This was published 7 years ago
Restaurant reviews: Good Weekend heads to Melbourne's Garden State Hotel and Sydney's latest Three Blue Ducks venue
Good Weekend heads to Melbourne's Garden State Hotel and Sydney's latest Three Blue Ducks venue.
By Annabel Ross and Sally Webb
Garden State Hotel, Melbourne
That a new, trendy venue in Melbourne should attract big crowds is nothing notable, but when said venue is a 840-person behemoth, and you're queueing on a Friday night – well, that's something else altogether. It's testament to the deserved buzz that Garden State Hotel has generated in the short time it has been open, and to its owners at Sand Hill Road group: Andy and Matt Mullins, Doug Maskiell and Tom Birch. The men responsible for transforming the Prahran Hotel, Bridge Hotel and others have switched their focus to a four-level venture in the heart of the CBD, on the old Rosati's site, and the results are magnificent.
Garden State Hotel.Credit: Armelle Habib
No expense has been spared in this $9 million reno (rent for the site is around $1 million annually), and the name is apt: the central courtyard is dotted with fig trees, and the Rose Garden, a cocktail den on a lower level, is flush with colourful, fragrant blooms.
But let's start with the entrance, which leads into a stately, timber-slatted Public Bar with a fireplace and TV for footy-watching. Beyond that is the beer garden centrepiece, a three-tiered affair with stairs to the uppermost Observatory (for functions only). It's fab for enjoying a light meal from the counter menu. And we do mean light – serves are on the small side. Our grass-fed, peppered scotch fillet was tasty, though, topped with tart pickled onions and leaves.
At the rear of the ground floor you'll find the Manhattan-esque Garden Grill, and this is where our experience, hitherto delightful, soured a little. "You do realise this is the fine-dining restaurant?" asked our less-than-cheery waitress before seating us. Er, yes. We then had to ask her to move us from a small table (baffling, when the restaurant was near-empty) to a more comfortable booth. All the other staff we encountered, though, were delightful.
Ex-Circa chef Ashly Hicks is bringing that establishment's refinement to a posh-pub setting here and it mostly works – again, provided you're not super hungry. Fennel pollen-cured snapper with apple and sorrel is clean, green and restrained; John Dory with shiitake and rappe (peppery leafy greens) is agreeably subdued.
With wine and cocktail lists curated by some of the country's finest, and opening hours to make Sydney's lockout-law victims weep, expect to see those weekend queues at Garden State for quite some time to come.
Garden State Hotel , 101 Flinders Lane, Melbourne; (03) 8396 5777; gardenstatehotel.com.au.
Review by Annabel Ross
Three Blue Ducks, Rosebery, Sydney
From an eastern suburbs base in Bronte, Three Blue Ducks first migrated north, landing at a farm at Byron Bay. Now it has flown south again, occupying the former Kitchen By Mike site in Rosebery. After a gradual start serving breakfast and lunch, Three Blue Ducks Rosebery is now operating at full quack.
Acknowledging the warehouse's heritage-listed bones, changes to the site's former incarnation have been minimal. Decorative touches such as panels of artful graffiti and a pair of giant cane light shades add to the industrial-chic look of exposed beams, stripped-back bricks and concrete floor.
The Ducks – Darren Robertson and Mark La Brooy, who have teamed with MasterChef winner Andy Allen for Rosebery – are all about honest but exciting food served in an informal setting. Peppered with pickles, ferments, seeds and grains, the menu is very "now", with a focus on dishes cooked with fire, utilising an Argentinian grill in the courtyard, a wood-fired oven and two charcoal pits. There are separate menus for weekday breakfasts, weekend brunches, lunch and dinner, and a wine list with a focus on organic and biodynamic drops.
A single Spanish mackerel, served whole and charred to crisp-skinned perfection, is flanked by puddles of gorgeously smoky babaganoush and tangy herbed labneh. A quartet of king prawns, the flesh sweet and delectable, are butterflied and chargrilled in their shells and served on a bed of charred green onions with dollops of avocado and buttermilk purée.
Clams, served with a braise of slow-cooked pig's head and confit garlic, are rich and satisfying, while a smoky, halved eggplant is the star of a mild, Indian-inspired curry with dahl, coconut sambal and onion chutney. A side dish of deeply golden potatoes, roasted in chicken fat and served with almond cream, is simultaneously moreish and wicked.
The use of fire is subtle and there's a light touch to the cooking – a little too light in a couple of instances. Bone marrow, roasted in the wood oven, really needed more time to reach that perfect soft, gelatinous texture, while the divinely crisp batter slathering the three fried chicken wings couldn't redeem their slightly undercooked flesh, which was tricky to remove from the bone. But, to be fair, we're sampling a brand new menu and the Rosebery duck is a welcome addition to the rest of the flock.
Three Blue Ducks, 1/85 Dunning Avenue, Rosebery; (02) 9389 0010; threeblueducks.com/rosebery
Review by Sally Webb