Waterlife Lunch at Ludlow Bar & Dining Room for Melbourne Food & Wine Festival

The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival is in full swing and for once, I found myself in the Victorian capital city at the right time. Not that food and wine indulgence isn't had all year round in Melbourne, but it was good to see another city celebrating of some of my favourite things.

Melbourne skyline from the Yarra River, Southbank, Melbourne

This year's festival revolves around the theme of water, with various events, masterclasses and installations taking all manner of perspectives on one of our most important natural resources.

Raingarden at The Immersery, Queensbridge Square, Southbank, Melbourne

The Immersery: Festival Kitchen, Bar and Raingarden at Southbank's Queensbridge Square comprised a feature meeting and discussion place with a purpose-built kitchen, floating bar and intricate raingarden aside the Yarra River.

Plants and raingarden at The Immersery

Wines by the glass at The Immersery

Floating barge bar at The Immersery

With various Melbourne chefs and bartenders on rotating feature throughout the festival, it's an impressive showcase for Melbourne's food, wine and cocktails in a pretty special, picturesque space.

Yabby Lake Chardonnay at Ludlow Bar & Dining Room, Riverside Quay,
Southbank, Melbourne

On Saturday, 8 March 2014 the expansive, waterside Ludlow Bar & Dining Room hosted its Waterlife Lunch as part of the festival, with a focus on locally sourced seafood and produce. It was a great opportunity to check out Victorian seafood offerings as well as dining waterside at Southbank.

It was a gorgeous, sunny day to be enjoying the outdoor tables at Ludlow, with plenty of buskers and passers-by to entertain as we started with a glass of seafood-appropriate Yabby Lake Chardonnay.

Bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar

The Waterlife Lunch comprised a three-course savoury meal, which suited non-sweettooths like me to a tee, starting with excellent crusty white bread served with plenty of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Light nettle smoked Port Phillip Bay snapper on hot pickled mushrooms, chive chlorophyll

Our first course was a very local snapper from Port Phillip Bay. Lightly smoked, the snapper fillet had a faint smoky, savoury aroma and a gorgeously moist texture, served with grilled cos lettuce leaves and a lemon cheek.

While the fish fillet was excellent, it was the "hot pickled" shimeji mushrooms that stole my heart. Pan fried with a very subtle, well-balanced addition of vinegar, the mushrooms were a surprising match to the snapper and added a surf-and-turf charm.

Paupiette of Victorian garfish, River Basin flathead, poached Portarlington mussels,
confit of garlic, saffron rouille

I was intrigued about the garfish paupiette on the menu but even more impressed when it arrived. Basically three separate seafood components, the dish came together beautifully with a creamy bisque, saffron rouille and salty samphire garnish.

Alternate view of garfish dish

Most stunning was the garfish, of which I scored the head section and a few thin bones, wrapped around a creamy, dill-spiked, firm mousse filling of blitzed flathead.

As if that fish-on-fish paupiette action wasn't enough, both the parsley-coated flathead fillet and plump poached mussels were executed to perfection in an eye-opening and innovative dish.

Grilled Grampian duck breast, olive oil poached Daylesford potatoes, wild fennel, Yarra Valley crème fraîche, white truffle

Taking an alternate view on the water theme, the kitchen cleverly produced a duck dish as the third and final of the lunch: an entire medium-rare grilled duck breast, brown skinned with perfect grill marks.

The pink duck flesh with a layer of fat was an autumnal delight with soft, grilled wild fennel and Brussels sprouts, lightened with a dash of crème fraîche and a slightly odd, bitter spherified coffee sauce.

Despite getting pretty full by this stage, I couldn't leave the spring roll of confit duck, nor the adorable, tiny olive oil-poached whole potatoes topped with white truffle shavings. Along with a side of dressed mixed leaves, it was an overly generous dish that could have been a standalone main.

Salad leaves

Too full to contemplate dessert, we ended Ludlow's Waterlife Lunch with a stroll along the Yarra River, probably as intended. It was a very well considered lunch with plenty of technique and thought on every plate of this seemingly underrated riverside restaurant.

If this is Melbourne waterside dining, Sydney may need to pick up its game. More Melbourne posts to come and more photos on my Facebook page.

Food, booze and shoes attended the Waterlife Lunch at Ludlow Bar & Dining Room as a guest.

Two faces of Fish Face Double Bay

In Sydney dining, the only constant is change. After many years in Darlinghurst, Fish Face has spawned two new versions of itself: a rebirth of the fish-centric restaurant in Double Bay and a fish-and-chippery in the former Darlinghurst restaurant.

Owner and chef Steve Hodges has recruited chef Joshua Niland (ex Grain and The Woods) as head chef at the Double Bay restaurant, which itself comprises two separate offerings. Fish Face Double Bay is the more casual, fish cafe-style venue in the front, while Fish Face Dining in the back is the higher-end restaurant offering.

Sushi and sashimi plate from Fish Face Double , New South Head Road, Double Bay

Sat at the front end one Sunday lunch, it was a choice between small high tables or counter seats facing the footpath, with the former seating a maximum of four diners and just fitting four main meals with one side dish (the dining setup in the back is normal, low seats and tables).

To start we shared a sushi and sashimi platter as an entrée. Slices of tuna, salmon and I think, kingfish and snapper, sashimi (it was served sans explanation) were served atop thinly sliced pickled cucumber, along with five petite nigiri sushi pieces.

Crisp skin cobia, radicchio, currants, fried polenta cake

With fish-appropriate Asahi beers and a dry riesling accompanying our meals, we moved straight into mains, with eyes only for the fish items.

Cobia isn't a fish I see on many menus around town and at Fish Face, it was served interestingly, if not unusually, as three slices with crisp polenta chips and radicchio cooked with raisins for a bittersweet-ness.

Blue eye trevalla on potato scales, fresh ricotta, grilled kale

My pan-fried blue eye trevalla was a generous fillet of the firm, white fish, topped with a thin layer of crisp, golden potato slice "scales" in yet another a sophisticated, innovative version of fish and chips.

Completely surprising as a match, the house-made ricotta was a creamy, textural delight while the kale brought super-veg to the plate.

Battered black flathead, hand cut chips, malt pickles, tartare

The must-order and barometer of any decent fish joint probably has to be the fish and chips, even though we weren't at Fish Face's dedicated fish and chip restaurant.

On offer was the perennial favourite of flathead tail fillets, lovely and boneless in a crisp and airy, dark-fried beer batter. With house-made tartare sauce and cucumber pickles on the side, it was a complete dish with excellent hand-cut, skin-on, thick potato chips served in a paper cone.

 Leaf salad

The side order of a leafy green salad was for the benefit of the fish and chip eaters, with butter and iceberg lettuce nicely dressed and garnished with fresh chives, parsley and dill.

They're decent sized mains, no doubt, but the small tables and high seats certainly change the dining feeling into something quite casual, despite the prices hovering towards the $40 mark for mains.

Crème brûlée, nutmeg biscuits

Nonetheless, it was made into a full three-course meal with a shared dessert of classic crème brûlée, presented in a ramekin with a fabulously burnished toffee top.

The short, buttery nutmeg biscuits served atop would have made for nice coffee partners, although they were just as good with the vanilla-scented custard in the pot.

Fish Face frontage

It's early days for Fish Face in Double Bay, with the back restaurant launching most recently while the casual front has probably just shaken off its new-ness. With two faces on the go in the one space, Fish Face should be making double the waves in Double Bay.

The locals' Woodland Kitchen & Bar

Posted by Jan

Ideally, every suburb should have a reliable dining option that locals can just wander to for a good meal - something that's more than takeaway but not too fancy or difficult. Woodland Kitchen & Bar is Neutral Bay's newest dining addition and fits the bill perfectly.

Dining room at Woodland Kitchen & Bar, Grosvenor Street, Neutral Bay

Re-emerging from what used to be the northern outpost of Pony Dining, Woodland Kitchen & Bar is husband and wife duo Damien and Jenni Heads' first solo venture (you may remember Heads from such shows as Ready, Steady, Cook).

Chef Damien Heads

With a wealth of experience between them, they have created a modern Australian menu with a casual yet personal approach, most suitable for the sophisticated, well-serviced neighbourhood.

Being locals to the area, their approach is no-fuss, honest flavours and simple food. This comes through strongly in the menu that includes hot and cold seafood, steaks, share plates as well as a $10 children's menu.

Oyster shot, Bloody Mary

We started with sweet, briney Sydney Rock oysters from Wodongo Inlet in a shot glass of spicy Bloody Mary tomato mix. Never the prettiest starter, I found it tough to stop myself from having more than my fair share of the excellent oysters. 

Yellowfin tuna sashimi spring roll , soy bean sauce

Retrieved from the Pony Dining menu, the tuna sashimi spring roll is another example of why we love Sydney summers and seafood so much. The raw tuna encased with crisp spring roll pastry and served with edamame beans, whole and puréed into a sauce, was a casual and light option perfect for summer grazing. 

Grilled ciabatta, whipped fetta and marinated olives

A shared plate that could have been dinner alone for me featured a divine whipped fetta cheese, served with plenty of smoky, grilled ciabatta bread and a small selection of olives.

Sauteed calamari and chorizo

The very classic pairing of chorizo and calamari was complemented with a rich tomato sauce, white beans and grilled sourdough bread. The hint of sherry vinegar in the calamari sauce added a bit of tang to this tasty, tapas-style dish. 

Baked onion and goats cheese flan

Grilled asparagus and watercress were great additions to the baked onion and goat's cheese tart. The freshness and added crunch of the vegetables complemented the rich pastry and goat's cheese very well. 

200g grass fed eye fillet steak

From the mains the eye fillet steak was cooked medium-rare as requested with perfect cross-hatch grill marks, and was served with a red wine jus, roasted baby carrots and eschallots, and a salsa verde.

Lamb backstrap 

The tender lamb backstrap from the woodfire grill was served on a bed of hummus with smoky eggplant, tomatoes, quinoa and a salad of celery leaves, tarragon and chervil.

I wasn't sure what (everyone's favourite super-grain) quinoa would bring to the dish, but it tied the rest of the ingredients together quite unexpectedly and added a lovely texture to the salad and lamb. 

Potato gnocchi with roasted pumpkin, burnt butter and salted ricotta

Despite being quite full, I couldn't help but offer to help finish off the soft, melting potato gnocchi with sweeet roasted pumpkin cubes and salted ricotta slices. It would have been a sin to leave a single pillow of goodness behind. 

Tasmanian Salmon with pickled beetroot, orange, fetta and mint

Also from the woodfire grill, the large fillet of salmon was cooked perfectly with a nice addition of fetta cheese and mint, and orange segments and pickled beetroots that cut the richness of the salmon.

Sides of chips with roasted garlic aioli and a salad of rocket, pear, fennel and parmesan

Golden, thick cut chips with a roasted garlic aioli were a crowd-pleasing side along with a fresh salad of rocket leaves, pear, shaved fennel and parmesan cheese shared at the table.

Caramel and chocolate tart with fresh honeycomb and double cream

I'm glad I made room for dessert: a not-run-of-the-mill caramel and chocolate tart served with freshly-made honeycomb. There was a slight bitterness of golden syrup that was heated to just the right temperature before burning - the hallmark taste of a good home-made honeycomb that you just don't get in commercial honeycomb.

Woodland Kitchen & Bar's honest and uncomplicated approach to well-cooked food is what every neighbourhood bistro should have. I can just imagine myself as a local coming back again and again for, "my usual, please". If only every suburb could be so lucky.

Food, booze and shoes dined at Woodland Kitchen & Bar as a guest, with thanks to Agency G.