Bar Noir in Mornington serves some of the best food on the peninsula
TO stumble upon a venue that’s so good you go back straight away is the holy grail of restaurant reviewing, but that’s exactly what this new Mornington space delivers, writes Dan Stock.
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It is the holy grail of restaurant reviewing.
To accidentally stumble upon a place, a just-opened venue that’s quietly going about its business but that’s so good you want to shout it from the rooftops.
A place so good you end up going back for dinner that night after feasting at lunch.
Bar Noir is just such a place.
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We were walking Mornington’s main drag pondering a lazy Saturday lunch when the newly- painted black exterior of a one-time brunch spot gave us pause, while the menu pinned to the wall – replete with a sprig of flowering gum – gave some credence to the claim by the fellow setting up the veranda that “the best chefs in Mornington are now cooking here”.
That fellow turned out to be the owner, Ben Townsend, who’s put his proverbial behind that pronouncement having overhauled the name, the look and the offering of his three-year-old cafe Dr Fox, transforming it into a cocktail bar with food to make better use of talent he said was wasted poaching eggs.
It means no more early mornings for Stephanie Price and Fred Keene, the duo who were cooking next door at Casa de playa for the past couple of years and here they’ve created a carte that’s one part French bistro, two parts peninsula and three parts you beauty.
The menu’s staccato haiku of ingredients – goat’s cheese tart, beetroot, honey; whipped cod roe, warm flat bread – belie dishes playful and precise.
The salmon tartare, for instance, comes to the table under a huge glass cloche that’s dense with sweetly fragrant smoke that dissipates languidly once set free.
Within, tiles of creamy fish snuggle within a dollop of cream cheese with an underlying lick of that smoke.
Ribbons of cucumber provide pickled cut through, rye toast the vehicle to open sandwich to taste.
It’s finished with little crisps fashioned from rice flour that look like but stand in for salmon-skin crunch, showing dexterity and ingenuity in a small kitchen ($22).
Slow braised lamb fills two fat kataifi pastry cigars, smoked yoghurt adding creamy heft to the sprinkle of puffed grains and nigella seeds atop ($18).
They are great with a beer — this is one of a just a handful of taps pouring the new Boddriggy lager from Abbotsford’s Dr Morse team ($8 schooner) — but so, too, is that tarama that gives George Calombaris’s benchmark version a run.
A generous scoop of the whipped white stuff that sings sweetly of the sea is topped with an equally generous amount of Yarra Valley roe. It’s scoop and swoon stuff ($16).
The small room has been smartly made-over with gorgeously comfortable emerald velvet Queenie chairs that surround dark-stained tables and purple banquettes. There’s outside seating for sipping, either on the veranda or on the street, and Ben’s two decades of shaking and stirring means there’s much good drinking to be done.
The signature noir martini is a black-and-white evocation of Australia that shakes Vantage – a spirit infused with lemon myrtle, Tassie pepperberries and mandarin oil – with ginger liqueur and bush pepper syrup, egg white creating a creamy crown to the ever-darkening drink underneath ($22). It’s a showstopper on the two-dozen deep list.
Wines, bar a couple of local exceptions that includes an amphora-matured chardonnay from Trofeo in Dromana for a very tasty $12/$48 – looks to France to stock the cellar.
But it’s the focus on ingredients closer to home that had us back, including the knockout kangaroo dish. Thin ribbons of roo threaded on two skewers of slightly smoking blue gum evokes an Australian summer and adds smoky depth to the lean, just-charred meat. A pepper berry sauce delivers heat and sweet in equal measure, a pond of silken parsnip puree on sopping duties ($22).
A filo tart filled with Main Ridge goat’s cheese topped with beetroot many ways – pickled, roasted, poached and pureed – makes for a lovely lunch dish for one ($22), while a hazelnut crumbed pork cutlet is perfect for dinner. A classic executed with class, it’s served with fennel and apple salad amped with a sprinkle of cracking ($38).
To finish, apple tart tatin strewn with pecans and topped with smoked ice cream delivers all sorts of sweet, fruity, caramelised stickiness ($16), though you may just choose another cracking cocktail instead.
A word of warning: a surfeit of smoke across the menu means you can end up with a procession of plates with more than a touch of the Winnie Blues about it, so order mindfully. It’s a minor criticism of cooking that’s up there with some of the best winery dining in the area. What a terrific surprise.
Bar Noir
37 Main St, Mornington
Ph: 5973 4074
Open: Mon, Thurs from 5pm; Fri-Sun from noon
Go-to dish: Blue gum kangaroo skewers
Score: 14.5/20
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