Vue de monde at Rialto still one of our best fine dining restaurants

IT’S NOT just excellent cooking coming out of the Vue de monde kitchen, and all that shouting taints an otherwise exceptional experience, writes Dan Stock.

THERE is an unrivalled sense of occasion to a meal at Vue de monde that remains undiminished even after almost two decades and three locations.

From the moment you are welcomed on the ground floor of the Rialto before being whisked ear-poppingly 55 levels up in a sleek, dimly lit elevator to be greeted by name upon arrival, until descent hours later with a bag filled with brioche and granola for the morning, this is a choreographed show of extraordinary finesse. No move goes unnoticed, no preference unheeded, no element of the entire experience unconsidered.

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The view, of course, remains as twinklingly beguiling as ever. The room, with its blend of subtle Australiana — kangaroo fur-backed chairs surrounding luxuriously spacious tables — juxtaposed with modern art hasn’t aged and looks as good as it did when it opened here seven years ago.

But a new team on the floor has given new energy to this fine diner.

The view at Vue remains twinklingly beguiling and the room hasn’t aged. Picture: Andrew Tauber

Decked out in flowing asymmetric black smocks and as unobtrusive as stage crew, they’re on hand to unfurl paperbark parcels of smoked baby vegetables, and to “throw another snag on the barbie”; to twirl marshmallows by the fire and to portion perfectly conditioned cheeses from the most impressive trolley in the land.

It’s this easy comfort with the theatrical and unerring eyes for detail the top of the team share that’s borne of experience they all gained at the original Dinner by Heston in London. Here, that translates into service that befits one of the most expensive restaurants in the country — precise but never perfunctory, subtle not servile. They even look like they’re having fun.

Marron with Jerusalem artichokes

With Shannon Bennett stepping into a developmental/creative role in the company he founded but has since sold the majority of, the menu is now in the hands of Justin James, a Michigan native who rose through the Vue ranks and, after a recent sabbatical at Copenhagen’s NOMA, has returned to Melbourne to deliver his “take” on Australia.

That looks like Vegemite butter-rubbed croissant pastry wrapped damper-like around a stick delivered half way through the meal, along with [YES CHEF FOUR OYSTERS CHEF] charry wattle seed-flecked flatbread on which blue-cheese cultured butter melts into delicious smoky creaminess.

Marron with raw Jerusalem artichoke scales is a two-part act that’s at once earthy and sea sweet

And a brilliant double act of mud crab, first served with koji — a fermented rice used to make sake — and a saltbush and macadamia pesto, then in sausage form served over coals to swaddle in a crunchy brioche bun with kohlrabi slaw.

It comes in the [YES CHEF THREE MARRON CHEF] form of the sweetest, cleanest-tasting barramundi, caught off the Tiwi Islands by Mark Ether and flown here to be served with apple-like muntari berries, and in a single braised carrot with a magpie goose sauce and in the best duck I’ve ever eaten. The aged Macedon Ranges bird with perfectly ruby flesh under a sheen of just-chewy skin comes with a sweet-earthy [YES CHEF] quince and mushroom farce and is finished with fresh pine mushrooms. It’s simply superb.

Yarra Valley salmon roe with cauliflower, fermented mushrooms and finger lime

There’s marron, the slightly undercooked tail sauced with Jerusalem artichokes, its head served separately under raw scales of the same, Geradlton wax and desert lime adding powerful lemon notes.

There’s Flinders Island lamb, served raw under a crown of cauliflower couscous with a sauce [YES CHEF] of fermented mushrooms as deep and magical as a Grimm fairytale, and smoked eel sheathed in potato to form cannelloni swimming in a watercress pond that’s dive-right-in delicious.

Nitrogen-frozen herbs with a Davidson plum sorbet comes to [TWO PORK, TWO DUCK YES CHEF] brighten the mood before David Blackmore wagyu tongue topped with black truffle, and then suckling pig with an apple hay sauce.

Mud crab with native pesto and koji is amazing — but save your swoons for the mud crab ‘snag on barbie’ served soon after

There’s elegance throughout the use of uniquely local ingredients that never feels forced, with a harmony and lightness to the two-plus hour meal that belies its 16-odd courses.

Wines are artfully served from a list that is as gloriously worldly and extensive as it is expensive.

But the constant shouting? The intrusive call and answer of the kitchen throughout the night was like being snuck up on by the Edinburgh Tattoo every few minutes. In such an otherwise considered offering this blinkered egotism heralds a philosophy that places the entire focus of the dining room on the kitchen.

It is misguided. It stinks of the testosterone of kitchens past, a regimented world of exacerbated, stifling masculinity that is — admittedly slowly — playing a diminishing role in the modern dining world.

The jarring violence of a brigade operating at 80dB bursts should not overwrite the memory of the perfect chocolate souffle, where espresso ice cream sinks dreamily into its cloudlike embrace. But it does, and taints the entire evening.

For it’s nice to be shouted breakfast. It’s not nice to be shouted at dinner. There’s a new-world of difference between the two.

VUE DE MONDE

Lvl 55, 525 Collins St, Melbourne

vuedemonde.com.au

Open: Mon-Wed dinner; Thur-Sun lunch and dinner

Go-to dish: Aged duck with quince and mushrooms

Score: 16.5/20