Brett Restaurant

I had a very impressive lunch at the recently refurbished Brett. This narrow restaurant, in a friendly-looking green corner building, has a really lovely atmosphere – especially if you nab a seat along the open kitchen counter. I enjoy the bustle of the open kitchen and even watching the kitchenhands returning cleaned items and seeing how carefully they store them away in this very small space is interesting. Friendly professional staff are very good at explaining dishes and wine pairings and the young chef on cold larder and dessert explained his dishes well while preparing them. Great beef tartare, just warmed to Australian summer room temperature with a tiny dice of apple that’s pickled to order, plus croutons, lamb's lettuce and watercress, finished with a sprinkling of lapsang souchong tea. Salty, umami-rich XO linguine with Cantabrian anchovy, crisp leek and 36-month aged parmesan is something of a signature dish, the noodles more like Asian noodles than pasta in texture. A South African chenin blanc, Elodie from Gabriëlskloof was a 1+1=3 pairing with this dish. Also a seasonal delight of fresh white asparagus, morels and wild garlic (all rare treats for an Aussie). The morels filled with morel farce were exceptional and the egg yolk really made this dish. A riesling from Austrian producer Gunderloch was an excellent match too. A rhubarb dessert worked a treat with Nibiru auslese 100% merlot rosé from Weinland in Austria – and (as an Australian) I had to finish with a glass on Vanya Cullen’s delicious Amber wine from Margaret River just because it was there.