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It’s always a treat seeing what Bacchus Restaurant comes up with in its menus and this year’s winter menu is no exception. For the honour of most visually stunning dish, it was hard to choose between a forest-inspired arrangement in autumn colours, and an apple mascarpone dessert that would have had Adam and Eve succumbing to temptation.
Bacchus Restaurant, in Brisbane’s Rydges South Bank, has always done refined, thoughtful food. It’s a classic hotel restaurant with smooth service and décor that is elegant without being stuffy. It’s rewarding to see a hotel restaurant go the extra mile in offering creative, imaginative food as too often that’s not the case. But Bacchus vies with Brisbane’s best restaurants in terms of its gastronomic offering. (It’s also a very well-appointed hotel in which to stay, as we noted in this review a few years ago.)
As well as full à la carte, Bacchus offers two tasting menus, one of them vegetarian. Non-meat eaters should look away but a standout from last year’s menu, Wagyu tongue, returns in all its glory to this year’s winter menu. Chef Manu’s dish resembles the colours of autumn in the forest, with pickled vegetables in the colours of autumn leaves, parsley foam that looks like moss, and a slice of Wagyu tongue that looks like tree bark.
It’s a visual feast in a long line of visually appealing dishes, beginning with a selection of amuse bouche. In French, amuse bouche means it “amuses the mouth” and so these did: one shaped to look like an oyster that was actually a pastry shell filled with cream cheese topped with fingerlime, a nori ball filled with burrata with a prawn on top, and a glistening red Campari ball presented on a spoon so that it could be eaten in one swoop, exploding in the mouth.
The menu from maestro chef Manuele Erriu champions Australian, and especially Queensland, produce. Leading the winter flavour-fest is Minestrone with shiitake broth, a soup with an ancient history that is close to the chef’s heart.
“Because of its origins and the absence of a fixed recipe, minestrone varies widely across Italy depending on traditional cooking times, ingredients, and season. This is why I love making it here in Queensland, it means I can use local flavours and share with diners one of my all-time favourite dishes. It’s perfect for winter,” he said.
Champagne lobster with Jerusalem artichoke and beurre blanc is another seasonal star. “We make this thick, rich, creamy sauce from butter, white wine, shallots, and white wine vinegar and it has a slightly sweet, tangy flavour that goes especially well with poached Australian fish and shellfish,” he said.
We gave a big thumbs up to the Risotto with saffron, bone marrow and jus, a winter-warming dish that is one of the chef’s favourites. “I’ve had so much joy recreating it here at Bacchus with Queensland’s great flavours. The bone marrow adds the essence of winter to this dish.”
We also really enjoyed a dish of Kingfish with rapini (a green vegetable resembling leafy broccoli), capsicum, parsley, olives and potatoes – a modern reflection of another Italian winter dish. “We take these beautiful ingredients and re-purpose them in a modern way – the peppers become pure, the parsley gels, we dry the olives to make a crumb and give salinity to the fish, and the potatoes are transformed into a sauce.”
Another highlight for us was the Cobia with celery, dashi, cucumber and hongarebushi, beautiful locally farmed fish seasoned with aromatic Japanese flavours. Other dishes from the winter menu that we didn’t get to try include Braised Wagyu Cappelletti, and a classic Eye Fillet with burnt leek, rapini, hazelnut and red wine jus.
We adored both desserts we tasted. A glistening “apple” filled with mascarpone from Maleny dairy, sitting on “soil” with the texture of apple crumble, was a delicious and stunning creation that apparently takes three days to make. Even prettier was the Lychee Rose made of raspberry mousse on a pistachio matcha crumble, decorated with gold leaf. Exquisite.
Bacchus has one of Brisbane’s most remarkable wine lists, with around 700 wines listed including more than 50 available by the glass. The list celebrates the great grape-growing regions of the world, including much-deserved recognition for Queensland wines. We were very impressed with a dessert wine from Queensland’s South Burnett region, Barambah 2019 First Grid Rack Dried Semillon, made with a laborious, ancient process and a real relevation with its light golden hues and restrained sweetness.
It was great to sample Mumm’s Marlborough Rosé with our amuse bouche, and Lloyd Wines’ Picpoul, an Adelaide Hills white that hit the palate sour but softened beautifully with the kingfish, singing with bright, zesty, citrus flavours.
Chef Manu fell in love with food at the age of 15 while working summer and weekend shifts in a restaurant in Italy. After a stint in London, he returned to Italy before coming to Australia, where he joined Bacchus under the mentorship of Massimo Speroni. He followed Massimo to Newcastle to open Jana Restaurant at the QT Hotel (in the same stable as Rydges) before returning to Brisbane and taking the culinary lead at Bacchus.
If you go:
Bacchus Restaurant
Level 1, Rydges South Bank
9 Glenelg Street
South Brisbane Qld
Australia
Tel: +61 (0)7 3364 0837
www.bacchussouthbank.com.au
With thanks to Bacchus Restaurant and Rydges South Bank for enabling Food Wine Travel to experience its superb winter menu.
