Previous SlideNext Slide

Canberra, you’ve done it again. For the past few years, the city has been home to my favourite place to drink cocktails, the slightly grungy and quietly glamorous Bar Rochford. It has the most delicious sandwich I’ve eaten in recent memory (the smoked ham and almond pesto number at Sandoochie) and the nation’s greatest cinnamon bun at Under Bakery in Mawson. Now Such and Such is pitching for new restaurant of the year.

Partners Dash Rumble and Ross McQuinn opened the smart-casual bistro with chef Malcolm Hanslow in February, opposite the Legislative Plaza in the middle of the city. The dining room pops with terrazzo tiles, a nubby-textured, boucle-fabric banquette, local ceramics, art by young Australian artists and a hand-blown glass sculpture that looks like a kaleidoscope crossed with a church organ. It’s an infectiously cheerful spot.

Nearby in leafy Ainslie, the trio also operates two-hatted Pilot. There, Hanslow’s menu zigzags with punchy ferments across a degustation that might include polenta congee dotted with bug meat, fried enoki, sweet corn and jalapeno. Such and Such is far more freewheeling with a vibe and menu sympathetic to civic workers who would just like a quick bowl of pasta on their lunch break.

That pasta will likely be rigatoni with broccoli, chilli, anchovies and pistachio ($30), and it’s probably terrific, but I’ve never ordered it and can’t confirm. I’ve eaten enough pasta this year to make a Sicilian blush.

I have not, however, experienced anything like Hanslow’s bread smothered in garlic toum ($7). Flatbread dough is injected with sourdough starter to create something that’s half-crumpet and half chewy Chinese scallion pancake. It’s brilliant.

Alongside head chef Nick Peterson, Hanslow has crafted a menu that’s crammed with comforting flavours like this at every opportunity. “Who wants to eat snapper crudo when it’s zero degrees outside?” he says. Fair point. We’ll take the pierogi stuffed with braised oxtail, pulpy orange and confit ginger ($38) instead. Parmesan, potato matchsticks and a scarlet ragu made from sangria-marinated barbecued oxtail cover the dumplings. It’s not exactly a light dish.

Before the pierogis, there are fried school prawns and cashews ($18) coated in a Sri Lankan spice-mix of a slow-building heat that will likely have you reaching for the drinks list. What a fun-loving list it is, too, full of organic drops, independent producers, attractive cocktails, and snappy sub-headings, such as “rock and rain” for cool-climate reds of tension and drive.

Restaurant manager Caitlin Baker is more than happy to offer tastes and recommendations. For the prawns, maybe a Dangerous Ales lager ($12). For a rich and powerful 500-gram dairy cow sirloin ($100), with mustard-forward sauce Robert, the elegant Dominio del Aguila 2020 “Picaro” Tinto ($110).

A new generation of talent is transforming Canberra into one of the most exciting cities to eat in Australia.

A dessert enticingly named “mandarin three times” ($20) translates to a light and tangy combination of cardamom ice-cream, mandarin marmalade, freeze-dried mandarin and mandarin oil. Beechworth Bitters’ gentle “Orchard” amaro ($15) is your friend on the side.

Two dishes really stand out. First, flaky blue-eye trevalla perched in fish stock-based “crazy water” ($46) that’s teeming with semi-dried tomatoes, mussels, soft herbs and white beans. The soup thumps with umami while keeping the individual flavour of each component in high definition.

The second is designed-to-share, dry-aged duck ($100) roasted on the crown and garnished with slow-cooked rhubarb. It’s enhanced by a sticky, fish-sauce caramel mixed with duck jus and tastes like something Kylie Kwong might serve if she had trained at Le Cordon Bleu.

The only blip is an under-seasoned omelette studded with fat Yamba prawns. I can deal: every kitchen has blips. What I can’t say I’ve ever experienced is a restaurant playlist featuring Eric Idle’s Beatles spoof band The Rutles rather than any actual Lennon-McCartney. It’s this kind of snub of convention, plus the attention to detail, that makes me want to book another long lunch immediately.

If you’re visiting the bush capital for business, pleasure or Cockington Green, I can also recommend the terrific ramen at Canteen in Fyshwick; Kingston’s Paris-channelling wine bar Onzieme; and the riveting Thai at Morks nearby.

A new generation of talent is transforming Canberra into one of the most exciting cities to eat in Australia. Yes, I just used “exciting” and “Canberra” in the same sentence. It almost certainly won’t be the last time.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine