The other week,on a cold,wet night – the first properly cold night of the year – I found myself saying something I haven’t uttered in a long time. “Why don’t we check out Chiswick?” My wife dropped her hot toddy in shock. “But you get so annoyed when a restaurant bangs on with all that ‘farm to table’ marketing like it’s the only place to ever use fresh produce. Plus,isn’t it a Sunday lunch place?”
True on both points,but a new chef had started at Chiswick in November – a guy named Daniel Cooper,who was previously at The Prince in Melbourne. Matt Moran may have co-founded Chiswick in 2012,but the Aria chef rarely works any services there,what with all his other restaurants to restaurateur. Cooper,meanwhile,was leading the kitchen at The Princewhen it was awarded a hat last year, and I was keen to see what he was bringing to Woollahra.
The glasshouse-style dining room is objectively beautiful:soumak rugs,cascading ferns,views to an immaculate lawn and active vegetable garden. But there are also a lot of surfaces that aren’t ideal for absorbing sound,and the place can get noisy,even on a school night.
Never mind,we’ll have a martini. Join the party! I want Chiswick to succeed. Ah,damn it. This Poor Toms gin martini is not a good cocktail. Wetter than requested,too diluted,and $28. Well,we tried.
What else is there to drink? Head sommelier Georgia Davidson-Brown has assembled a compact,diverse wine list,but she has the night off and no one else seems to know much about it. A 2019 Kate Hill pinot noir from Tasmania ($24 a glass) takes a while to open up,but it’s gorgeously fruit-forward when it does.
Another red,that shall not be named,smells like a shucked oyster left too long in the sun. We send it back,and it’s removed from the bill,but I would argue that the wine shouldn’t have been served in the first place. (Glasses are poured away from the table,so we never see the bottle,either.)
Maybe it’s a smoother operation on a weekend,when the sun’s out,and the sommelier’s on.
Cooper’s autumn menu,for the most part,fares better than the wine service. Witlof cradling a remoulade-ish mix of apple and spanner crab starts things off right for $15 a pop. Bright. Delicate. Fun. A $14 scallop (the seafood kind) is roasted in herb butter and covered with juicy kernels of sweetcorn. Good one.
But a sweet potato scallop ($8) is lukewarm and soft where it should be piping hot and crisp. A gloop of green mayonnaise on top de-crunches the batter even more.
Discs of golden baby beetroot are teamed with shiso leaves and diced orange,and smartly dressed with a citrus vinaigrette ($26). It’s not a bad time by any means;it just feels like a side dish that’s snuck its way into the entree section.
Baked halloumi drenched in wild honey ($32) is far more satisfying,textured with fennel seeds and batons of nashi pear. Fresh mint from the garden is a welcome touch,as is our waiter’s suggestion to order a rosemary flatbread ($14) and swipe it through the leftover honey. What aggressively cold weather outside?
Everyone around us is ordering the whole roast chicken with wood-fired kipflers ($76),and fair enough. Chiswick has long bronzed a chook with the best of them.
For $56 there’s also a meaty assiette of dry-aged duck enhanced with a blood plum sauce and wholegrain mustard. A little brik pastry parcel of confit duck under wilted radicchio is a nice surprise.
King George whiting ($58) is crumbed like a fish finger,and comes with mandolined fennel and creamy sauce gribiche. Give it a squeeze of lemon,ignore the price,and happy days. It’s fine. Except I can’t ignore the price,and I can’t stop thinking about the King George whiting of long,direct flavour that Neil Perry grillsdown the road at Margaret for just one dollar more.
A slab of strawberry pudding with buttermilk gelato ($18) is much better value when shared between two,and would have been even more cracking with a glass of Egly-Ouriet ratafia de champagne ($28). It’s listed on the dessert menu,but no one can find a bottle.
“Does many things right. All the elements for a hat are here if it could stop fumbling the ball.” That’s from my Chiswick review notes five years ago,but it might have been written last week. And maybe it is a smoother operation on a weekend,when the sun’s out,and the sommelier’s on,and you stick to the chicken and chips.
But prices don’t go down on off-peak nights,and neither should guest expectations. The public garden site could (should) deliver one of the best dining experiences in town. I remain optimistic that Chiswick can provide it.
The low-down
Vibe: Country-style “garden-to-plate” dining in a fancy conservatory
Go-to dish: Wood-baked halloumi with pear and Malfroy’s Gold honey ($32)
Drinks: Diverse,all-pleasing wine list with a focus on France and Australia,plus a few surprises
Cost: About $220 for two,excluding drinks
This review was originally published inGood Weekend magazine