Guillaume at Bennelong...
…or, a Farewell to Sydney (with apologies to Hemmingway).
In preparation for a few years living the life of the gourmet nomad, we thought we’d finally (belatedly) try dinner at Guillaume’s at Bennelong. For those who don’t know it, Guillaume’s has perhaps the most envied restaurant location in the world, being inside one of the “sails” at the Sydney Opera House.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that location can be a blessing and a curse - we’ve usually been lucky to avoid the “place over plate” pitfalls. We charged in with the full intention of sampling everything we could. Naturally, this meant degustation! And we weren’t disappointed.
After a delightful amuse bouche, we started with Yellowfin Tuna wrapped in basil with a soy and mustard seed vinaigrette. This was without a doubt one of the best tuna dishes we’ve ever had, and that includes the mind-boggling maguro sashimi from Japan. The Yellowfin was seared ever so lightly, and the basil and vinaigrette then wrapped around it. The flavour was sublime, extracting all of the umami tones from the fish, and basil and mustard working to add some complexity. It was matched perfectly with a Bloodwood riesling from Orange (Australia) and a somewhat more subtle riesling from Alsace.
Following the tuna was an asparagus royale, accompanied with mud crab and truffle. For some reason truffle seems to be on the rise again in Sydney restaurants - this was good, but didn’t quite hit the notes of Soffritto’s earlier in the week, nor Al Colombo in Venice (well, nothing ever will really). This was succeeded by sauteed scallops with a lemon emulsion, watercress and Sterling caviar. The scallops were perfect, and the lemon emulsion was a wonderful twist, complementing the salty caviar well. One of the notable wines at this point was a Chateauneuf De Pape blanc, which always brings a smile to our face - though not for the reasons you might think. There’s a great episode of the British TV show “Come Dine With Me”, in which one of the contestants refuses to drink anything but Chateauneuf De Pape wines, to the point that she brings her own bottle(s) with her everywhere. This one was a Chateau Mont-Redon, and it was excellent.
At this point we were expecting a common pattern in degustation to play out: every second dish is excellent, the alternating dished are mostly good, but not quite to the level of their other halves. We were pleasantly surprised when dish number four arrived, and we were treated to an awesome seared John Dory. It was served with a bed of carrot and ginger puree, with coriander and potato allumette. Now, allumette normally means match-stick cut. But in this instance, it meant something akin to mermaid’s hair, or even fairy floss. Imagine potato spun in hair-thin threads, then flash fried and seasoned perfectly. It almost looked like a birds nest or similar. The match with the dory was outstanding, and this is perhaps the greatest interpretation of “fish and chips” I’ve ever seen. A magnificent dish!
Next up was a chicken breast with a corn and truffle puree. Again with the truffle. And again not necessarily shown at its best - the corn overpowered it. This was accompanied by a very nice pair of red wines: a Pinot Noir from Tasmania, and a very smooth Burgundy. On to the steak.
And what a steak! Grade 9+ Tajima Wagyu, expertly prepared and served with a shallot and merlot sauce. I’m a sucker for this kind of beef, and this kind of sauce, so I’ll spare you the self-serving superlatives. Trust me that it was great. After a sorbet of seasonal fruit with lime marshmallow (yum), the final dish was a passionfruit souffle. I’ll let the picture speak for it.
I also had a picture of the plate and pot licked clean, so you can imagine for yourself how good it was. By the time we were finished, we were agreed that this was one of the better degustations we’d had, and we were impressed by the quality and quantity of dishes. And who can go past that location!
Guillaume at Bennelong
Sydney Opera House
Macquarie Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia
Ph: +61 (02) 9241 1999