Vanitas, Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast review

Vanitas, at Palazzo Versace, Gold Coast, is a beacon of opulence. So where is everyone? And why is the bread microwaved?

No riffraff: inside Vanitas. Picture: Heath Missen

Where do you go these days when you want massive tables, damask, crystal candlesticks, a single yellow rose in a sparkly vase? When you need a restaurant with dress code (“Smart evening wear. Gentlemen please wear long trousers, open shoes are not allowed”) to keep the riffraff from storming the gates?

It’s a serious question. There aren’t many restaurants like Vanitas left. When Palazzo Versace opened on the Gold Coast in 2000, redefining accepted Aussie notions of OTT, I gave it 16 months – not 16 years. I know nothing about the hotel business. And here we are at Vanitas, the more opulent of the hotel’s two restaurants, all these years later, and not just foraging low-hanging fruit, either. New chef, said the press release. New sommelier. Impressive CVs. New look. Maybe it’s time, I think.

It’s difficult to discern what’s changed at Vanitas, visually. Same faux Pompeii tiling with acres of Italian marble; same plush, velvet upholstered timber carvers; same extraordinary Versace-branded crockery; same electric blue light in the pool, just a metre from our table.

But on a Thursday night, there are but nine of us, and one table is on a menu-planning freebie for a wedding; by 8.46pm, it’s just… us two, that awful mod-flute restaurant music we had too much of in the noughties, and a few staff with name tags. It’s horrible. One asks if we’re celebrating something special. I’m tempted to say, “Yes, the death of formal dining.”

The menu structure at Vanitas is unusual: you choose three, six or nine dishes from a list of nine, with two “supplementary dishes”. The menu pricing is reasonable, the wine… ambitious. Tonight, the sommelier is not so much on the floor as on call (presumably at the other restaurant), and when she does arrive confesses to not knowing the wine we’re interested in, code for “I’ve inherited stock I didn’t choose”.

Through the lens of a $25 martini, Vanitas gets out of the blocks quickly on the wrong foot: three different fancy styles of butter with beetroot sourdough dinner rolls. Microwaved. It’s these little one-step-forward-two-backwards moments that make me wonder about the commitment. There are nine of us to serve, after all.

It happens with the absentee sommelier, and again with a dish called “Tomato & Tea” when the “tea” is forgotten and served in a fancy cup after the tomato has been eaten. It all detracts from pleasant enough but hardly inspiring food.

Beetroot several ways with goat cheese “snow” and fermented blueberries. Marinated diced kingfish with “flavours of XO”: dried scallop, chicken skin wafer, chilli threads and fermented garlic paste. Mussels in a light potato froth with fermented celeriac. A small duck pithivier on chestnut puree with a light duck jus. These are the highlights.

On the other hand, crumbed salmon with a mousse filling and various fennel bits, samphire and finger lime, is dull, dated and quite at odds with some of the dehydrated/sea succulent stabs at modernity. Wagyu, potato, onion (pictured) is bitsy and served on a cold plate. They do themselves no favours.

There are a couple of many-element desserts that seemed dated to me, while undercooked lavosh with a fig, a hint of St Agur cheese and truffled honey was pretty much a metaphor for the meal. Close, but incomplete. Playing seriously at fine dining requires attention to detail at every step, not just a no-sandals policy. If you’re going to do it, you must do it with massive commitment. Still, if you’re impressed by those Versace crystal candlesticks…

Restaurant: Vanitas

Address: Seaworld Drive, Main Beach, Qld

Contact: [phone]

palazzoversace.com.au

Hours: Dinner Tue-Sat

Typical prices: Three courses $75; six $105; nine $135, with supplementary options

Summary: Like a Rolls-Royce with bald tyres

Stars: 2 out of 5