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Berowra Waters Inn, Berowra

Good Food Guide’s Best New Restaurant of the Year 

Birthday dinner #[something] was celebrated at the newly crowned Sydney’s 2009 Best New Restaurant of the year, Berowra Waters Inn. Situated 45 minutes or so north of the city, Berowra is a nice leafy suburb on the fringe of Sydney. For me, this was closer than travelling to the city so we found this very convenient. There are two roads down to Berowra Waters depending which part of Sydney you’re coming from. As there is no car access to the restaurant, they provide a private ferry service from a public wharf. I thought this was one of the “cool” and unique things about this place.

But what a drama-filled night we had! Firstly, we didn’t see a sign that said “Gates are locked at 7pm”. We had just arrived at 6:55pm and by the time we walked from the car to the wharf, the gates were closed and locked. FAIL #1. Luckily, my brother was close by, so he kindly came to pick us up afterwards. Also, there is hardly/no mobile reception down at Berowra Waters. So after dinner, we were taken back to shore… and alas my brother was nowhere to be seen. After walking around for a few minutes and me profusely unable to call him, luckily I remembered he *may* have come down the other road, so J caught the car ferry to the other side of the river. Thank goodness he was there! So FAIL #2.
Just a warning foodie friends!

Welcome to Berowra Waters Inn

But back to our wonderful dining experience …

What I like about Berowra Waters is that they change their menus every weekend. It shows how creative the chef can be with the type of cuisine and their produce and ingredients. In 2007, Dietmar Sawyere of Forty One, took over and re-invented the vibe that once surround this modern-designed restaurant located at a waterside location by Berowra Waters.
There is a choice of four, five or six degustation courses to choose from a variety of dishes. J chooses the six course and I choose the five. Prior to this night, we studied the menu to strategically choose different dishes to try.

As a “pre-dinner snack”, we were given…

I am a HUGE fan of roe so I munched this down very slowly. It was a nice stater to open up my taste buds and palette. I thought the crisp bread overpowered the salmon and roe a little bit though, but still great!

The bread and butter was tops! The butter was a french butter – thick and creamy. J couldn’t stop himself from devouring the whole thing. The sad part of this was, we had to ASK for the bread (the waitress had given bread to the table next to us LONG before their meals started. *tsktsk*.)

I love how restaurants serve these espresso sized soups as part of the meal. It’s simple and gives that extra touch to the experience. Corn is one of my favourite vegetables and I’m overjoyed when I hear tonight’s soup is sweet corn soup. The soup had a nice corny and creamy flavour to it. What a great start!

This was my FAVOURITE meal of the night…. only because of the caviar. The caviar was nicely complimented by the savoury flavour of the chilled vichyssoise (as wikipedia tells me is a french-style soup). The oyster beignets could be describe in simple terms as a “tempura oyster”. It was FABULOUS. The crunch factor was still there and the oyster was very fresh and juicy.

J’s first meal. The quail egg was cooked just to perfection.. the yolk was still runny. The creme accentuated the sweetness of the white asparagus.

The sea scallop was cooked near rare. It cut through very easily and the meat was simple and fresh. The pigs trotter wasn’t what we expected. J didn’t realise that was the pigs trotter and thought it was average.

The BEST part of this dish were the salted grapes. It gave an interesting sweet flavour to the fish when eaten together and was a wonderful accompaniment for the whole dish. I savored every grape till the end.

 mmmm! The ocean trout was cooked just as I liked it – rare. Interestingly, there was a paper-thin piece of “bacon” on top of this. It added an extra tinge of saltiness to the trout. Very nice!

The truffled potato butter was FANTASTIC! I’m a HUGE fan of truffle. I order truffle whenever I get the chance Chanterelles is a type of mushroom (as wikipedia tells me). I nicely drown each piece in the truffled butter. The langosutine (yabby-like crustacean) was wrapped in a spring-roll type skin, which made it very crunchy (I drown this in the sauce too).

This dish was ordered because of the buffalo mozzarella – a trip to Italy converted me into a buffalo mozzarella lover. I like the weak flavour of the mozzarella and this went well with the tense flavour of the aubergine (otherwise known as eggplant).

In recent times, I’ve seen MANY restaurants serving their dishes with “micro” leaves and herbs. I’m loving this! Just because they are micro, the herb flavour is not lost… in fact, I think it’s stronger! Small doses = big flavour.

As quoted by J: “This is the best quail I’ve ever had EVER.” (he’s only said this once for every type of meat, so this is a rare statement.) The quail was cooked medium rare. Every bite J took of the quail, out came a “mmmmm” to follow. He says the meat is very soft, tender and very juicy. Definitely a dish to try!

The plate of this dish was pretty cool. I liked how there was a little part for the sauce. The pork was cooked medium rare and the salted walnuts added that special touch to this dish.

By the end of our “main” degustation sized meals, we were utterly stuffed! Then, I remembered… DESSERT!

I found the champagne froth a little strong but enjoyed the jelly immensely! It was a nice sweetish flavour. Nothing too overpowering.

Minimum of 2 guests only. This was a selection of all the desserts including:

The granita had a very strong coffee flavour but when sampled with the mascarpone, it taste just like a drinkable coffee.

I LOVED the tart! Usually I don’t like lemon tarts because of their strong lemony flavour, but this was JUST right – not too strong but just enough lemon. The sweet basil sorbet was “interesting” – not a strong basil flavour but I wasn’t sure that this was suppose to go with the tart…

MMMM! This was wonderful! The raspberries were nice and sweet and I love the berry sorbet & vanilla bean ice cream combination. My favourite!

The panna cotta was nice and creamy but not too creamy that it would break easily. There was some dark chocolate served with this – one of the BEST chocolate I’ve ever had. I couldn’t stop eating it. It was not too dark, creamy and tasted wonderful with the panna cotta.

Sadly, because I knew my brother was waiting for me, we passed on the petit fours and tea/coffee. At Forty-one, the tea was the BEST part of the meal. Oh well.

Overall, Berowra Waters Inn is a fantastic dining “experience” for those after romance, relaxation and fine food. I have HIGHLY recommended this place to many of my couple-y friends. Service could be better because, to be honest, it is the ONE thing that ruined this whole experience – it wasn’t what I expected but it wasn’t entirely bad either.

HOWEVER, it does deserve its “Best New Restaurant of the year” title for the food, decor, atmosphere, interior design and location. I just LOVE the fact you have to catch a private ferry to the restaurant… *sigh & grin*

Berowra Waters Inn

Website: Berowra Waters Inn
Pick up by private ferry
Public Wharves (east and west) 
Berowra Waters NSW 2082
Phone (02) 9456 1027
Fax (02) 9456 2027