Bau Bau
Confident, elevated, loved by locals.
14.5/20
Italian$$$
Even if you’re a regular, it’s impossible to get bored here. Produce comes from the owners’market garden near Daylesford, prompting a menu rewrite every couple of weeks. Fixed-price but with four or five choices for each course, it’s a capsule of reworked regional Italian dishes.
Cacciucco, the Tuscan fish stew that makes the most of scraps, is reborn with first-rate blue-eye cod, clams and sweet prawns in a concentrated tomato-tinged sauce. Veal shin slow-cooked in sangiovese is served over buttery white polenta – undeniable comfort food taken up a notch by a shaving of truffle.
Other tweaks are subtle. The thumbnail-sized dumplings of a classic tortellini in brodo are upgraded to five large tortellini, half-submerged in a clear, herbaceous chicken soup. There’s no mistaking the design vision, though, where International Klein Blue meets steel and linen. Bold and beautiful.
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Original URL: https://www.watoday.com.au/goodfood/vic-good-food-guide/bau-bau-20241116-p5kr78.html