Just desserts at intimate Fortitude Valley degustation

Brisbane’s newest degustation experience opened last week, with a sweet spin. Guests can take a dive into their inner child with seven courses of dessert at this intimate new spot.

Taking shape from the innermost emotions and memories of a former Queensland Parliament House executive chef comes Fortitude Valley’s latest culinary adventure – this time one for those with a sweet tooth.

Transporting diners into their inner child and encouraging them to embrace ‘play’, chef Andrew McCrea of Perspective Dining has opened The Eucalyptus Room, a ten-seater, seven course degustation serving just desserts, unlike you’ve ever experienced before.

From the first moment guests take a seat in front of an unexpectedly large grey rock at each table setting, right up until the very last pop of a spearmint droplet to finish the experience, they can expect the unexpected.

The Eucalyptus Room by Perspective Dining in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane 9th October 2024. (Image/Josh Woning)

Shortly after service begins, that rock becomes the vessel for the meal’s first course of bread and butter, which in Eucalyptus takes the form of a translucent bread sphere, housing a sorbet butter, nashi pear and pickled walnut.

McCrea says that much of his intention in the Eucalyptus room is to challenge expectations and play with his guests, before taking them on an emotional journey.

“People can’t really, it’s hard for them to control their emotions when they have a dessert as soon as you have walked in we’ve played with you get that bread and nothing is what it seems and you get the next dish and the next dish and we really try to play on that,” McCrea said.

“Something about desserts just makes people emotional, you can see it in their faces, there's something about it, they cant hide that full range of feelings.”

“When kids eat desserts they are just like, in a trance, like ‘this is amazing’ and then after with a lot of sugar they are just like ‘woah’ but adults are the same,” he said.

“Its so funny to watch them because on a Saturday night and a Friday night up in Perspective we have real serious eaters and then down here we get people come in and they are five courses in and they have had a couple of cocktails and they are a bit wild, cheering and like ‘that’s amazing man’- its super cool and so much fun.”

‘Sandwich’ at The Eucalyptus Room. Pic: Josh Woning

As McCrea talks through the inspiration for his dishes, just as he does with guests of the restaurant, it is easy to see how it might invoke a strong range of feelings.

Hailing from New Zealand’s South Island, McCrea’s grandmother ran a sweet shop that had, in his opinion, the best coconut lamingtons and coconut rough, which served as the inspiration for his dish ‘sandwich’, which is a bite-size coconut lamington ice-cream sandwich.

Similarly, the final course of the evening, embodying the elements, is crafted from the feeling at his childhood home at the beginning of spring, where 20 minutes inland, the snow still fell but had melted to a mushy, muddy consistency.

The dish, simply named ‘Chocolate’ consists of melt-in-the-mouth white chocolate pumice, fizzy honeycomb, chocolate soil, ‘chocolate air’ and spearmint bubbles

‘Chocolate’ at The Eucalyptus Room. Pic: Josh Woning

As a chef who is legally blind, with only six per cent vision, McCrea’s perspective (hence the name of his first venue) varies from those with full vision, and his dishes, while still visually stunning, provide a more visceral experience, transporting diners with their focus on other senses.

Another of McCrea’s dishes at The Eucalyptus Room is the doughnut, featuring a truly heartwarming tale of memories with his mum.

“Mum would get these doughnuts and we would sit in the car, the 1986 yellow Ford Corolla, in the rain and eat these, they were like chocolate dipped and encased in these peanuts and I thought they were the best thing ever,” he said.

Prospective Dining in Fortitude Valley. Pic: Josh Woning

“So I recreated that dish and its like this pumpkin and mandarin doughnut, and inside of it is this yuzu curd and we’ve dipped it in this chocolate butter and these toasted macadamias and its like this two or three bites of random, crazy.”

It is impossible to talk about The Eucalyptus Room without also discussing Perspective Dining, the two separated by just three little steps, where McCrea artfully balances both experiences alongside his carefully selected team of chefs, kitchen hands, front-of-house staff and a sommelier, who all chip in across both spaces.

Perspective offers a similar experience to The Eucalyptus Room, offering a full nine-course tasting menu for just 12 diners at a time, and that same careful consideration for each element of each dish plays on that menu also.

McCrea spoke of the processes for many dishes, like hand-crafting truffles from scratch out of celeriac, which takes several days of hands-on effort to complete, or smoking new potatoes in the dirt they grew in for 16 hours.

The Eucalyptus Room is open Wednesday to Saturday for two evening sittings each day, and Friday and Saturday for a lunch sitting.

Perspective Dining is open Thursday to Saturday for two lunch sittings, and Tuesday to Saturday for a single dinner sitting.