Vue de monde 2023 restaurant review: Kara Monssen visits Rialto’s sky-high fine diner

There’s caviar, champagne and 16 breathtaking courses — the new-look Vue de monde is expensive but you won’t regret your decision.

Vue de monde 2.0 is “beyond your wildest dreams” worth it.

A restaurant’s profound greatness is measured in many ways.

I often ask: ‘would you go back, take friends or family or recommend to others?’

Then come the places that soar well beyond the above criteria.

These are the restaurants you’d blow up your life for if or when invited.

I’m talking about throwing a sickie, taking kids out of school, eating rations until payday type of scenarios, knowing if you refuse you may never get the chance again.

Vue de monde is that place.

Not just because the city’s sky-high diner is one of the most expensive dining experiences in the country ($360 per person) or at times hard to book, but since Hugh Allen entered the chat, he’s taken the Rialto’s legacy restaurant to wildly exciting heights.

The avocado tart. Picture: Jason Loucas.

Post-$3.8m reno it’s as incredible, if not more intoxicating, than before.

But there’s been a few changes on level 55: a new layout faces all tables to the view, including non-window seats.

Thanks to the new ‘Insta friendly’ downlights overhead, every food snap is a guaranteed winner.

Those cruel dual sitting times have also been scrapped, preventing the early sitting, multi-course gorge in under three hours to make way for the next booking.

On the flip side, it also means diners won’t be served dessert after midnight.

At Vue 2.0, you’ll get 16 courses paced comfortably over six or so hours, and a menu brimming with more seafood and veg than ever before.

Think hot jam doughnuts, one of the best steaks you’ll eat, offal, and an ode to the humble mint slice.

Mud crab and Victorian saffron. Picture: Jason Loucas

Each course glimmers with shiny European Michelin-star magic and with a soulful beat of Australiana, the first course utterly delicious as the next and some burn-into-your-cranium memorable.

For some, it may be the curry spiced, two-bite avocado tart, or the zucchini flower clubs stuffed with pickled and raw takes of itself.

But for me, it was the macadamia, caviar and kelp oil.

A Vue de monde full circle moment that’s back after many delicious smoked eel and sweet pea iterations.

It’s like eating velvety clouds of macadamia puree.... in the clouds; dappled with room temperature N25 caviar and herbaceous kelp oil.

“Bury me in this!” my dining companion demanded.

All I want is a smaller spoon to prolong every pleasurable moment. A crisp glass of Jura savagnin cuts a fine figure alongside.

Vue’s produce game has always been elite and doesn’t miss a beat with a remarkable Blackmore wagyu steak: all juicy, fatty and flavour-rich next to an equally meaty Maitake mushroom that’s served at very few Victorian restaurants.

Vue de monde’s famous marron dish Picture: Jason Loucas.

Another triumph is Vue’s famous Western Australian marron, which is back as a two-part series.

Last season’s native curry has been replaced with a fiery fried herb XO and finger lime, while the next instalment is spiced butter custard aptly called ‘the rest of the marron’ made with sweet offcuts and shells to minimise waste.

Don’t judge the offal until you’ve tried it, as those lamb sweetbreads, flame-kissed and butter drenched in a glossy koji and macadamia puree, truly are a thing of beauty.

My degustation pet peeve is the never-ending meat parade, so Vue’s deliberate effort to break the circuit with plant-based respite doesn’t go unnoticed.

What hasn’t changed? That all-Aussie cheese trolley and Shannon Bennett’s signature chocolate souffle are stayers.

Perhaps the best way to finish was with that caramelised white choccie, saltbush and wattleseed ode to World Cup champs the Matildas. Someone give this a grocery line, stat.

Vue de monde has consistently performed at the top of its game for its 23-year run, but with this new unstoppable energy, creativity and refined vision, paired with genuine and relaxed hospitality, it’s undoubtedly one of, if not, the most rewarding dining experiences in the country.

And while the price may be a deal-breaker, if and when you get the chance to “blow up your life”, take it. It’s beyond your wildest dreams worth it.