Your weekly taste of Australia’s best food, drinks and spirited discoveries
Dinner as art, a Drop Bear with bite and an Aussie cabernet conquering the world. Welcome back to the second serving of Uncorked & Forked.
This week we’re mixing art with dinner, discovering an Australian cabernet taking on the world and wondering why on earth dessert trolleys ever disappeared.
There’s also a Drop Bear involved.
Let’s eat.
Andy Warhol probably isn’t the first person you’d expect to encounter halfway through a beef tenderloin, but that’s roughly where he enters the picture at Melbourne’s latest dining experience.
After sold-out events in Dubai, Germany, Switzerland and Canada, 7 Paintings has made its Australian debut at Mr Tompkins restaurant inside the historic Rendezvous Hotel Melbourne.
The idea is clever: seven courses inspired by seven famous artists, accompanied by projections, sound, storytelling and a bit of audience participation over two-and-a-half hours.
The Mona Lisa plays host for a journey that takes in Michelangelo, Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Warhol, Salvador Dalí and Vincent van Gogh.
Michelangelo inspires a tomato praline with basil gel and watercress, while Banksy gets veal carpaccio with truffle mayonnaise and olive soil. Picasso arrives as snapper infused with cinnamon and lavender, while Pollock’s abstract style is recreated using spinach-coconut, beetroot and pumpkin purées.
Warhol is where the beef tenderloin comes in, accompanied by mashed sweet potato, glazed snow peas and balsamic jus. Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory becomes crema Catalana served in a hollowed potato with berries, mint and salted caramel ice cream.
And for the finale? Van Gogh’s Starry Night, interpreted as a chocolate painting on coconut meringue with three different chocolate sauces.
Diners even get to have a crack at creating some edible art of their own along the way.
Sessions are limited to 40 people and run on Friday and Saturday nights until December.
The Verdict: At $189 a head, it’s an occasion dinner. But Melbourne does theatrical dining very well, and seven courses inside one of the city’s grand old buildings, with Picasso, Warhol and Van Gogh joining you for dinner, sounds like a pretty entertaining and colourful night out.
There’s a good story behind the name of Mollydooker’s The Maitre D’ Cabernet Sauvignon (pictured below, left).
Mollydooker is Australian slang for a left-hander, and the wine was named for co-founder Sparky Marquis, who worked as a left-handed waiter while putting himself through winemaking college.
The 2023 is a generous McLaren Vale cabernet, packed with blackberry and plum, followed by milk chocolate, cigar box, mocha and softer herbal notes. There’s plenty happening in the glass, but the tannins sit nicely in the background.
The Verdict: Big, full-bodied and loaded with flavour without becoming hard work. Blackberry, plum, chocolate and mocha make this a generous McLaren Vale cabernet with plenty going on for the money.
The Region: McLaren Vale, South Australia
Best with: Mollydooker suggests red duck curry, and that’s an invitation we’re quite happy to accept.
Only an Australian drinks company could take one of our great tourist wind-ups and put it in a bottle.
Bundaberg’s Drop Bear Spicy Pineapple (pictured above, right) combines Queensland pineapple with a chilli kick and is designed to be served chilled as a shot.
We’d be inclined to tame the beast a little. Tip it over ice, add ginger ale and you’ve got pineapple sweetness, spice and fizz in a very easy-drinking combination.
The Verdict: Let’s not overthink this one, shall we? It’s pineapple, spice, a bit of heat and a very Australian joke in a bottle. Over ice with ginger ale is where we’d be heading.
The Region: Bundaberg, Queensland
Melbourne, Victoria | August 29
DOLLY, the subterranean bistro beneath Le Méridien Melbourne, is bringing back its Grand Jazz Dinner Show after sell-out outings earlier this year.
Five-piece band The Night Creatures will provide the soundtrack while the kitchen sends out four courses including the likes of steak frites and confit duck, followed by a flaming Bombe Alaska with caramelised popcorn and salted caramel ice cream. Matched wines are included in the $145 ticket.
Live jazz, dinner, wine and someone setting dessert on fire. That’ll do us.
Brisbane, Queensland | August 19
Western Australia’s Alkoomi Wines is marking its 50th vintage by heading east for a one-night dinner at Winnifred’s Champagne Bar & French Bistro in Fortitude Valley.
Mother-and-daughter owners Sandy and Laura will host the evening, sharing stories from five decades in Frankland River while Brisbane chef Josh Lopez creates a five-course menu matched to Alkoomi wines.
Lopez has some serious kitchen miles behind him, including Gordon Ramsay’s Maze in London and Noma in Copenhagen, so this should be considerably more interesting than your standard wine dinner.
Tickets are $320 per person.
Griffith, NSW | August 24–30
This is the one we’d put a big circle around.
A Taste of Italy isn’t simply an excuse to eat salami and gnocchi for a week, although frankly that would be reason enough.
Italian migrants helped shape Griffith’s food and wine culture, bringing viticulture and market gardening along with traditions such as salami making, preserving olives and family sauce days. Many remain part of life in the region today.
For seven days, Griffith celebrates that heritage through regional wine, food, cooking, music, aperitivo events and Italian cultural experiences.
Pack stretchy pants.
The title alone got us. Australian food writer Caroline Griffiths’ Midnight Spaghetti celebrates that glorious moment when it’s late, you’re hungry and the pantry appears to contain absolutely nothing until someone remembers there’s pasta.
The book is built around transforming pantry staples into comforting bowls of spaghetti without requiring a shopping expedition first. Among the recipes are Dirty Martini Spaghetti, spaghetti with balsamic butter, and anchovy and cherry tomato spaghetti. Scrummo.
Why it’s on our radar: Because not every memorable meal requires three days of preparation and tweezers. Sometimes you need pasta, butter, something salty and a large fork.
If the walls at The Bush Inn in New Norfolk could talk, you’d probably need to buy them another round.
Dating back to 1815, the Tasmanian watering hole is regarded as one of Australia’s oldest continuously licensed pubs. Convicts, explorers, farmers, travellers and generations of locals have all passed through its doors.
Two centuries of Australian life have unfolded around this place, yet it’s still doing what a good pub has always done: pouring drinks, feeding people and providing somewhere to pull up a chair.
The Verdict: Find a Tasmanian beer, settle in by the fire and consider this: people were drinking here before Melbourne had even been founded.
Find out more: The Bush Inn
Somewhere along the way, restaurants decided dessert trolleys weren’t fashionable anymore.
Luke Mangan clearly didn’t get the memo.
His Luke’s Kitchen in Sydney has rolled a marble-topped Dessert Trolley into the dining room, with a choose-your-own-adventure pavlova at its centre.
For $25, the pavlova is sliced and finished tableside before diners choose from cream, custard, curd, seasonal fruits and garnishes.
And Mangan hasn’t stopped there.
On the first Friday of each month he’s personally hosting an intimate Chef’s Table for between two and 12 guests, with a custom tasting menu mixing current dishes with favourites from his archives.
Tuesday night, meanwhile, now involves Mangan’s butcher’s block arriving tableside for Luke’s Cut. Diners choose their steak, how it’s cooked, sauce and side for $45, with a glass of red another $10.
Sometimes progress is overrated. Bring back dessert trolleys everywhere.
Until next Friday… keep discovering, keep tasting and never drive past a country pub on an empty stomach.
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