Ending on a high note

Dining on the 89th floor of a building has to be an experience in itself. When one of the chefs happened to be Rene Redzepi, whose two Michelin star restaurant Noma moved up to 10th on the S.Pellegrino World?s 50 Best Restaurants list, we knew we were in for a special night. Sharing the bill high above the Yarra in Eureka Tower was Raymond Capaldi, formerly of Melbourne?s Fenix and now on his latest venture, Locarno 150 at the old Mercy Hospital.


The amuse bouche creations set the tone for the evening. First there were soft-yolked smoked quails eggs, peeled and presented on a nest of dried grass...

...then little terracotta plant pots were handed round containing radishes ready for us to harvest ourselves. Fortunately the ?soil? clinging to the tender little radishes was edible.

Our gardening over, Capaldi kicked off the dinner proper - billed as A Marriage of Ideas - with a sour apple and pinenut custard dish, garnished with fresh cut grass and what looked like a cinnamon quill but was in fact a delicate rolled cinnamon flavoured crisp wafer. This was served with Delatite Dead Man?s Hill Gewurtztraminer 2008 from Mansfield.

Redzepi?s opening dish featured calamari in a mussel-based sea juice, ?snow? with a horseradish kick and dill. Under the transparent cucumber slices, the calamari yielded to the fork by separating into delicate dice. Quealy Independence Pinot Gris 2007 from the Mornington Peninsula accompanied.

A Sutton Grange Flor Rose Sherry, spring 2008 accompanied the Locarno 150 dish of rustic tomato chunks, crumbs, sorrel and white chocolate sorbet, again a pleasant marriage of colour, texture and temperature. The juxtaposition of acid herb and white chocolate made the sorbet very acceptable for this white chocolate sceptic.

Some sea plants fashionably foraged from the Hampton beach area featured in the Noma dish of raw chestnuts, salmon roe and rye, served with Silver Wings Macedon #98 Brut NV from Macedon Ranges. Quite a few at our table picked this as a favourite. I might be doing some surreptitious foraging myself soon.

The serving dish for the next Noma course was a fairly solid rock which featured a marron, Tasmanian oyster emulsion and sol (Icelandic seaweed) served with Bass Phillip Premium Chardonnay 2007 from Gippsland. I think that marron died happy.


Locarno 150?s fork-tender gelatinous slow cooked beef with vanilla lily and gravy granules garnished with baby turnips was served with Red Edge Tempranillo Monastrell (Mourvedre) 2006 from Heathcote. Indigenous foods are rising to the surface and I think it's great if we can learn from local cultures. Back in my native New Zealand we are constantly learning about under-appreciated resources in our local environment. One culture's weeds are another's cherished foods.


Walnut, dried berries and frozen milk may not sound like a very exciting offering from Noma, but the frozen milk was a fluffy ice cream-like cloud of milk and cream which perfectly offset the Chambers Rosewood Rutherglen Muscadelle (Tokay) NV from Rutherglen.



If the tastebuds were flagging a little by midnight, then the final Capaldi dish jolted them back into action. Marshmallow cut-outs of the initials M, F and W were part of a whimsical alphabet soup which featured tapioca balls, frais de bois, and a fresh flavoured mandarin soup, which we added ourselves. Yering Station Late Harvest Riesling 2008 from Yarra Valley was a fitting companion.

Verdicts ranged from "interesting" to "amazing", "delicious" to (from a couple of diners enthusing to the chefs during question time at the end) ?the best meal I?ve ever eaten?.

Certainly it was a true marriage of modern ideas, fresh regional fare and an excellent complementary wine selection from Victoria, masterminded by the talented Matteo Pignatelli of two-hat Matteo?s.

Eight courses savoured over five hours and a memorable night nearly 300 metres above ground ? perhaps a little too far above ground for Redzepi who took a while to find his ?air legs? and admitted to experiencing a little motion sickness.

I think what diners appreciated most were the thought processes and skill that goes into putting together a meal of this calibre. There were flavour surprises, "spot the ingredient" moments, sneaking admiration for inventive use of a mundane component, and overall satisfaction that this was a palate-challenging experience.

This was the final event of the 2009 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival presented by The Age, and was hosted by MFW, Wonderful Copenhagen and Scandinavian Airlines. For me, it ended the festival on a really high note.