The secret to dining success at Nine in the Hunter Valley

DELICIOUS food and wine is no stranger to the Hunter Valley, but one place has a special ingredient for the ultimate dining experience.

Tower Estate winery

GOOD food and good wine is no stranger to the Hunter Valley, but one place has come up with the secret to providing the ultimate dining experience.

It's not an overly complicated equation, and it's not even really that secret.

In actual fact, it's quite simple: Nine.

Nine courses. Nine wines. Nine matching pieces of music. Nine seasonal menus. Nine feet underground. Restaurant Nine.

The secret of Restaurant Nine
Found at the Tower Lodge, the Hunter Valley's only five star boutique hotel, Restaurant Nine fittingly opened on December 9 2009, and has fast become a Hunter favourite.

The 2011 Savour Australia Restaurant awards recently named it Best Restaurant in a Winery. It was also awarded Restaurant of the Year (Hunter Valley) in the Catering Hostplus Regional NSW Awards for Excellence.

Located nine feet underground in what used to be Tower Estate's cellar, Restaurant Nine is the brainchild of Maitre de Maison Andreas Breitfuss.

Breitfuss says the restaurant was created because guests would ask for recommendations on where to eat and wished Tower Lodge had a restaurant of their own.

"The Hunter region needed something special, something diverse. So Nine was born.

"Nine is about piecing every different experience together in one place, so you can have an unforgettable dining experience"

And that is exactly what they have created.

Nine is structured around a seasonal nine course degustation menu, which has two menus per season, plus a year-round vegetarian option.

Each of the nine courses are specifically chosen to make the most out of seasonal and local produce - carefully matched with nine wines from the Tower Estate winery, which also change according to the menu.

That means, in a year, Nine offers 81 different meals and 81 different wines.

But it doesn't stop there.

Working on the premise that Nine is an "experience", each course is matched with a different piece of music - mostly classical - and designed to ensure you get the most out of every course.

"Really, it's an education session that involves all the senses," Breitfuss says.
As Maitre de Maison, Breitfuss is intimately involved with every aspect of the restaurant and makes it a priority to spend a little time each meal with the guests.

He starts the evening off with a bang – or a pop, in this case, as he performing the traditional art of "Sabrage" – cutting the cork from a bottle of champagne, and then tasting it afterwards.

He also talks his guests through the wine decanting process, particularly with their Riedel decanter, known as Eve. It was the first hand-blown lead crystal decanter in the continent and serves seven 120ml glasses of wine exactly.

The food
I sample the 'Deep Winter' menu, starting with Amuse Bouche matched with Tattinger Champagne, followed by a mushroom consomme with truffle pasta and parsley leaves.

The pasta is homemade and literally melts in your mouth, and, as a massive mushroom fan, I try to ration them out as much as possible. This dish is faultless, light, and washes down nicely with a 2009 Bellwether Chardonnay from the Tamar Valley.

Next up, a new dish and a new glass, this time of the Hunter Valley’s own Tulloch Verdelho wine. My plate is now home to a steamed fillet of farmed saltwater barramundi, sweet carrot mousse, sturgeon caviar and radish shoots. It is universally agreed at my table that if our mums had crafted veggies like this, we would have always polished them off!

A course of pigeon and then deer follow, and I start wondering if I will be able to make it through the entire menu.

"Don't worry," Tower Estate's Marketing Manager, Kylie Ostle, tells us.

"What's unique about Tower's degustation is that you don't feel full, you don't feel heavy and you don't feel sick. There's something wonderful about that."

She’s right, and the best has truly been saved for last - there will be four desserts. Joy!

From steaming sorbet to cheese to sugar encrusted hazelnuts, my favourite is a truly delightful chocolate chiboust with chestnut icecream, accompanied by a glass of Mas Amiel 2007 from Maury, France. By this stage of the evening you’d think you’d be too full for dessert, but the ice cream is smooth, the chocolate isn’t too sweet, and the wine matches perfectly – as you’d expect. I've never tasted anything like it.

Finally, if you can fit it in, there's tea, coffee and house-made petit fours.

You don't have to stay at the Tower Lodge in order to eat at Nine, but Lodge guests do get first priority when it comes to booking.

The restaurant keeps things intimate by only allowing a maximum of 16 people at one time. Ideally that's eight couples, but tables of four can be catered for.

And you know what? I think nine is my new favourite number.

THE FACTS
Open: Friday & Saturday nights 6.30pm to 8.30pm (last bookings at 8.30pm sharp)
Cost: 9 course degustation excl. wines is $180 per person. 9 course degustation including matched Tower Estate wines is $250 per person
Wine prices: $41 to $1200 per bottle
Vegetarian menu: Yes
Vegan menu: No
Executive Chef: Daniel Hunt

More: www.towerestate.com

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