Fenix - Melbourne

[Tim White]

Last night we had dinner in the private dining room at Fenix for our staff Christmas Party. We had a great time. Raymond Capaldi Exec Chef put together a 10 course degustation dinner that was impressive and interesting. If there is a 'molecular gastronomy' movement here in Oz, Raymond is in the thick of it...

For non-Melbourne people, Fenix is in Richmond, overlooking the Yarra river. The private dining room looks on to the main kitchen and was perfect for 4 but could seat 12.

The menu was:

Parfait of Green Tea, Limes, Vodka poached in liquid nitrogen

a palate cleanser 'cooked' at the table at -165C. Quite unusual - almost a meringue that melted to nothing leaving a very pleasing clean mouth feel. The table service is pure theatre with the 'smoke' of the liquid nitrogen across the table.

Chilled Imperial Almond Yeast Soup, Cauliflower caviar, black cherries

the cauliflower florets or couscous were poached in squid ink and had a beautiful salty explosion as they crunched in the mouth. The dish was a beautiful combination of 'black & green'

Pork Laksa 2005

probably the signature dish at the moment - a 'deconstructed' laksa served as a warm salad with a curry viniagrette. The pork was tiny goujons caramelized, the noodles, coconut set with agar and the viniagrette was to die for. All agreed this was perfection

Southern Calamari, medjool dates & chorizo puree with a peach ecume

Beautiful sweet, sour dish. The puree had a hint of spice & smoke.

Salad Arzak with virtual smokey bacon

Great balance of flavours, watermelon, basil, truffled quails egg etc and the wafer of 'virtual smokey bacon' - fascinating

Roasted Wild Barramundi, silverbeet, candied rhubarb, young fennel & carrot jus

Classic flavours - the candied rhubarb was superb

Poached loin of Ascot lamb, risotto of vadelia onion, parmesan foam & espresso dust

poached at 56C the lamb looked uncooked but was unctuous.

Crumble of Rose Petals, Angeline black Plums & Nasturtium syrup

Another potential signature dish - the rose petal crumble was superb & the syrup just the right balance of 'green' almost herb flavour

smoked chocolate ice cream, pumpkin ice cream, cocoa cola sorbet with pumpkin milk powder

Sounded weird - but it worked - the ices were served with raspberries & the sugar/acid balance was wonderfully cleansing

beetroot turkish delight

A petit four that 'cleansed' the palate - sweet but sharp and very 'moorish'

We left the wines up to the somellier - and enjoyed all the matched wines.

All in all a wonderful experience that was beautifully presented. The deliberate incorporation of palate cleansing dishes and a sweet & savoury balance throughout meant we left satisfied but not sated.

Some might find the food 'worked' or 'confronting' but we found them to be thoughtful, interesting & challenging - and we'd queue for the laksa any time.

[RooStew]

Menu sounds great!

Are many cooks in oz trying there hands at this nouveau cusine 'a la spain'?

Edited January 29, 2005 by RooStew (log)

[Tim White]

Are many cooks in oz trying there hands at this nouveau cusine 'a la spain'?

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Not many stand up to be counted - although we've sold a fair few copies of elBulli 98-02 and similar books. Ferran Adria visited Australia a few years ago and his demonstrations were well attended (some loved it - some didn't get it or didn't want to get it)

The current 'champions' of this sort of experimentation are George Colombaris @ Reserve (Melbourne)(Review comments courtesy of Mietta) and Raymond Capaldi @ Fenix (Melbourne). Interestingly George was Raymond's sous chef for a while - rumour has it they might be doing a book together

Its fair to say there are a number of degustation menus around and that the structural elements developed by Adria are being tried & on occasion adopted by a number of chefs - yes there are foams, spumas, dusts, etc but I'm not aware of any other active adapters

[foodism]

it frustrates me as much as it amazes me how someone as talented as raymond capaldi can can be inspired so directly from hestons liquid nitrogen that he doesnt even seem to want to change the flavour to his own gastronimc flair one which is by far capable of of coming with an originl liquid nitrogen taste cleanser ? ,

i tink fenix has been so up and down lately with the changing through 2/3 head chefs in the past yr ? and as for the spanish thing it is the way of the future i say france is the history spain is the future but u have to know the history to push the future some people get this mistaken and and live in the future of food too much :)the whole world is into the spanish thing is atrend ???? time will tell but they are the trendsetters for now ?

[PCL]

I'll be the first to put my hand up I think...

Welcome to eG foodism.

I have no idea what you've just posted, well, not the entirety of it anyway, but I do think that limiting the 'future' of food to just Spain, maybe because of their trendsetting status (although I'm not sure upon what you base this...) Oh I give up!

Keep posting!

[Shinboners]

and as for the spanish thing it is the way of the future i  say france is the history spain is the future but u have to know the history to push the future some people get this mistaken and and live in the future of food too much :)the whole world is into the spanish thing is  atrend ???? time will tell but they are the trendsetters for now ?

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It depends on what you mean by Spanish food. To my mind, there are three broad trends. Firstly, there's the tapas craze. Plenty of places do it in Melbourne, but only a few do it well (and in the right spirit). For most people, tapas is their main (and often only) experience of Spanish food. Then there's the molecular gastronomy as inspired by el Bulli. Fenix and Reserve threw themselves into this, and I reckon that a few of the dishes at Interlude would fall into this category. Personally, I would have liked to have gone to Reserve and Fenix to at least give it a try (especially after Tim White's review), but I just never got around to it. Finally, there's what I would probably call "homestyle" Spanish food. I guess this is the food that a place like Moro (in England) would do. I haven't come across it in Melbourne, but I do like cooking the food from the two Moro cookbooks.

I'm not sure what's happening in the rest of the world, but if any style of Spanish food is setting trends in Australia, it's tapas. Personally, since so much of it is poorly done, the trend will run out of steam and the everyday punter will be looking for something else to eat. Hopefully it'll shake out all the bad places and leave just the good ones around.

[foodism]

is only the future of food now like fusion was for a short period and nouvelle and naturelle before that food is always going to follow trends because chefs are always looking to try something new , i was lucky enough to work at reserve for most of the time it was open and we were pushing more modern gastronomy more than spanish its just that ppl say spanish were the first to do it publicly , ie el bulli , so it seems to have some reference to spain but something like molecular gastronomy i tink has a bit more of a future if u look at sites like wd50 / new york

alinea / chicago , mugaritz /san sebastion , michel bras /spain everywhere is pushing molecular gastronmy i tink just how much they push it could be the outcome of thier future as reserve push'd it to much and felt the wrath a although the non productive wine bar and wine cellar thier was the main reason behind the closing , thats the beauty of food no one really knows tyhe future because everyones palates are different and i as a chef look forward to trying to please them alll hahahahaha oh and the fenix tangent i just had to get of my chest hahahaha

[Edward Quinn]

Getting slightly off the Fenix subject, but ...

Was wondering if anyone else felt that there is a `fast/junk food' danger to some aspects of modern food?

In particular, ironic and deconstructed style dishes.

I'm a great fan of modern food and am in no way a strict traditionalist, but it stikes me that some dishes these days are appealing more to the ìnstant gratification'part of our taste buds. Much in the way that junk food, chips, lollies etc do.

I guess I just feel that we may be drifting away from the true nature of food and heading more towards creating taste sensations through the use of heavy sweet v.s salty combinations that the inner child of our palate so desires!

Didn't that just sound like a big w**k, oh well, it's off my chest now.

[foodism]

i can totally understand where u are coming from i being a hef at a restaurant that test these type of ideas think it is definitely a fine line because some places/chefs are so eager to please customes instantly they will be to quick to cook this type of food it almost seems ike a cop out but its up to the individual and the public if u dont like it dont it dont support it , dont cook ithen thier is the fun factor which i personally love in food the beautiful mix of both balncing tadition

and history with the future of flavours whilst still remaining true to its roots look forard to discussing this further but another 17 hour day has my bed calling speak soon :):)