EXP.: A modern dining experience
EXP. at Pokolbin, NSW, is an exponent of the modern dining ethos: make as much as possible in-house and from scratch.
Ever been to a winery restaurant and noticed a staff member looking anguished? Yep, that would be the winemaker who, having made the successful transition from winery whiz to viticulturist of note, progressed to brand creator, then cellar-door operator, to selling the story (and wine at full retail). All good. Alas, said winemaker then made their first proper mistake: the restaurant, the source of many a wine producer’s woes. Nomadic, egotistical chefs. Prima donna waitstaff. The media … god help us.
They do things a little differently in NSW’s Hunter Valley. Many of the restaurants attached to cellar doors/wineries are separate businesses, leased to operators who do their thing, leaving the wine guys to ponder baume and terroir and other important matters of the vine. Not service staff who don’t show up, or seafood that doesn’t sell, or TripAdvisor revenge posts because someone didn’t get a second slice of sourdough. Happy days.
The pitch. At Oakvale Wines — one of so many brands hiding behind the Hunter skirts of big names such as Tulloch and Tyrell — chef Frank Fawkner has swapped the ginormous kitchen of Muse — where he was second in command — for the modest culinary confines of his own place, his first restaurant. EXP. is a small dining room with an open kitchen, very much a part of the restaurant’s modernist ethos, with chefs delivering many of the dishes.
The idea is to make as much as possible in-house and from scratch. To challenge. To create interest at the table with novel presentations and meals that consist of many, many elements. To employ plenty of indigenous Australian ingredients — some foraged and nearly all super-local — in a way that often emphasises bitter and astringent characteristics.
The reality. EXP. is not your typical wine country restaurant. It’s not really about wine, for starters, and a lot of Fawkner’s dishes are not about forging that obvious handshake between liquid and solid, the way you may see at, for example, Bistro Molines, or Margan, not so far away. I’d go so far as to say a lot of wine tourists would be less than thrilled with EXP.
That’s OK; Fawkner’s about a newer generation of diner, tourist or otherwise.
I wouldn’t use the word derivative but anyone who has been to restaurants such as Orana, Brae, Attica or Fleet, for example, would recognise the style.
The cuisine. Modernist? Post-Noma? Locavore? Challenging? Experiential? A hell of a lot of work for the kitchen? All of the above?
Highlights. The simpler things thrilled me most, like a warm, bouncy baby pretzel served with barramundi aioli and basil oil. And the duck ham on toast with macadamia butter and a garnish of curry plant (not leaf).
A snack of kangaroo tartare wrapped in a giant, velvety nasturtium leaf with aioli and mountain pepper was fun, too, a reminder of how successful this meat is not cooked.
Or the butter-poached spanner crab served on “carrot peel pasta cooked in crab bisque”, emulsified with carrot butter, served with fresh pink grapefruit lobes, marigold petals and tarragon oil.
And a cheese course that proved the baking prowess of this kitchen: fine brioche with a molten blue cheese custard inside, smothered with Little Hill Farm honey.
But regardless of whether you take the five or eight-course options, you’ll end up with a long series of dishes — barramundi, local chicken, perhaps a dessert of hay and wattleseed custard — and, in truth, most of it is technically spot-on and interesting.
Lowlights. Trying a little hard was a Jersey milk haloumi dish: cheese served with soft pumpkin, blanched warrigal greens, dressed in brown butter, toasted pumpkin seeds, lemon juice and “drowned fingers (seaweed) foraged from Newcastle beaches”. I didn’t think the flavours or textures added much to the meal.
Will I need a food dictionary? Maybe, but staff members are never far away, and switched on.
The damage. For an engaging, experiential food journey demanding a lot of chef time, very reasonable.
In summary. The Hunter offers diverse dining; EXP. is very much of the new school and it will be interesting to plot chef Frank Fawkner’s journey.
Address: 596 Broke Road, Pokolbin, NSW | Contact: (02) 4998 7264, exprestaurant.com.au | Hours: Lunch: Fri-Sat dinner: Wed-Sat | Score: 3.5 out of 5