Restaurant review: Geronimo, Launceston, Tasmania

Geronimo doesn’t taste of cultural cringe or hipster self-consciousness.

John Lethlean

2 min read

12:00AMMay 06, 2017

Geronimo complements its bistro ambience with an engaging attention to detail. Picture: Chris Crerar

I’ve often thought one of our great strengths as a nation is a willingness to get off the island, head north, discover, learn and, eventually, bring it back home. It’s how ideas are harvested, enthusiasm rekindled. And Tasmania is Australia in microcosm. If you need to get out of Australia for some horizon expansion, then you really need to get out of Tasmania.

The problem was that, historically, when Tasmanians brought it all back, it wasn’t necessarily home to the little island at the bottom of the big one, so it would be nice to think things are changing. It would be nice to think the guy behind Geronimo in Launceston is representative of a wider movement of Tasmanians who have decided to apply it all back in their home state.

And I think it’s happening. Increasingly I meet people like Jeremy Kode, a young Tasmanian who spent years working in Europe and China before deciding Launceston was ready for him.

I was taken earlier this year to Geronimo, a new ship in the small fleet of restaurants you’d bother with in this disarming little city. Save for some over-the-top desserts, the food was terrific and as we toasted our good fortune with outrageously expensive Tasmanian whisky, I may have mumbled: “I’ll be back.”

I was, on a Tuesday last month. As I suspect Kode works every hour God gives him, there’s a fair chance his polished service will be yours, too.

Moreover, many things about Geronimo are likeable constants: a determination to work with Tassie produce and beverages; a pleasing bistro ambience; service that suggests the experience is all about you, the customer; and an attention to detail in just about everything from nibbles to napery.

For a young business, Geronimo is a remarkably resolved proposition, right down to a serious wine list that isn’t shy, price-wise. Still, eating down here is always going to be better value than in Sydney.

The go-to is a savoury mushroom pannacotta (pictured), finished with a jumble of Cygnet mushrooms that have been sautéed with black-lip abalone and garlic crisps; mushroom consommé is added at the table. It is respectful, local and particularly good.

House-made farfalle is tossed in a predictable white wine/garlic/chilli sauce with the far-from predictable addition of shelled east coast periwinkles – curious little critters, but rather good. Lightly juniper-cured wild venison (leg) is just-seared and sliced into credit-card sized tablets – lovely meat – with a savoury chocolate smear, beetroot gel, frisee and liquorice salt. Starters are Geronimo’s strong suit.

A lamb dish of roasted rump and braised shoulder gets the Middle Eastern approach: baba ghanouj, fried chickpeas, grilled eggplant and fresh mint. Flavours and produce work well enough but the display, on a big plate, means some of the oomph is lost from kitchen to table.

A piece of pan-roasted stripy trumpeter, its thick skin both crisp and deliciously chewy/gelatinous, comes with no such reservations: the properly cooked fillet comes with pickled fennel, ruby grapefruit, grilled cuttlefish, various sea herbs and a citrus beurre blanc.

Of the desserts, a jumble of warm-poached, gelled and crisp rhubarb alongside almond, honey and cinnamon sponge topped with fig-leaf ice cream is the most mature and cleverly realised.

Geronimo doesn’t taste of cultural cringe or hipster self-consciousness; the lingering flavour is of informed pride, and it’s very pleasing.