When most people go to a bank, it’s not for anything particularly exciting. It’s usually something rather mundane such as depositing or withdrawing money and usually involves waiting in a queue for ages only to have your hard earned cash whisked away from you.
So when I alight on Elizabeth Street outside the ornate marble building of the Commonwealth Bank I’m not quite sure whether I’m at the right entrance at all. Until two smiling men in suits open the doors for me and usher me downstairs. “Everyone is downstairs” they tell me and I click my heels against the marble floor and descend the steps to the area underneath the bank just outside the safety deposit boxes and the vault. A long table is set for us and there are various people standing around chatting including Firass Dirani the Underbelly actor.
Robbie Robertson
Table4Ten is an annual charity event for the Prostate Cancer Foundation which has a rather clever dining idea behind it. In Sydney almost 60 of Sydney’s top restaurants including Tetsuya’s, Marque, Becasse, Buzo, Pier, Quay and Rockpool among many others donate a table for ten people in their restaurants. Each table is hosted by a person who is responsible for coordinating the $250 a ticket table and to get a seat at one of the invite only tables. Then before the event, each host is randomly assigned a restaurant. And at the end of the evening, cars take each table of ten to a mystery location for an after party where everyone can party together!
GQ’s Nick Smith and Firass Dirani to his left
Sean Connolly
We’re being hosted by GQ magazine and Robbie Robertson, the Table4Ten chairman whose father underwent treatment for prostate cancer. In 2008 the event raised $100,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (PCFA). We’re lucky enough to be assigned a very rare place to dine-the Commonwealth Bank Vault which is rarely opened for special events. I am sitting next to chef Sean Connolly and the Restaurant Associates (which sounds like a band to me) who are creating the food for tonight. On my other side is Selina from Home Ideas Magazine who is a regular reader of Not Quite Nigella along with her office mates! The wines are by Glandore Estate wines who has supplied the wines for the last three Table4Ten events.
Appletini
King crab sandwiches
We’re served delicious Appletinis and canapes on our arrival. The King Crab sandwiches are a favourite of mine as I love a lovely, soft pillowy crab sandwich as it has microherbs sprinkled on top giving it a zingy flavour.
Goat’s cheese croquette with smoked paprika aioli
The goat’s cheese croquette is rich with the goat’s cheese and has a slightly mustardy flavour to it. The outside is crunchy and golden and the inside is soft and velvety.
Jamon Serrano wrapped watermelon and rockmelon
I get a stick of jamon serrano wrapped in a juicy cube of rockmelon which is refreshingly quenching, salty and rich at the same time.
Johnny Love Bite Gazpacho soup with poached lobster and prawns
I was very excited to see Johnny Love Bite tomatoes being used as these are my favourite tomatoes as they’re so sweet and flavoursome. Sean says that the grower slightly starves them just before they are harvested which brings out all of the flavour and this is the key to why they are so sweet and flavour packed. This is a delicate process though as if the farmer takes it too far, the whole crop is ruined. The cold gazpacho, which can sometimes be too acridly strong is tempered nicely with the sweet tomatoes and in the centre there is a tian of diced cold lobster and prawns with a wonderfully springy texture to them.
Sean Connolly
I chat to Sean about the challenges of cooking here as there is no commercial kitchen, only a reheating kitchen upstairs so the food had to be able to be prepared ahead of time. Now that he has famously quit his post at Astral and Sean’s Kitchen at Star City after being there for 15 years his plans now focus on travel and he is excited to go truffle hunting for in Italy for the first time as well as visit his 96 year old grandfather in Yorkshire.
“It seemed to come to as quite a shock to a lot of people around Sydney but not to me. I had been working on an exit strategy for at least 4 months. 15 years years is enough to give any company and I had built a fantastic platform during my time at Star & decided at the age of 43 it was now or never!” he says explaining his departure from Star City. He also adds that he will “consider carefully my next step to the future but there is no rush as I want to spend the summer with my wife & three children. Toby 7, Kiera 9 and Eliza 12″.
And what does he eat at home? He tells us that his wife Jo is actually an excellent cook (some joke better than he is) and his number one meal from her is sausages baked in the oven with some borlotti beans.
White wine Daube of Beef, pomme puree and dressed baby leaves
Our main is substantial and Wintery. The meat has been marinated in white wine and cooked for four hours so that it is incredibly soft. It sits on pommes puree (mashed potato), cubes of pork belly, slices of snow peas and soft, sweet eschallots. I know I’m supposed to be eating healthier in preparation for Summer and bikini weather but we can’t help ourselves.
Brillat Savarin with toasted organic fig and walnut bread
I’m always a bit secretly thrilled when we have something served at the table and they set down a square of toasted organic fig and walnut bread and Sean comes around and expertly spoons a quennelle of richly luscious cow’s milk brillat savarin brie from Normandy which has the consistency of triple cream.
Chocolate orange tart with creme fraiche and berries
Full disclosure here Dear Reader: I’m not a huge chocolate orange lover so I leave most of this behind (having hoovered up the savouries like we were trapped in a vault and the world was ending). The tart is silky smooth and I would have devoured this generous sized slice with gusto if it weren’t for the orange element. The strawberries are interesting-they are shaped by passing an apple corer through a whole strawberry. Sean laughs and laments “It was a bit of a waste of strawberries as we used one per piece”.
Hand made chocolate truffles
Coffee and tea is served along with some fabulous chocolate truffles. They are very smooth and not too bitter and not too sweet. And I may or may not have eaten three of them.
As the clock strikes 9:30pm our carriages await and we are transported to our mystery venue-the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art)! Now ladies, if you’re on the lookout, there’s definitely no man shortage here.
So tell me Dear Reader, where is the most unusual place that you’ve dined? Or somewhere unusual where you’ve always wanted to dine (for me, it’s probably Buckingham Palace or Graceland to try the Elvis strawberry cake! 
).
NQN dined as a guest of Robbie Robertson and GQ magazine
Table4Ten
Table4Ten is held in Sydney, Brisbane, Tasmania and Launceston
www.t4t.com.au
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42 Comments | Add your own
We dined in a car showroom earlier this year, as part of Wellington on a Plate, for a white-themed dinner – it’s very cool to have the norm challenged by mixing it up and your dinner looks awesome.
Fascinating post, thank you! How fun to sit next to Sean – I’ve been watching his Family Feast show and he seems such a nice guy!
What a cool atmosphere to have dinner in! I think your surroundings definitely affect how your meal goes – so this would be really cool!
Hmm.. the most unusual place i’ve dined… probably unknowingly next to a nuclear power generator on September 11, 2001. Lets just say we had a ridiculously stupid cab driver and the power generator was well hid. Once we found out where we were, we high tailed it back to the safety of our disneyland resort
I’m always dining in a bank. But just at my desk!
What a stunning venue – and teh perfect place to sahre such a wonderful dinner!
OOoo what an exquisite place to be dining at!! That Gazpacho soup looks divine!
Fanatastic story, I am so jealous, the food looks amazing and the location is just magic. It looks like a ballroom from a period movie! I would love a “Heston’s feast” in a European Castle”
Jokes aside, what a great cause
I like the jamon serrano – they look like roses.
I love that you’re looking after the single gals! There is a cafe in Melbourne, Mr Tulks, at the State Library that I simply cannot go into from fear of swooning… Although I have found that two children have somehow made me invisible to anyone of the opposite sex above the age of 3.5 years.
Wow, great post Lorraine – and what a spectacular location for a dining experience!! And for a great cause, of course…
The food looked really sublime, and I really liked the presentation of the brillat savarin quenelles and serrano forks.
I’m a big fan of Sean Connelly so it will be very interesting to see what Sean ends up doing after his well-deserved summer break with his family.
Now the most unual place where I ate was earlier this year at the “Nomiya” pop-up restaurant in Paris. Nomiya is a glass cube which contains a kitchen and table for 10. It’s on the roof of one of Paris’ most famous museums and has the most fantastic view over the Eiffel Tower. It was utterly surreal to be having a gastronomic meal so high in the sky!!Check out their video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cSndMQ4tEg
oh my gosh, that picture of the chocolate tart reminded me that i had a weird tart related dream.
the final picture looks like a vampire tea party.
What a spectacular setting for a meal. You almost feel like you need to tote along a few bars of gold for the occasion.
Oooh, loving the look of the menu, especially the crab sandwiches. I love them but hate making them as it’s so tricky to keep the shell out.
Probably my most unusual meal experiences were overseas – a picnic lunch on top of a snow-covered mountain; at a hut that you could only walk to high in the alps in Switzerland (We shared an excellent raclette); seated on cushions etc in tiny restaurants in Turkey, on the beach at Thailand and Malaysia. Best Aussie meal was probably being flown by sea plane to a deserted island and left with a gourmet picnic lunch, champers, chocolates etc.
I am more mesmerized by the bank vault than the dishes! I wish Singapore has ‘old world’ banks like these…
How fabulous! I love the atmosphere in old, grand banks, very Mad Men-esque.
*claps ecstatically* Let’s hear it for anti-orange in chocolate people!
Loving the look of the goat cheese croquettes… and is it just me, or is that woman in the first photo insanely tall?!
Amazing setting, I think that I loved the look and sound of everything served, normally there might be one dish in a review that I don’t really care for but every one of these looked delicious.
Wow! Brilliant venue.
Some years back we went to a fundraising dinner that was held in St.Peters Cathedral in Adelaide – that was pretty memorable!
What an awesome experience! (So cloak and dagger!) My most unusual dinner party was held in the middle of a large roundabout…all organized with waiters, fine china etc by an old (very old now!) boyfriend. I didn’t marry him…
The vault looks a tad eerie – but what an experience!
I swear you are the only person I have come across who gets to dined at such exotic & fabulous events & it is all work related! I would love to be in your shoes for 1 day & experience the life of NQN for 24 hrs – now that’s an idea for your next competition!
The most unusal place that I have dined in – with an Iban tribe (the indigenous people of Borneo Island) in a longhouse of which part of the decoration includes a human skull (Ibans are known to be head hunters in those days). How it came about is another story!
Oh WOW! That looks amazing. bank vault… now that is a location that I will like to have a meal at.
Sean’s comment that they wasted strawberries to create the perfect strawberry baton is a lesson in taking perfection too far! Given the amount of food wasted every day (I admit I’m not without guilt) and the fact that this was a charitable function, surely reason should have prevailed! As for the most interesting place I have dined, it was at the home of a tour guide in Alaska. He’d built the house out of trees that he had felled and served us moose burgers that he had made from a recent kill. It wasn’t fancy but it was memorable!
How fabulous! What a stunning dining location!
I happen to LOVE chocolate & orange combinations. The homemade truffles look delightful too.
I am struggling to think of an unusual dining experience. Perhaps when I was tucked away in a little corner of Marrakech, eating some sort of meat whilst sitting amongst sheep heads hung on wooden posts. Most likely the meat was in fact sheep’s head, but ignorance is bliss
Being a big architecture fan, I totally loved seeing the vaults of this bank, what a fabulous venue for a special dinner! I wonder who had to clean up afterwards, hehe!
What a gorgeous setting – love the interior. Would’ve been more appropriate to be sitting with the cast of Ocean’s Eleven plotting a bank heist!
I love the presentation of the forks on the platter – I’ve never seen them like that, but it makes so much sense to just be able to take one of the forks. Dining in a bank is very strange, but I imagine the atmosphere would be nice, with all the marble.
I haven’t dined anywhere unusual, but I would love to have a BBQ on the top of a snowy mountain. For some reason. No idea why, I just like BBQ’s.
What a unique experience – very few people get to see the inside of that bank vault I am sure! I want to eat in the underwater restaurant in Dubai… we can all dream
What a great idea for a fantastic cause. The idea of separate dinners around town and then meeting up afterwards is wonderful. THE CBA in town would have been a pretty amazing setting.
I’m the very lucky Selina from Home Ideas magazine who was also at the dinner! I think my squeals of delight echoed through the bank vault when I realised I was sitting beside Not Quite Nigella herself – what a fabulous surprise! And what a fabulous dinner it was! My favourite dish of the night was the white wine Daube of Beef with pomme puree – the meat just melted in my mouth – some way, some how I’m determined to re-create that dish!
Other than the Commonwealth Bank Vault, the most unusual place I’ve dined is the Sultan of Brunei’s super-yacht when it was moored in Manila Philippines back in the 90’s – a surreal experience!
x
I love the little platter of forks, they are very whimsical.
I would love to have a meal in an old barvarian style castle with a huge fireplace and suits of armour, very romantic!
I would love to host an underground restaurant and surprise my guests with weird and wonderful unusual venues- or non venues!
Wow – the food has me salivating!! What an impressive venue too!!! Top it off being for such a good cause – you must have had a perfect night!
See I agree with you on so many things but leaving most of that chocolate orange tart? :-O I’m aghast!!
Probably the most unusual place i’ve dined is on a dinghy in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. Somehow they managed to produce a feast of about 8 dishes in a kitchen smaller than a cupboard & serve it all hot!
I used to be a bank teller, and am feeling a little ripped off that not only did I not experience such foody joys at work, but I didn’t work in such a gorgeous setting!
Oh Lorraine I want some of those crab sandwiches so badly.
As they say, if you’re going to do a good deed, might as well do it in style! You certainly lived up to that. The unusual (what’s life without the quaint?) setting reminds me very much of those secretive dinner get-togethers (sort of like a blind date but with a group of like-minded food lovers instead). Everything looks fantastic! And I adore Sean Connelly; he seems to be such a gentle man with a deep appreciation for different cultural foods. I always appreciate that in a person.
Wow, now that’s different! I have a deposit box there! LOL
What a cool charity event! I love how the jamon serrano is wrapped around a fork. think I might steal that idea
This is a beautiful bank even on ground level with the tellers, and I marvel at it every time I walk in to do the simple task of banking. How special to be able to dine just outside the vault!
Lorraine so lovely to meet you on this night. What a fantastic write-up brought back many wonderful memories. From Chris, friend and fan, in the white
What an awesome experience & fabulously designed event, great idea. Wonderful review once again Lorraine, enjoyed every word imagining the flavours & textures.
Is that you in the 1st and the last pic?
The most impressive place I’ve ever dined was in the banqueting house at Hampton Court Palace unbelievably. I was working for an ad agency and was invited along by a gardening magazine. I ate lunch there and then wandered around the Hampton Court Flower Show. It was a surreal day! A bank vault looks like fun though!
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