EAT: BRAE, BIRREGURA
Brae was a food adventure years in the making. The Birregura eatery first landed on our radar back in 2015 and the hype, along with awards and hats, has only continued to grow since. Bookings made three months in advance seem to disappear just like that but as luck would have it, we managed to snap up a lunch booking for late January 2018.
Despite all the anticipation and expectation that can pave the way for disappointment, the Brae experience was truly a remarkable and memorable one. Expect beautiful plates of Modern Australian fare, created with sensationally fresh and seasonal produce, often plucked right from their surrounding gardens or sourced locally. Chef Dan Hunter's strokes of culinary genius are captured in the exciting and complementary flavour profiles in each dish, occasionally with an outside-the-box twist that will get the taste buds and conversation buzzing. On that last note, here's looking at the iced oyster.
And while the weather gods weren't exactly on our side on the day of our visit, serving up blistering hot 39 degree weather to accompany our degustation experience, I would do it all over again with no hesitation.
Brae farm summer vegetables and grilled green tomato juice.
Bonito cured overnight with kelp and mountain pepper.
Prawn, nasturtium and finger lime.
Eggplant and salt grass lamb washed with sweet onion juice, fragrant and acidic plants.
Herb toast and hand dived scallops, nut butter and lemon aspen.
Sourdough with hand-churned butter.
Barbecued beetroot seasoned with Brae farm honey and rainbow trout roe // Smoked eel doughnut.
Iced oyster.
King George Whiting, cucumber, white aspen and fermented cabbage.
Crayfish and shiitake with Brae farm egg yolk, meat broth and seaweeds.
Aged Pekin duck wood roasted on the bone, sour squash, muntries and purslane.
Raw kohlrabi and citrus pickled cucumber.
Red flowering eucalyptus ice cream, quandongs stewed with rhubarb and mead.
Parsnip and apple.
Brae farm summer orchard delights.
Baked meringue and macadamia with ridiculously good cream.
Blood, pistachio and preserved blackberry.