Lauraine Jacobs

Food Writer and Author of Delicious Books

Lauraine’s blog

17 April 2014

PERFECT DINNER IN MELBOURNE

Three weeks after our dinner at Attica, Melbourne one of the friends we had shared the meal with commented that he was still awestruck by every aspect of the experience. Attica owner/chef, Ben Shewry, the boy from Taranaki, has become one of the world’s best known chefs amongst those-who-know. He’s respected by the leading names around the globe and was championed by none less than the famous Rene Redzepi of Noma restaurant in Copenhagen. Rightly so!

I hadn’t been to Attica since I organised a dinner there during the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival about six years ago. That had been a great occasion as at the time I was a food editor at Cuisine and I persuaded Martin Bosley to cook alongside Ben. We arranged Cloudy Bay wines, the two chefs each cooked three courses of their own and some Cuisine readers even drove from NSW for that occasion. It was a fun night and the standout was Ben’s seashore dish – briny and brilliant.

This time every single detail seemed brilliant, and the restaurant seemed to have really grown up to become almost a temple of sophistication without any pretension. After a welcome glass of Champagne, we chose to go with the Eight Course Menu with Matched Wines ($305 per person.) Does eight courses sound over the top? Well it wasn’t, as we actually had about sixteen different dishes, plus a smart little pie and an exquisite ice cream, from a cart in the herb garden, served about three fourths of the way through the meal. And that herb garden at the back of the restaurant is devoted to basil – 13 varieties. I’d love to see the full chef’s garden nearby at Ripponlea.

I’m not going to go through a bite by bite account of the meal. We started with seven tiny amuse gueules, each a bite of deliciousness.

We then moved onto the “Eight Courses” and were wowed by the tastes, the textures and the loving care of each and every course. The kitchen at Attica does not torture nor transform food. The chefs get involved in growing the food in that garden, and sourcing the very best seasonal ingredients. Everything is delicate, beautifully conceived and complete with gorgeous herbs.

My favourite courses were the ‘Ten Flavours of St John’s Wort’ – five tiny tomatoes, peeled, slightly cooked and bathed in the most delicious dressing with herbs tips to garnish, ‘Cucumbers, Holy Flax, Sauce of Burnet’ which was the most perfect cucumber salad imaginable, and ‘King George Whiting in Paperbark’ where the delicate fresh fish had been topped with crab and citrus and baked in rolled up tree bark.

Service is seamless and relaxed, everything is utterly professional and there’s almost a hushed tone in the dining room as everyone seems bowled over by the occasion. The only thing I would do differently is to order a bottle of wine I loved and was familiar with, rather than go for the matched wines. They were a fairly esoteric collection, well chosen of course, but I was there for the food and that’s what I really wanted to concentrate on.

And a word of advice. Make your reservation at the restaurant for this sensational dinner well before you book your flights. Tables, especially at the weekend are pretty well booked ahead for 2-3 months!

ATTICA 74 Glen Eira Rd, Ripponlea, VIC. Phone +61 3 9530 0111

PS. That salad in the pic accompanied my beef with cherries course. Detail, detail, detail!

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