E’cco Bistro delivers finger-licking fare at home

It’s a signature dish from one of Brisbane's most famous chefs – and it’s now been added to the takeaway menu as his restaurant adapts to our pandemic lockdown.

I WAS cleaning out one of my many cupboards jam-packed with cookbooks the other day when I serendipitously came across Philip Johnson’s recipe for his somewhat famous fine apple tart.

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Published in Qweekend magazine in March 2015, the recipe is a simple one: sugar-sprinkled, mandoline-sliced apples fan across a circle of puff pastry, cooking and caramelising in the oven, developing a sweet, buttery syrup that gets trapped, oh-so-deliciously in between the slivers of fruit.

It’s an oldie, but a goodie, and it’s now available on the new takeaway menu from Johnson’s award-winning E’cco Bistro.

While it’s slightly dismal to be served this dessert in a cardboard box, not the beautiful white plate it would normally arrive on, there is a huge plus to eating the dish takeaway that
I think far surpasses the dine-in experience.

And that is that you can eat it with your hands.

Apple tart at e'cco restaurant at Newstead

Trying to cut sticky puff pastry with a spoon at a restaurant without sending the whole thing flying like a saucer can be as pressure-inducing as attempting to nail the final putt on the 18th hole to win a game of golf. But eating at home means you can simply tear the puff pastry and fold it in half like a slice of New York pizza and dip it into the accompanying pots of calvados caramel sauce taken right to the edge of bitterness, and vanilla bean-flecked mascarpone.

It’s finger-licking good and I’m now looking forward to making it myself with the recipe
I found. Or, I may just save myself the trouble and order it again for $15.

Slow cooked lamb from e'cco restaurant at Newstead

While the restaurant offering is available on Deliveroo and UberEats, ordering over the phone or via SMS means E’cco keeps the 35 per cent commission fee usually charged by the delivery platforms, which will hopefully ensure it’s around when all this mess is over.

Also on the concise, pick-up menu is
a quartet of parmesan and fior di latte arancini ($10). While they could be cheesier despite their double dosage of fromage, a liberal swipe through the accompanying truffle mayo gives the crispy crumbed rice spheres adequate lubrication.

There are two mains available for $25 each: gorgonzola gnocchi with spinach and pine nuts, or braised beef cheek with sauteed mushrooms and truffled mash, along with a trio of sides including seasonal greens and roasted pumpkin, plus E’cco’s brilliant beer-battered fries for $10.

A popular collection of four white wines, a rosé, and two reds sourced from across the world is also available for pick-up.

The takeaway offering at e'cco restaurant at Newstead.

For the family though (if you’re a family with two adults and two little kids – this is not one for hungry teenagers or adult children), there’s the slow-cooked lamb shoulder ($65) accompanied by an iceberg of smashed peas, four stalks of charred broccolini, salsa verde and lamb jus. This is your family roast nailed.

The meat slides off the bone as easily as a freshly WD-40-ed roller door, collapsing into bite-sized hunks that make for the perfect sandwich filler the next day.

A side of roasted cauliflower ($15) with salty parmesan crisps and pepitas is given lemony pep by dribblings of herbaceous pesto, though the veg would benefit from being cut to all the same size to avoid some pieces being overcooked and others almost raw.

Although it is lamentable that the social experience, hospitality and theatre has been taken from restaurants for the time being as we’re all told to stay home, there has truly never been a better time for takeaway in this state. And with restaurants of the calibre of E’cco getting on board, there’s now a little joy being brought into the solemn task of isolation.

E’cco Bistro

63 Skyring Tce, Newstead

[phone] or SMS 0424 986 005

eccobistro.com.au

Open for takeaway Wed-Sat 5pm-7.30pm

VERDICT

Food: 3 out of 5

Ease of ordering: 4 out of 5

Value: 3.5 out of 5

Must try: Fine apple tart