Review: Palazzo Versace’s Vie Bar + Restaurant

IMAGES of the lavish lobby are synonymous with Palazzo Versace, but the designer hotel’s better-kept secret is tucked around the corner.

Palazzo Versace's waterfront restaurant Vie. Moet on Ice, Seafood PLatter for 2 and Green Paw Paw and Mango Salad. Photo: Kit Wise

IMAGES of the lavish lobby are synonymous with Palazzo Versace, but the designer hotel’s better-kept secret is tucked around the corner.

Vie Bar + Restaurant is a semi-alfresco haven of water views and white tablecloths with a millionaire’s marina view.

While still sporting the five-star polish, the vibe and service is more relaxed than in signature restaurant Vanitas.

COAST’S EIGHT BEST NEW EATERIES

The fashion house’s over-the-top opulence is reined in too, with oversized white plates and gleaming glassware setting the scene for a clean, elegant approach to plating.

The food here has gone through several incarnations — including one better-forgotten English foray into kippers — but the latest menu is a return to its crowd-pleasing best.

It’s modern Australia, with an ounce of French flair in the occasional rich sauce, and really suits the setting.

Pop a bottle of the way-too-easy-to-drink Moet Ice and settle into a sun-splashed seat on the deck because the seafood platter signature is what long lunches are made of.

The delicious seafood platter for 2. Photo: Kit Wise

The two tiers are carefully arranged with smoked salmon, octopus tentacles, Coffin Bay oysters, whole-shell vongole, fresh prawns, shallow-fried calamari, pan-seared King George whiting fillets and crumbed bug tails.

It’s served with a separate portion of crunchy chips and aioli dip, and a light, summery macerated green paw paw and mango salad.

A deli antipasto board ($36) is another excuse to linger, with soft, white, crusty bread to dip in olive oil and balsamic and pile with prosciutto. You can almost taste the sunshine in fresh-grilled figs, olives and sun-dried tomatoes.

Palazzo Versace's waterfront restaurant Vie serves up Moet with strawberries. Photo: Kit Wise

If you can’t convince your fellow diners that sharing’s caring, the a la carte menu has more to spoil lovers of luxury, from Petuna ocean trout with crispy potato scales, wilted samphire, toasted almonds, cherry tomatoes, split virgin oil and fig dressing ($36) to Oscietra caviar ($190).

Crisp, buttery pastry encases a deboned Hunter Valley quail ($26), with braised cabbage, foie gras, a rich port wine jus and scatter of pretty petals.

A summer lunch special, which starts at $55 for two courses, is also available.

It includes general manager Subash Basrur’s favourite dish: a gorgeous truffled Pecorino potato and porcini mushroom gnocchi.

You don’t get a much better view than this.

The dish is so popular it’s set to become a permanent addition to the dinner menu soon.

Desserts ($16 each) are all on the lighter side, a balmy weather tribute in mango bavarois with caramelised mango, chocolate tuile and dolce popcorn, or lemon verbena parfait with Valrhona chocolate mousse and hazelnut meringue biscuit.

A crisp-capped crème brulee, delicately flavoured with elderflower, comes with a puff of Persian fairy floss, and the intense burst of freeze-dried raspberries and mandarin.

If you don’t mind waiting a little longer, warm white peach souffle served with almond milk ice cream and pink praline sauce will rise to the occasion. It’s gluten-free, as is a larger-then-average portion of the a la carte menu.

While Vie is really hitting its stride, the best may be yet to come. The restaurant is earmarked for a refurbishment later in the year, as part of the resort’s renewed focus on food.