Virtual Gourmet

EDITOR'S NOTE: Readers may now access an Archive of all past newsletters--each annotated--dating back to July, 2003, by simply clicking on ARCHIVE .

FRESH NEW WORLD: SOUTH AUSTRALIA, Part One
by John Mariani
Photos by Galina Stepanoff-Dargery

Americans are so often in search of their own roots in the Old World that we forget that fresh new lands are still out there, if not undiscovered, then certainly still untrammeled, with plenty of leg room and histories younger than our own. Australia is just such a land, although the aborigines who came to this vast continent 60,000 years ago might well argue that there's is an older civilization than America's, where people only began migrating to North America 16 millennia ago, and much later into South America. Not until the 16th century did European explorers begin to nudge the coast of Australia, and most who followed felt the land they found worthless, at least until England's Captain Cook made landfall in 1770; eighteen years later two British ships landed in Sydney Cove and let off 750 convicts, 210 marines, and 40 women and children.

The shoals at Kangaroo Island.

Not until 1836 was South Australia declared a colony, and, proudly, its citizenry was free of convicts and the territory long a refuge for religious dissenters. To this day the region--the Texas of Down Under--is protective of its individuality. It is this sense of a short, proud history and a long memory of their independence that impressed me about the people of South Australia when I toured the country this spring--early autumn there, when summer's heat summer was giving way to cooler nights and shorter days, with vast skies of lilac and fiery vermilion charging the breezy evenings. The grape harvest had just begun in the Barossa Valley. yu['

      The principal city of Adelaide is exceedingly handsome, full of Victorian and Edwardian architecture without the sober massiveness so often found in London. There are also worthwhile museums like the Migration Museum devoted both to the aborigines and to the early settlers, as well as broad avenues, a superb 19th-century Parliament Building, a great Botanic Garden and Festival Centre, an excellent, large food market (right), and several good restaurants, especially along Gouger Street, which is lined with Asian and other ethnic restaurants, including a fast-paced Chinese storefront named BBQ City Restaurant (84 Gouger Street; 08-8212-8299), with the usual menu of about 8 million items; go with the barbecue dishes and you'll feast for very little money. (This is one place in the world where the dollar is relatively strong.)
    We noshed our way through the food market, where we had our only tasting of kangaroo meat on our trip, at a butcher shop specializing in it and smoking it to make charcuterie. It had a mild, somewhat beefy flavor, pleasant but nothing more, and we were told that Aussies are not particularly enamored of it. Then, after a week without a morsel of Italian food, I was very happy eating at the rustic-modern Chianti Classico ( 160 Hutt Street; (08) 8232 7955 ), where we enjoyed pappardelle with roasted duck, spinach, and pine nuts, panzerotti potato dumplings filled with ham and fontina cheese in a cream, basil, tomato sauce, and roast veal with green beans, cherry tomatoes, olives and rosemary potatoes, together with a bottle of, what else?, Chianti Classico. Figure on about $US35 per person, before wine.

    Is there really such a thing as "Australian cuisine"? More or less. A decade ago a generation of young chefs like Tetsuya Wakuda, Neil Perry, and Serge Dansereau in Sydney and Melbourne forged a style that was as much Pacific Rim as any in Vancouver, Seattle, or Portland, derived from a fusion of Anglo-European roots and Asian ingredients at restaurants like Tetsuya’s, MG Garage, Bather’s Pavilion, and Rockpool. These days, there is still a good deal of that style of cuisine in the major cities, though there has also been a pronounced move towards a kind of food that goes better well with Australian wines. especially the big bold fruited Shirazes (elsewhere called Syrah). As a result, more French, Italian and Mediterranean flavors have moved to the forefront in the newer restaurants, and, especially in South Australia, home to the wine-rich Barossa Valley, chefs have found such food marries better with the wines than if they dashed everything with soy sauce and chilies.

On the evening we arrived we drove slightly out of town to the very beautiful Magill Estate Restaurant (78 Penfold Road, Magill; 08-8301-5551), situated just above the far-ranging Shiraz-planted vineyards, where Penfolds' esteemed Grange wines were first made. Here is one of the most striking restaurants in the region--all glass and Venetian blinds requisite to modify the blazing sunlight and to throw film noir-like shadows across the dining room. This is quite a serious restaurant and quite a precious one, where the kitchen takes its time putting out carefully conceived dishes like a Gorgonzola-onion tart with spiced quince; filet of Cape Jervis snapper with caramelized scallop, crispy bacon and a green pea emulsion; Hahndorf venison with braised red cabbage and a jus tinged with chocolate; and a rhubarb crumble with custard and Jersey clotted cream. The entree prices run (tax included) AU$39-$44 (US$27-$30.75), with a 5-course tasting menu at AU$105 (US$73.25) and wines at $55 (US$38.50). The winelist, understandably rife with the entire range of Penfolds bottlings, is exceptionally deep and broad as befits its situation here in the vineyard. It will certainly give you an immediate perspective on the range of modern Australian winemaking, including scores of bottlings that never find their way out of the country.
This was actually the first of a few meals that proceeded at a very slow pace, and although I was told that Aussies rather enjoy it that way, it can get tedious when you find you've had little to eat after sitting for an hour and still at the table two hours later wondering where dessert might be. So, traveler, be aware: Aussies like to take their time and, so, apparently do Aussie chefs.

The next day we headed into the Barossa Valley, quaint with villages and vineyards.

Wine valleys are always very beautiful, and the Barossa is among the most picturesque one can visit anywhere in the world, with rounded golden hills that remind me a great deal of California's Sonoma Valley, but with far more charming, well-preserved towns and historic structures, including the Abbotsford Country House (Yaldara Drive, Lyndoch; 08-8524-4662; www.abbotsfordhouse.com) where we spent the night. This Georgian style stone guesthouse (right) with six suites gives you a very good idea of what an affluent rancher or farmer lived like a century ago out here. Not having to get up to pick grapes, we felt serenel and blissful after a good night's sleep.

On our way through Barossa we stopped at Maggie Beer's Farm Shop (Pheasant Far, Road, Nuriootpa; 08-8562-4757; www.maggiebeer.com.au), a delightful gourmet shop (left) seemingly in the middle of nowhere where, since 1979, Maggie and Colin Beer sell a wide variety of seasonal produce, jams, jellies, vinegars, oils, terrines, and wines, well worth stocking up pn for a picnic lunch, although you can eat right there on the pretty premises. We also visited a local farmer's market in Angaston, a wonderful slice of Aussie life and shows the indigenous hospitality of the people of the Barossa.

VISITING SOUTH AUSTRALIA
First thing to do when considering a visit to South Australia is to check www.visit-southaustralia.au , which will fill you in on every aspect of touring, hotels, dining, and wineries. In Adelaide we stayed at the Rendezvous Allegra Hotel (55 Waymouth Street; www.rendezvoushotels.com), and the more stylish Medina Grand Adelaide Treasury (2 Flinders Street; www.medinaapartments.com.au), located in the 163-year-old Treasury building. Both hotels are modern, with all amenities. A made-to-order tour of the city of any duration can be arranged through Tourabout Adelaide (www.touraboutadelaide.com.au). For tours of the wine country and the food scene, contact A Taste of Australia (www.tastesa.au)

The closing last March of the venerable La Côte Basque, the classic French dining room Jean-Jacques Rachou had run since 1979 (opened some years before that at another location, by Henri Soulé), was a bittersweet event, for it marked the passing of a grand restaurant and the promise of a new version in a more casual cast. The result is LCB Brasserie Rachou, located on the same spot and in the same L-shaped configuration, but now bright with the bonhomie of a true Parisian brasserie. The brass fixtures, zinc bar, etched glass, dark leather banquettes, and pretty lighting all carry the hallmarks of the typical fin-de-siècle decor that never seems to date and that always looks inviting, no matter how often you see it.
    A long time ago at the old LCB, the greeting at LCB could be snooty, with smiles reserved for the society people who had their favorite tables and waiters. Now everyone is greeted with the genuine delight that you have decided to dine here, beginning with maîtres d' Noël Le Troadec (formerly of Le Quercy) and Pascal Signé (formerly at Picholine), along with the lovely hostess Gabriella, and the rather shy Monsieur Rachou is always coming from the kitchen to say hello to new and old friends. The captains, dressed nattily in houndstooth check jackets and daffodil yellow bow ties, and the waiters in traditional bistro garb, include some familiar faces both from the old LCB and other French restaurants around town.
   While many of the lavish dishes of the old LCB have vanished, this reincarnation is anything but "LCB Lite." Many of the same, wonderfully hearty items are still happily on the menu (several as "Les Spécialités Traditionelles"), including Dover sole meuniére, cassoulet au confit de canard, le navarin d'agneau, tournedos of beef rossini, and several others, now at a lesser price (though not by all that much). Those who went into gustatory shock fearing they would never again be able to enjoy the wondrous quenelles of pike in a sauce Nantua as served at the now-shuttered La Caravelle will be happy again with those at LCB.   Gourmands should also applaud the return of a dish like les tripes à l'Armagnac, one of the very best renderings of this rich, homey dish I've ever had, the tripe tender and flavorful, the creamy sauce devastatingly good.
     You can tell that Toulouse-born Rachou, now 69, and chef de cuisine Xaviar Mayonove, a Corsican who worked at the old LCB, love this kind of food, which is why it is so authentic, right down to the perfect melt of Gruyère on the deep, dark onion soup, and the garlicky aïoli in the ruddy red bouillabaisse. If (pardon the pun) you wish to go whole hog, by all means order the pig's trotters stuffed with foie gras and apple in a reduction of tangy cider, a dish to leave you gasping with pleasure. The terrines and pâtés here are first-rate examples of gutsy bourgeois cookery. Somewhat more dainty is the seared fresh foie gras with an apple Tatin and mesclun salad. Or you may sit at the zinc bar and order all the glistening shellfish you like for lunch or before theater.
     That butter-drenched Dover sole was impeccably cooked, and the cassoulet was brimming with meaty duck and steaming beans that had absorbed plenty of fat and flavor. A good autumn option here is Rachou's homage to his friend, Chef André Soltner, whose delicious choucroute Alsacienne is reproduced with abundant sausage, pork, and sauerkraut, and strong brown mustard served on the side.
      At lunch the cold soup of the day was a refreshing, peppery gazpacho, and there was a lot to love about a chunky, warm, sweet onion tart on a September's afternoon.   Free-range chicken is lavished with a tarragon-cream sauce and monkfish treated to a tingle of ginger, served with wilted, buttered leeks. For me, the best of all I tried was a Thursday special--pot au feu, with generous cuts of tender chicken, beef, and vegetables in a marvelously savory broth; if you're greedy, ask for seconds.
      The desserts at LCB Brasserie Rachou are true to form--fruit tarts and dark chocolate mousse and coupe glacée and so on and so on. The profiteroles are kind of lumpy looking, but they are terrific. Cheeses are an option.
   Fortunately Rachou has kept intact the old LCB's winelist, so there's plenty of older vintages for those who crave them, along with younger wines at lower prices. It's not an exceptional list, but it serves the food well indeed.

Habitués of the old LCB have come back in droves, but the crowd has unfairly been characterized by the NY Times as having a "median age of perhaps 73." In my visits there have indeed been many faithful regulars in evidence, as befits a place whose fame in part derives from Truman Capote's catty story "La Côte Basque 1965," published that year in Esquire. Rachou, shown at the zinc bar, right, is in error, however, in saying that Ernest Hemingway put the restaurant into his novel The Sun Also Rises: it was published more than a quarter century before LCB opened.
But the crowd seems equally mixed between such faithful and newcomers, especially at lunch, who have found this happy, bright brasserie just the thing missing in midtown and so warmly welcomed by everyone.
At lunch there is a very good $26 fixed price, along with à la carte; pre-theater and after-theater is $39, and at dinner, main courses range from $22-$38.

THE NEW POSTER WILL SHOW JACQUES CHIRAC EATING SNAILS
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The Italian ambassador in London has protested a new campaign urging people not to eat smelly foods on the Underground with a poster showing a fat Mediterranean-looking man surrounded by Parma hams, salamis, and garlic. "We consider this poster to be very offensive to the Italian image, Italian products and the Italian company that is clearly identified," said the ambassador. The London Underground agreed to re-draw the poster.

HEY, HONEY, CANCEL THE TRIP TO PARIS! WE’RE GOING CRUISING ON LAKE HURON!

“On Lake Huron, there’s a sangria party by the ship’s swimming pool, and carefree couples sashay around its edge to `The Girl from Ipanema’ performed on an electric piano. Out on Lake Erie, breakfast is presented in the Restaurant Panoramique, a sun-soaked glass-walled salon. As we approach our next port of call, there’s a rush to the buffet. I pile my plate with sugared brioche and make my way up to the observation deck, where I join a knot of my fellow passengers—some so at home that they stand in the fresh air nibbling at croissants, wearing little more than terry-cloth robes and slippers.”—Ted Katauskas, “Making Waves,” Travel + Leisure (August 2004)

* From Sept. 20-Oct. 8 the Calvados Festival at Restaurant Q56 in NYC will be held; 4 different Boulard Calvados cocktails will be served at the bar, along with items made with Calvados by chef Rhys Rosenblum. Call 212-756-3800.

*On Sept. 21 Cîroc Vodka celebrates the marriage of food and spirits with the Cîroc Grape Chefs Of America, in Miami, to benefit the James Beard Foundation through the Cîroc Grape Chefs Of America Scholarship – $30,000 divided among 6 deserving culinary students. The program will enlist chefs Michelle Bernstein of Azul, Marc Ehrler of Loews Miami Beach Hotel, Jonathan Eismann of Pacific Time, Cindy Hutson of Ortanique and Andrea Curto-Randazzo and Frank Randazzo of Talula to prepare hors d’oeuvres with grapes. The event will be held at poolside at the Sagamore Hotel on Miami Beach. Call 888-898-0004.

* On Sept. 29 sommelier Franck Girard presents “Los Delicos Viños Espanol”—5 Spanish wines--at Greenwich, CT’s Restaurant Jean-Louis at a $65 pp 3-course dinner. Call 203-622-8450; visit www.restaurantjeanlouis.com

* A month-long celebration begins Oct. 1, with 50 NYS restaurants featuring "NY Cuisine" and wines, joined by 15 wine shops, as part of "New York Wines & Dines." Participating restaurants include `21' Club, Aureole, Payard Bistro, Cafe Boulud, Beppe, Gramercy Tavern and many others. Go to www.newyorkwinesanddines.org.

* On Oct. 4 NYC's `21' Club will begin its wine series with the wines of Argentina's Luca Winery, with dinner, at $125 pp; Call 212-582-7200.

* On Oct. 6 in NYC the newest releases from Spain’s up and coming wine producers will make their U.S. debut at Wines from Spain’s first “Spanish Wine Cellar & Pantry” as part of "The Eleventh Annual Great Match: Wine & Tapas," at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18 St. Call 1-866-402-5950.

* On Oct. 13 NYC's Four Seasons Restaurant will hold "the World's Sexiest Wines," more than 100 wines and dozesn of winemakers, with a dinner by Chef Christian Albin. $225 pp.; On Oct. 15 the restaurant holds its annual "Fête du Bordeaux" with Jean Guillaume Prats of Château Cos d'Estournel. $275 pp. Call 212-754-9494.

* On Oct. 14 Miami chefs meet at the InterContinental Miami for the “Seventh Annual Star Chefs and Wine Extravaganza,” presented by Carnival Cruise Lines, offering samples from many area’s restaurants, wines, and bids on more than 140 auction items, with proceeds benefiting the March of Dimes. $125 pp in advance, $150 at the door. VIP Champagne Reception, $225 pp. Call 305-477-1192 or visit www.chefsandwineextravaganza.com.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This newsletter is also available on the very comprehensive food site www.sautewednesday.com
which has dozens of other links to food articles from around the world, and also at www.Gayot.com. New York Corner reviews are also available at
www.nycvisit.com/johnmariani

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani, Naomi Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson, Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein, Lucy Gordan, Suzanne Wright. Contributing Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery, Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press). To purchase from amazon.com, click on the image below.