Herald rating: * * * *1/2
Address: 279 Parnell Rd
Ph: (09) 309 6289
Open: Dinner Tuesday to Saturday; lunch Thursday & Friday
Wine list: Excellent. Hidden treasures and intelligent advice
Vegetarians: One entree, one main
Watch out for: The $6.50 sorbets
Bottom line: Why cant all meals be like this?
KEY POINTS:
The blonde says that I'm not to mention the bad experience we had when we last ate here So instead, I'll ask: Why can't all meals be like this?
Eating out, like any other field of experience, is proof of the inescapable truth that 90 per cent of everything is done badly. At VBG they do it well and they make it look easy. Before the 1987 sharemarket crash this Parnell institution was the dining room of those barely post-pubescent twits who lunched on Bolly. Since then it has been through hard times, one evening of which I was unfortunate enough to share with them.
Three months ago, it was reborn as a slick, smart operation that does all the basics right and all the hard stuff brilliantly. It's been a long time since I had such an unassumingly perfect meal. At least some of the credit for that has to go to manager Philip Sturm, who, as the man who set up Cibo and the late, lamented Ottos, knows a thing or two about running a good dining room.
It's hard to do much with the unfortunate design - the room is cantilevered on huge diagonal beams, which is where it gets its name - but the clever disposition of mirrors adds to the sense of light and space and the ambience is pleasant. We had brought along one of the Blonde's mates who has, poor thing, shared some pretty tragic dining experiences with us. Let's just say that this evening more than made amends.
Because we were eating early and the place hadn't begun to fill up, we were served by maitre d' Daniel Finlayson, a relaxed but very helpful host, whose comprehensive, unpretentious explanations made ordering a breeze.
The menu, the work of head chef Sal Grant (from Toto), preserves VBG classics such as a main of bangers (sorry, Pokeno pork sausages) and mash and an entree of tuatua fritters. I bagsed the latter, which were divine: light, delicately flavoursome fritters with a tangy clam aioli and an accompanying salad of cress laced with warm cucumber shavings.
The Blonde was very impressed by a salad of wine-poached pear and red onions with generous lumps of excellent gorgonzola and caramelised walnuts, and her mate drooled over pappardelle with mushroom and truffle oil.
The dishes had in common a clean simplicity: the gentlest of expert touches was deployed on first-class ingredients to create flavours that were full without being dense. The same approach was evident in the mains: a superb leg of duck, twice cooked, on white beans, a delicate variation on the hearty French classic, the cassoulet; salmon wrapped in paper and baked (ergo steamed) with Asian greens; and the Blonde's gnocchi made with red peruperu potato, incompletely pureed so as to preserve its texture, and lapped with a cheese sauce of surpassing lightness.
Add smart twists on pavlova and apple pie for desserts, and some thoughtful and attentive wine-matching and it was pretty much a flawless performance. My only niggle: small sorbets before the main course were charged for even though not ordered - a first in my experience. Otherwise, it's great to salute VBG's return to form. The Blonde's mate is still smiling.
- Detours, HoS
