Beau is a new restaurant, cafe and bar by the restaurant group that own NOMAD. The menu has a modern Australian take on Middle Eastern food. Located on Reservoir Street right near Central Station it is open for lunch and dinner and breakfast on weekends. There's "Beau by day" for lunch and "Beau by Night" for dinner as well as Beau bar. So what is it like?
This is our second attempt to go to Beau. The first one had to be cancelled because Mr NQN got COVID and so we are back two weeks later as they let us postpone our booking. We are visiting Beau with Mrs Martin and Martin who love trying new restaurants. We enter through Fracks Lane and the restaurant is split into two dining rooms as well as having some outdoor tables. There is one dining room with the open kitchen while the other one has the bar attached to it which is where we are sitting. The setting is darkly lit, sexy and very Surry Hills. Service is friendly and quite attentive without being overwhelming. I scan the menu and my brow furrows. It looks different from what I read at the end of the last year as the restaurant's opening had many delays. I had expected a seafood heavy menu with seafood platters but head chef Ibrahim Kasif exited the project prior to it properly opening. Exec chef Jacqui Challinor has taken his place.
Mrs Martin and Martin have wine from the extensive wine list while Mr NQN and I like the non alcoholic cocktails. It's the TINA 1.0 for me and a non alcoholic G&T for Mr NQN that tastes pretty close to the real thing.
Given the name when it opened was "Beau and Dough" and promised Manoush all day every day from 7am until late, I had hopes of seeing it on the dinner menu, sort of like that incredible bread at NOMAD (I'm also a freak for fresh bread). However that's is not to be at dinner as the manoush pizza is only available at lunch. In fact looking at the lunch menu I think I'd pick that over the dinner one. The bread course at dinner is Pioik Bakery's ciabatta bread served with whipped almond cream and a chilli and garlic oil which is good for dragging torn pieces of the ciabatta in.
We end up going with a lot of the waitress's recommendations which included these rabbit and duck rillettes on thinnish sourdough toast. The luscious rillettes are paired with pickled cherries. It's nice seeing rillettes made with meat other than pork and the rabbit and duck never quite verges into gamey territory, it's more like duck confit flavours.
The padron peppers are served blistered but the portions are a bit uneven with 6 peppers, 4 anchovies and 7 pieces of bread. This is well seasoned and a tasty entree.
The cucumber comes as large pieces roasted and then sprinkled with Isot pepper on a bed of whipped feta. This dish needed more seasoning as the feta was a very mild feta and we end up using some of the anchovies from the above dish to season the cucumber.
I had visions of a blooming onion made with mushrooms where you pick off a mushroom individually (could be done with a bunch of shimejis no?) but these are individual oyster mushrooms that are battered and deep fried and served on a bed of kombu and macadamia puree. It's delicious and crunchy and Martin is a big fan of these as he loves deep fried food.
Reading up prior to our visit to Beau there was supposed to be a big range of seafood on the menu with seafood platters but there's no more seafood on the menu than on a typical restaurant menu so perhaps things have changed in the short time they've been open. Mrs Martin doesn't eat red meat so her pick was the WA Marron. The grilled marron comes out split in half and covered in mushroom XO. The marron is perfectly cooked and the XO sauce has a different flavour profile, less punchy and strong than a regular XO sauce with a distinct mushroom flavour to it.
While I'm usually about entrees I'd actually suggest skipping straight to the mains and by the mains I mean the slow roasted lamb neck which is fallapart soft with spices like sumac on a bed of sweet and sour eggplant and onions. It's divine, every bite begging for more and the sweet and sour eggplant, fresh mint and lamb are a match made in heaven.
Also the fries were perfect - golden and freshly fried (and yes I'm that person that always asks for fries to come out extra hot, lukewarm fries are not worth the calories). They come with a creamy anchovy taramasalata which is nice albeit salty (as expected).
There are three desserts in total with one cheese course and two sweet ones so we order one of each sweet ones to share. The soft chocolate is completely unexpected in that it isn't soft at all. It's a fridge-firm fruity chocolate ganache drizzled in extra virgin olive oil and flakes of sea salt. It's incredibly rich and even between the four of us we barely make a dent in it. It would really benefit from being softer and taken out of the fridge sooner (or maybe take off the word "soft" from the description as Mr NQN mumbles, "I think they forgot the soft").
We were all much more taken with the yogurt sorbet, a tangy yet sweet frozen confection topped with pale green fig leaf granita which has a light almond-ish flavour. It's paired with pomegranate arils and fresh, torn figs and is beautifully refreshing after a rich meal.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you had to postpone many events and restaurants bookings because of COVID and was it ever an issue? Are you a freak for bread when eating out?
This meal was independently paid for.
Beau
52 Reservoir St, Surry Hills NSW 2010
Bar + Kitchen Lunch from 12pm, Wednesday – Sunday. Dinner, 7 days a week.
Breakfast Saturday & Sunday from 9am
https://beau.sydney/
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