Recently a Melbourne restaurant was voted #73 in the San Pellegrino World's Best Restaurant Awards, this is some achievement and something for all of us in this country to be rightly proud of. Attica restaurant in Ripponlea is an exciting restaurant headed by an exceptional chef in Ben Shewry, and we were very excited when we were invited by Ben himself to try his cuisine. Ben Shewry and Attica have had an amazing 12 months with the restaurant being awarded 2 hats in the Good Food Guide Awards (should be 3 in our opinion!), and Ben being the first Victorian chef to present at the prestigious Madrid Fusion. We have known Ben for a while now and know that his food is world class and this was highlighted at the recent dinner we had at Attica. We dined with our good friend and chef Adam Melonas who was visiting Australia from Spain on a promotional trip, including an appearance on Masterchef Australia. Ben prepared a special menu for us above and it can only be described as sensational. I would like to focus on the desserts presented that night but you can read more on the other dishes on the links below, including Ben's famous potato dish (final image) which he demonstrated in Spain earlier this year. It is truly one of the best dishes we have eaten in a long time and the recipe is included in the links below. The desserts however were brilliant, these are the best desserts we have eaten for some time and it is amazing that there is no pastry chef at the restaurant as Ben creates all of the dishes himself. His philosophy in food, apart from using the freshest, seasonal and sustainable ingredients, is to create dishes with maximum taste, contrasts in texture and temperature as well as astounding presentation. The dish at the top of the page is Ben's "Terroir" it is a fabulous symphony of flavours and texture. It includes the following components:
- Beetroot & Organic Almond Cake
- Dried Fruits - including Cranberries, Cherries & Raspberries
- Freeze Dried Fruits
- Wild Sour Clover
- Sorrel Sorbet
- Murray River Salt
- 4 Spice
- Toasted Barley
Useful Links:
- http://www.madridfusion.net/chefs_detalle.php?id=0000000222#activo - Bio Madrid Fusion
- http://www.madridfusion.net/recetachef.php?id=0000000222&idr=0000000510 - Potato recipe
- http://www.madridlab.net/melonas/2010/05/attica-restaurant-melbourne/ - Adam on Attica
- http://www.attica.com.au/ - Attica website
- http://www.theworlds50best.com/awards/51-100-winners - World's Best list 51 - 100
- http://www.benshewry.com.au/ - Ben's new site, under construction
- http://www.colinpage.com/ - Link to Colin Page the photographer of 'Terroir'
Also just a quick mention of the excellent, warm and professional service at Attica - thank you!
6 comments:
He is such a great person and so generous. So enthusiastic. So dedicated. To drive up from Ocean Grove and then home usually after midnight, he has lots of energy.
Thanks for the link to the Snow Crab recipe. I had the potato one from a cooking class where the smoke detectors went berserk with the coconut husk and eyes watered. Still the result was worth it.
Do you know who started sorrel sorbet? Was it Redzepi ? It is so refreshing.
Unoffifal pictures of the apple dessert can be found HERE & HERE
Cheers
That photo of the terroir dessert is spectacular... thanks so much for sharing!!!
It's worth pointing out the full recipe for Terroir can be found in the cook book "coco"
Jeff:
Thanks again for all you positive comments. Ben is certainly very generous and its lucky for us he's right here in Melbourne! Not sure who started sorrel sorbet, we used to do one at Fenix a while ago. It is one of my favourite flavours. Thanks for the photo's!
Deana:
Our pleasure! Thanks for your continued support.
Gregg:
Thanks for pointing that out, forgot Ben was in that book.
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