and I go way back to when he was a young pony-tailed chef and I was just moving from catering into the media. I have always been a big fan his food.  He is also one great guy. We cooked together after he joined Fresh on the Nine Network where I was co-host and until he stopped this year, we both present weekly cooking segments on Kerri-Anne on the same network.

Sydneysiders will know Michael’s restaurant – The Summit, on top of Australia Square.  This iconic restaurant recently opened a very special private dining room, Salon Privé by Champagne Taittinger. Michael has created bespoke menus for this beautifully designed

room with its 360 degree views of the city and Sydney Harbour.

Michael is also one the new resident chefs at Westfield in Pitt Street Mall, Sydney.  His venture EAT Deli Kitchen purports it to be the Australian home of the Reuben sandwich – that classic New York combo of salt beef, pickles and mustard on rye.  Michael’s version features Wagyu Salt Beef and is served hot.  I haven’t tried one yet but it’s on my food wish list for my next visit to Westfield.

As well as launching a new restaurant, late last year Michael launched his new book, Moore to Food (New Holland) where he shares his culinary secrets and presents recipes and tips for entertaining at home in a stylish, yet comprehensive manual format.  Definitely a book for anyone who loves to entertain.

With a 25 year plus career owning and running top restaurants in his native London and adopted Sydney, where he has been awarded a number of chefs’ hats from the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide, Michael is certainly well qualified to be a celebrity dish.

Over to Michael: 

What is your earliest food memory: Making blackcurrant jam and rock cakes with my Nan back home in the U.K!

What is the strangest meal you’ve ever been served: Chickens feet and pigs bum (Andouillette sausage)

What is your signature dish: Twice cooked pork belly with roasted apple marmalade and glass crackling

What is your favourite cookbook: Marcella Hazan ‘Italian Cooking’

What do you never eat: Andouillette sausage

What are the five ingredients you would take to a desert island: Buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, olive oil, bread, chocolate

What are you having for dinner tonight: Wagyu salt beef ‘Reuben’ sandwich on rye, swiss cheese, pickles, mustard mayonnaise

Thanks Michael. 

The details:

The Summit Restaurant

Level 47, Australia Square, 264 George Street, Sydney

Telephone 02 9247 9777

Email reservations@summitrestaurant.com.au

EAT Deli Kitchen

Level 5, Westfield Sydney

Pitt Street Mall, Sydney

Telephone 0423 441 220

Day trip to Cabramatta

My long time friend Carol Selva Rajah has been hosting tours to Cabramatta for 20 years. I attended one of her first tours with my daughter Lucy – she was 5 years old and I recall she loved the Vietnamese duck soup. So it was fitting that I went along to celebrate Carol’s milestone late last year. Sadly Lucy lives in London now and couldn’t make it.

The group with Carol (in white) in the middle

We headed off bright and early on a Saturday morning and while some things at Cabramatta have changed since my first visit, many have stayed the same.  The bright towering displays of fresh produce are certainly the same.  Back then, of course, many of the herbs, fruit and vegetables sold in Cabramatta were alien to most of us, nowadays coriander is about as common as iceberg lettuce!

Carol at one of the vibrant fruit & vegetable stores

It was fabulous to have insider knowledge of where to go for the best of everything at Cabramatta and Carol didn’t disappoint.  I was especially enamoured with the produce.

Banana flowers – commonly used to made a salad with coconut cream and prawns

And the pork!

Behind the scenes at the pork roasting house

Then it was time for lunch at Lina Lam’s modern Vietnamese restaurant, Ban Truong (42 John Street, Cabramatta 2166 – telephone 02 9727 4492), where we met Dai Le, the former ABC journalist wife of Markus Lambert, PR Manager at Fairfield Council.

Margaret Fulton with Dai Lee

As you would expect lunch featured many new and innovative examples of Vietnamese cuisine.

Steak Haus – new neighbourhood gem

Don’t you love finding a great new and affordable local?

After finishing a meeting my colleagues and I headed out for a quick dinner in the Potts Point / Kings Cross environs. I had previously heard about the very newly opened (a few days prior) Steak Haus and was keen to give it a try. Situated around the corner from the Coke sign in the premises that formerly housed Blanco, the interior screams chic with the obligatory communal table, low lighting and friendly wait staff. In a word, stylish. One thing I didn’t like was the soundtrack – maybe it is just me but the Gypsy Kings (I think?) on repeat was just a tad too much – and too loud. Also, as the night wore on it was harder and harder to hear with the buzz from other tables. That aside, the concept is great, the food good and the whole very budget friendly.

The Steak Haus offers a three course set menu with a few options for $30. Kind of like the $5 pub steak, but oh so much better.

The one size fits all entrée was a classic bistro style green salad taken to the next level with a herby mustard dressing and fresh crunchy walnuts and buttery croutons offering toothsome crunch.

Mains came with frites – shoestring fries to the non-Francophiles – and lots of them. They were good too. Protein choices were steak or tuna plus a vegetarian option. Our table sampled the steak and tuna. The thinly cut steaks (again a generous serve) appeared sporting char grill marks, and all were cooked as ordered, as was the tuna.

Accompanying the protein and frites was a selection of four sauces served DIY style in the middle of the table. My pick was the Chimmie Churrie (sic), although I would have enjoyed the Le Paris (with café de paris butter style flavours) a little more if it hadn’t separated. Chilli and mushroom sauces made up the quartet.

L to R le Paris, mushroom, chimmie churrie (sic) and chilli

The wine list was also approachable – with a concise selection of good local and international (France, Italy, New Zealand and Argentinian) offerings. We enjoyed a couple of bottles of 2009 Merricks Creek Pinot Noir which seemed to suit both the meat and fish eaters.

There were four desserts in the set menu and like good sports, we decided to have one of each. The usual suspects appeared – panna cotta, macaron, profiterole and brulee, however all were sweetly satisfying, especially the profiterole adorned with crisp caramel and the vivid pink macaron with creamy white chocolate filling. Apparently all house-made.

For a restaurant that has only been open for a couple of weeks, they are certainly getting a lot right. It’s one you could go back to time and again, as long as the noise didn’t put you off.

Steak Haus is at 5-9a Roslyn Avenue, Potts Point.  Telephone 02 8065 1812.  As yet there is no website.

Savour Tasmania wrap up: Demon chef Alvin Leung at Mee Wah and Maggie & Simon’s Masterclass

I recently wrote about Savour Tasmania and having just returned from Hobart, wanted to share further details and images with you.

I was thrilled to be part of the second annual Savour Tasmania, an epicurean festival featuring Australian and international chefs and fabulous Tasmanian produce. Beginning on 27 May there were various sell-out degustation dinners and masterclasses for students and the public in Hobart and next weekend more events in Launceston and Burnie.

Guests came from around Australia to dine on the cuisine of Spain’s Paco Roncero from Casino de Madrid, Alvin Leung from Bo Innovation in Hong Kong, Philippe Nouzillat from Brasserie Wolf in Singapore, New Zealand’s Martin Bosley from Martin Bosley’s in Wellington and our very own The Cook and the Chef, Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant.

I mced two dinners by Alvin Leung, whose restaurant, Bo Innovation in Hong Kong recently catapulted up the San Pellegrino Top 100 List from position 97 to position 65. Held at Mee Wah, which brought elegant and sophisticated Cantonese dining to Tasmania, the dinners were as much fun as they were innovative.

Alvin, with his streaked hair, sunglasses, funky clothes and ‘Demon chef’ tattoos, held the audience captivated as he explained the motivation behind his dishes created with the science of molecular gastronomy. All had a recognisable basis in Chinese cuisine from his Molecular ‘xiao long bao’ transforming the much loved Shanghainese dumpling into a sphere which popped in the mouth with familiar flavours

Multi-tasking at Signorelli Gastronomia

Where’s the latest place to go for a casual Trattoria-style lunch or dinner, salumeria selection, drink at the bar, cooking class or a gourmet shopping experience which includes wine?

Signorelli Gastronomia at Doltone House, Darling Island Wharf, 48 Pirrama Road, Pyrmont is a haven for all things Italian with a local flavour. The whole space has been devised by Paul Signorelli and his sisters, Anna Cesarano and Nina Milazzo, as homage to their late father, the pioneering greengrocer and hospitality entrepreneur, Biaggio Signorelli. They’ve even commissioned a sculpture of him outside.

The antipasto bar

I had lunch there a couple of weeks ago with my mate Glenn Wheeler, from radio 2GB.

I first met Executive Chef James Viles of Doltone House’s Darling Island Wharf, years ago when I taught a special holiday class at Pittwater House school. I have seen him sporadically over the years and it was great to see him here. The menu encompassed wood-fired pizza, stone oven dishes (including porchetta with agrodolce – traditional Italian sweet and sour – requiring 24 hour pre-order), oysters, a comprehensive list of cured meats, primi, secondi and dolce.

The salumeria selection

We trialled a little of many menu items from the salumeria selection from crisp pizza and a wonderful squid ink risotto with Hawkesbury cuttlefish and soft poached egg. Though it’s hard to go past the goat’s cheese & broadbean ravioli with glazed golden beetroot or the beef served with either foie gras, gorgonzola or porcini butter. To finish, an affogato of ice-cream, espresso and little gel ''pearls'' of Nocello formed in a calcium bath.

After lunch I visited the cheese room and checked out the food offerings. Interestingly the focus was on local produce. Apparently Signorelli Gastronomia’s philosophy is to stock seasonal produce, mainly sourced within a 100 mile radius. I was told there are more than 500 product lines.

I stuck my head in the wine room – an impressive 200+ bottle collection of Australian and international wine as well as a shelf devoted to organic wine.

I left nearly three hours later with the biggest rib eye on the bone you’ve ever seen – of Flintstone proportions - it weighed 1.6 kilos. It cooked beautifully on the BBQ, some of the time with the lid down and rested nicely. It’s nearly time to go back and get another one. The cooking school also looks interesting and there is a calendar of upcoming tastings, exhibitions and events on their website.

Sepia – European/Japanese fusion in the CBD

I’ve been to Sepia a couple of times in the past few weeks – for a quick drink with a girlfriend and for a business lunch. Both times were fabulous – Sepia is welcome addition to drinking and dining options in Sydney’s CBD.

Located just down from the hustle and bustle of Town Hall on the ground floor of Darling Park at 201 Sussex Street, Sepia is an oasis of calm – from the comfortable dining chairs in the restaurant to the stylish marble bar in the centre of the room.

It is the creative collaboration of George Costi of renowned seafood emporium De Costi, English born chef, Martin Benn and my old friend Vicki Wild.

Martin Benn

As you’d expect seafood features heavily on Benn’s menu in many of the European/Japanese fusion options – appropriate as Martin became head chef at Tetsuya’s at only 25.

In 2007, Martin left Tets and Sydney for Hong Kong but, at Costi’s request, returned in 2008 to open Sepia. Almost from the beginning the accolades began – 2010 NSW Restaurant & Catering Associations’ Best New Restaurant and TimeOut Sydney’s Best Seafood Restaurant Award as well as a listing in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide.

When I went for a drink with a girlfriend, I sampled the following flight of three Northern Italian wines with recommended food match, angel hair pasta with scampi & tarragon: