Why Beef Wellington, Sydney’s most politically incorrect food trend, survives

Is there a more reactionary dish than a hunk of climate-killing beef, wrapped in pastry, prosciutto and foie gras (if you’re lucky), named after a warring duke?

By any measure, Beef Wellington should have been knocked off by modern killjoy culture ages ago.

After all, it’s hard to think of a more reactionary dish than a massive hunk of climate-killing beef wrapped up in pastry and prosciutto and foie gras (if you’re lucky) and named after one of the British Navy’s leading all-stars.

And yet the dish, which for a time was considered so naff that it was a gag in an episode of King of the Hill, lives on in a renaissance at gastropubs and restaurants across Sydney and around the world.

Lately this column’s social media feeds have been filled with local chefs putting on their Wellies, from a very traditional take in the slightly unlikely hipster suburb of Chippendale (Eastside Bar and Grill) to an at-home tuna Wellington turned out by Paddington fish genius Josh Niland.

Brand new establishment Dixsons & Sons in Porter House, which opens this week, have reinvented the classic dish using wasabi paste instead of dijon mustard and served with eggplant misu puree.

Josh Niland's Yellowfin Tuna Wellington, mash and tuna bone gravy. Picture: Supplied

In inner-west Stanmore, where locals like things without what novelist Richard Ford called “the double-ranked complexity” of neighbouring Newtown (with its politics) or Annandale (with its pretensions), Black Star Pastry founder Christopher The recently turned up with a kangaroo Wellington at his new cafe.

An interesting choice, that – perhaps anticipating the sustainability brigade?

Beef Wellington. PictureL: Supplied

A dear friend of this column, a terrible but entertaining hedonist, wrote in recently to report that a tiny resort on a speck of coral in the Indian Ocean is now proudly holding Wellington Wednesdays for guests, saying they do “a pretty decent high-dinner party take” on the classic.

Maybe it’s a bit like Old El Paso taco night, which should have long ago been cancelled yet which survives because of an unspoken agreement that despite the truckloads of cultural appropriation and inauthenticity it’s still really good and a lot of fun.

Of course one need not go out to enjoy a Wellington, and indeed we have made a few in our time.

If you care to do the same, here are a few tips learned from hard-earned experience.

Undercooked is better than overcooked, and don’t leave the thing in the oven a moment too long even if you’re trying to be witty when the boss is over for dinner.

Wrap and chill, wrap and chill, after building every layer. That’s the best way to prevent it from sinking like a blobfish at the table.

Get your prosciutto cut a little thicker than thin, and when you think your mushrooms are done they still need to sweat for another 20 minutes.

And of course enjoy it while it lasts, because one day they’ll come for this as they come for everything good, bugs will take the place of beef, and on special occasions we’ll say how good is it to tuck into a nice rations tube of Crickets Mandela.