Restaurant review: Billie H

One of life’s great mysteries, along with Donald Trump’s hair, is how on Earth chefs became celebrities.

John Lethlean

2 min read

12:00AMMarch 04, 2017

Cool and moody: it’s a wine bar with great food. Picture: Philip Gostelow

One of life’s great mysteries, along with Donald Trump’s hair, is how on Earth chefs became celebrities. For every Gordon Ramsay there are about a million regular, often awkward, occasionally inarticulate, usually hard-working men and women who thrive in antisocial environments among folks of the same persuasion. Some can’t even cook. So what about some love for the real heroes of this scene – the restaurateurs?

We’re in Claremont, the posh Perth suburb, and were it not for a bloke named Daniel Goodsell greeting/waiting/advising on wine, talking up the specials and playing music that rang my bells track after track, Billie H might just be another cool, moody space with very agreeable food. It’s much more. It’s an expression of the restaurateur’s craft.

Now, I don’t know Goodsell from Adam; my mate John, who knows stuff, cocked an eye on the way in to say, “He’s the owner”. And on a January Monday night, when most locals would still be on their yachts at Rottnest, I didn’t expect to find the owner on the floor, either. But Blind Freddy could tell within minutes that a) Goodsell’s the bloke with his cojones on the block, and b) here is someone born to the role. Warmth, energy and enthusiasm for Billie H – named for Holiday, one of his musical heroes – radiates from him. And vinous knowledge that can only have been acquired tasting a lot of wines. By the time we’re discussing folkie John Martyn I want to take the bloke fishing.

Of course, creating a restaurant with soul and substance is a team effort; and in chef Alia Glorie, John has his Yoko. The food is lovely, unpretentious and beautifully suited to that bottle of mencia the boss is going to suggest, should you ask him. Billie H is that modern thing, the wine bar with great food.

We hoover just-opened Tassie oysters dressed with grapefruit and orange blossom granita. And raw kingfish drowned in a delicate Olio Bello olive oil from Margaret River with a roasted lemon emulsion, chives and a few blobs of Dijon.

So-called “corned beef” – brined slices of silverside with horseradish cream and a hugely refreshing parsley salad – reminds me more of vitello tonnato. I like vitello tonnato, but it divides the table.

Then comes Glorie’s version of sardines on toast (pictured): a “salad” of pan-sealed Fremantle sardine fillets pickled in sherry vinegar (among other things) with parsley, chilli, capsicum, shallot and a vibrant dressing on a sprouted grain loaf, made with flax seed, honey and tapioca flour. It’s like a toasted, savoury multigrain sponge, both special and unique. We ate, and ordered a second.

Fleshy king brown mushrooms are both braised and smoked, and served with a lovely fresh goat curd from Geraldton. White-spotted rock cod is roasted and served with a concentrated stock, buttery cherry tomatoes and fennel salt. Fine Pekin duck from WA grower Wagin is roasted firm, properly rendered and finished with a spicy mandarin glaze and nice, clean duck bone jus.

It’s all proper cooking with great gear; a succinct curation of flavours rather than a scattergun of too many notes and textures, simply to impress. Even a freshly made tart filled with a brown butter pastry cream matched to Earl Grey ice cream, all scattered with tea praline, highlights the mature palate at work.

Put that at the disposal of a bloke who runs one hell of a tight ship and see what happens. A celebrity? Of course not. But a hero nonetheless.