Sage Dining Rooms, Canberra: the name almost says it all

Australian restaurants have a long history of adopting well-worn trading names, and this one is no exception.

Sage Dining Rooms at Braddon in Canberra. Picture: Chris Whitfield

If there’s one thing the Australian restaurant industry does better than any other, it’s the adoption of trading names that already have been around the block. Out on a limb seems to be a place where the average Australian restaurateur feels distinctly uncomfortable.

There is such a thing as an original idea, but only occasionally. So for every Moon Under Water, you have a Provence or 15. Or a Seasons. Or, I’m afraid, a Sage. There are restaurants all over the world named for the robustly flavoured herb. Sage Canberra is branded Sage Dining Rooms, but who are they trying to kid? It’s Sage. And as a brand, I guess you’d call it inoffensive, a little unimaginative. For this particular restaurant, it’s probably perfect.

The pitch

A mannered, safe and traditional dining format — paper over linen, discrete tables, wait staff out front, owner somewhere out back in the kitchen — Sage is one tenant in a collective of 1920s buildings that form an arts precinct. A welcoming outdoors bar area, Mint, is the only real signal you’re in the right place. There’s nobody drinking there. Inside, at a table, the menu format offers two courses at $60, three for $75 and a five-course tasting menu at $85.

The reality

While the restaurant feels fairly dated, and the front-of-house staffing is a little all over the shop (order a martini and you may have time to read a few chapters of your novel while waiting), the chef’s food is good. Yes, that makes Sage one of those infuriating places that cannot be easily dismissed for across-the-board ineptness. The menu sticks to trusted concepts such as entrees and main courses and, while there’s no easy handle, contemporary Australian probably does it justice: an easy harmony of European techniques and Asian flavours presented handsomely, with plenty of on-message ingredients such as black garlic, puffed wild rice and dashi broth.

The cuisine

Light, nuanced, refined … There is clearly strong talent behind the product at Sage and it all comes to the table on de rigueur, smart as you like crockery. Pity about the pedestrian cutlery.

Highlights

First courses here are strong. Silken, slippery agnolotti are filled with a seasonally appropriate mushroom puree, cooked and served in a properly clarified broth with a distinctive, assertive black pepper oil and nasturtium leaves. It’s bold and clever. So is a slab of firm-ish sugar-cured ocean trout gussied up with capers and radish wafers, wattleseed and a hollandaise-like saffron emulsion. I liked the addition of Sichuan-flavoured grapes with pink duck breast, black garlic puree and red cabbage puree, too; croquettes of leg meat, served with a dark, aioli-like emulsion, somehow conflicted with the elegance of the main event.

Lowlights

Low-and-slow braised short rib, bone removed, had lost the moisture and marbling fat I expected of wagyu beef. Euro classic desserts such as passionfruit bavarois or honeycomb parfait are executed with skill but every dessert was dairy based. But where Sage fails in its quest to be taken seriously as a gastronomic destination is with staff who, as my notes from the evening say, are “super sweet but have L-plates on”.

Will I need a food dictionary?

No.

The damage

Predictable.

In summary:

Proof that smart food really just isn’t enough.

sagerestaurant.net.au