Restaurant Arras, Walsh Bay
It’s been a few months since I’ve had a decent meal at a nice restaurant. My recent trip to Japan and Hong Kong sent me broke and quite frankly I just got sick of eating degustations and modern interpretations of French food. I went back to eating at my local restaurants, big bowls of soup noodles and big plates of crispy fried pork with combination fried rice. Sometimes, this type of food hits the spot just as well as an exquisite meal at a hatted restaurant or the like.
However, It was Linda’s birthday recently and we were on the lookout of trying something new and out of the ordinary. I read about Restaurant Arras on Good Living as well as another blog and it looked like the type of restaurant I was after. A restaurant which did more than Modern French and which stretched the boundaries a bit. Another bonus for me was the relatively quiet surroundings of Walsh Bay, it’s a nice area of the Sydney CBD just a few minutes from the Rocks.
Restaurant Arras is considered a Modern British restaurant, with many of dishes having an English background but a modern interpretation. It’s a refreshing change and I’m genuinely excited about what is to come.
As usual we opt for the degustation. Linda has started a no meat diet recently, so she gets the seafood substitutions for her portions. There are quite a few photos, so I’m going to try and keep the content short and sweet. I see this as more of a photo centric view of the restaurant, so people who search for Restaurant Arras and end up at our blog can see what they can expect if they were to dine there. You can only imagine so much from a menu, since it only has the creative names for the dishes rather than what the contents of them are. Feel free to read Good Living and Gourmet Traveller for a ‘professional’ opinion.
As soon as we are seated we are given a bowl of bread crisps, house made and of various flavours. My favourite would be the fennel seeds, but the poppy seed and caraway seed ones weren’t too bad either. I found the crisps a nice gesture, it gave us time to have a snack while taking our time mulling over the menu. I don’t see this often at Restaurants in Sydney, it’s a refreshing change.
Amuse Bouche
The amuse bouche looks very delicate and refreshing. It’s a relief that it isn’t an oyster, I’m not a big of Oyster’s as a starter. This however contains fragrant crab and smooth avocado in the form of consomme. It’s light but flavourful, with the micro herbs ensuring I keep my five vegetables a day intake intact.
Entrees – Mains
The raw and the cooked
This dish was a feast on the eyes, a dazzling array of colours and textures which kept me fixated for a good moment. It’s a salad which is focussed on copious amounts of vegetables and micro herbs. There is a mixture of puree and pickled vegetable, edible flowers, tiny peas … you name it and it has it. What made this dish so good was all the contrasting texture, from the smoothness of the puree to the crunch of the peas.
Left to right : Smoked, roast & dressed, Quinoa Kedgeree, A Pickled Onion, Birds of a feather
The first dish was good, but I found the sardines to be a little too ‘fishy’. However, I then ate all the ingredients together and it tasted a lot better, which I am sure is what the Chef intended. There is a piece of thin crisp fennel on the top and roasted peanuts scattered around. Out of the four dishes above my favourite would be the second one, the Quinoa Kedgeree. Kedgeree is a traditional English breakfast with influences from India. Instead of normal eggs and flaked fish, the clever Adam Murphy substitutes it with quail egg and smoked eel. Everything here just works in unison, and I can see how it historically became a breakfast dish.
Third and Fourth dishes were the Pickled Onion and Birds of a Feather. The picked onion was a slow roasted whole onion, to the extent where it tastes almost like a paste or a jam. It’s surprisingly sweet but a bit heavy. The horseradish creme and honey walnuts flank the onion and complement this unique dish perfectly. Birds of a Feather is a three-piece terrine, but I can’t remember exactly what is made out of.
Left to right : St Clements Duck, Vegetarian substitute
As you can probably see, the duck was cooked perfectly and very tender. The duck itself isn’t seasoned with any specific, with the scattering of side sauces doing the flavour work. I can’t remember exactly what sits beneath the duck, it wasn’t potato. Linda had the vego substitute which looked just as good , if not better than my duck dish. The highlight for her was the baby prawns on the side with the avocado puree in the cone.
This was another vego substitute but it was a fantastic one. More often than not, the vego substitute dishes at restaurants are not as good as their marquee dishes. But it’s fair to say that Arras keeps all types of diets happy. Sitting on a bed of lentils is the spiced mulloway and a rye crisp type of thing. The mulloway was soft and flakey with the crust having great flavour and a crunchy texture. The lentils originally came with bacon, but once the waiter realised this he came back with a small pot of lentils without bacon in them. A nice gesture I thought, without having to take the entire dish back to the kitchen.
Slow cooked lamb, Lavender & Honey sweetbreads
By this stage my stomach is saying ‘please no more’ but my knife and fork has other ideas. It’s probably a good thing that this dish is quite small, but the quality of what is on the plate is awesome. It’s been a while since I’ve tasted lamb this good, so tender and flavoursome.
Dessert
Left to right : Pre dessert, Coulant au Chocolat - Michel Bras (additional cost)
If the meal was to stop here I’d still walk out a very happy customer. But of course, no meal is complete without dessert. When the pre-dessert came out I thought it was the dessert itself. Not only were the portions generous, but the contents of it was good enough to be a normal dessert itself. There was apple crumble, bits of jam, ice cream and sorbet.
We also ordered an extra dessert on the side to go with the main dessert which you will see below since Linda loves chocolate. It’s a chocolate fondant at it’s best, gooey and creamy chocolate inside a slightly crunchy pudding. A scoop of creamy ice cream on top makes this my favourite dessert of the night.
An Adolescent Breakfast
This is another clever name for a dish, the adolescent breakfast. The presentation here is creative and fun, especially the tooth paste tube filled with cream. It’s been a while since I’ve had the dinner so naturally I forgot what kind of cake it was, but it contained caramel and chocolate. Up top was something which I think is meant to resembled yoghurt crumble, but instead of yoghurt a vanilla sorbet was used. I love the idea of the tooth paste tube for the cream, it’s very creative and it’s nice to see a Sydney restaurant cross the borders of art and food.
Left to right : honey comb from the petit fours slab
Now not only is my stomach telling me to stop eating, but my mind is in defensive mode too. I can’t possibly fit any more food in my stomach but I do remember reading about the legendary petit fours ‘slab’. From the corner of my eye I could see the waiter walking with the massive slab of treats, he looked like a pretty fit man but even this was giving his arms an ever so slight work out. These petit fours are nothing I have ever seen in Sydney, it’s like walking into a lollie shop as a kid and not knowing what to buy. The only difference here is that you can pick whatever and as much as you want. Off the top of my head there were chocolates, caramel chews, jellies, coconut balls, honeycomb and maybe even a shortbread somewhere. The petit fours alone are something I am going to look forward to the next time I dine at Restaurant Arras, which I hope is in the near future.
I’ve only dined here once but Restaurant Arras is up there with my favourite restaurants right now. The food is inventive and creative but you can still see the traditional British influences. The restaurant is in a nice location away from the hustle and bustle of the city and it seems the Chef is quite passionate about his food and the aesthetics of his restaurant. From the crisp breads once we were seated and to the epic array of petit fours, this is what I call a meal which is an end to end success. It’s received it’s One Hat and rightly so, there is only one way up for these guys I suspect.
Restaurant Arras
24 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay NSW
(02) 9252 6285
www.restaurant-arras.com.au
Author
By Howard
We started eatshowandtell in 2008, it was meant to be just a journal of where we ate. The first thing I usually do when I'm looking for a restaurant is check out eatability and the restaurant website. But what is usually missing is pictures of the food, how do I know I'm getting what I expect? This blog hopefully plugs that gap.
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This article was written on 01 Apr 2010, and is filed under Degustation, Dinner, English, Lunch, Sydney, CBD.
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the presentation looks very creative. wonderful photos. although i wonder how they would cater for a real vegetarian which means no meat and seafood. you can’t really call yourself a vegetarian and have seafood now
.-= Simon Food Favourites´s last blog ..Efendy: Lamb Testicles and other authentic Turkish meze, Balmain (28 Mar 2010) =-.
Totally agree, she is not a real Vegetarian! But I am sure they can cater for non meat and seafood eaters.
love their use of colours!
walked past there last night.. i like how its out of the way!
Stunning stuff! Their food AND your photos
.-= Tina´s last blog ..Street treats =-.
Just leave me alone with the bread crisps for awhile
.-= Fiona´s last blog ..Apparently, Zombie Jesus is ‘Blasphemous’ =-.
Looks delightful! Photos are great as always … Lavender and honey a favourite combo as are sweetbreads a fave food. thx @frombecca
.-= Rebecca @ InsideCuisine.com´s last blog ..salt and salmon = gravlax =-.
I want my own petit fours slab! And I would be so tempted to choose everything from it too!
The food looks marvelous, maybe I need to send hints to the biy to take me here. It looks wonderful!
.-= Phuoc’n Delicious´s last blog ..Reminiscing: Palmiers from the food markets of Nice (France) =-.
We had the dego at Arras a while ago and we stayed close to midnight. The food just kept coming. The petit four slab is an awesome concept.
The waiter who served you is likely to be Alon Sharman, the restaurant manager. He’s an ex-Quay
That's him, his name escaped me. Nice bloke, not too intrusive just lets you enjoy the food but is there when you need him.
It’s the feasting of the eyes! Absolutely stunning plating and presentation. It’s too beautiful to eat them.
.-= Ellie (Almost Bourdain)´s last blog ..Poppy Seed and Walnut Potica with Coffee Glaze (Slovenian Nut Roll) =-.
I love the Adolescent Breakfast what a creative idea.
.-= Mark @ Cafe Campana´s last blog ..Easter Creation – White Chocolate & Macadamia Hot Cross Buns =-.
That slab of petit fours is wow! Did you just ask him to leave the slab at your table
?
.-= FFichiban´s last blog ..Band of Brasserie Bread – Sydney CBD =-.
He said we could have as many as we liked, which was nice! Might ask for doggy back next time
Wonderful photos that do their presentation justice, bravo! The food is so artful here that every dish is like a gallery piece. I hope more people visit because each time I’ve been it’s been only half full, which is a real shame.
I noticed that as well, it's a shame but I think it is either early days or maybe because of the location. Either way I hope they stick around, they are really doing something different for Sydney.
Fantastic place, marvelous food
wish we had more places like this one.
"eatswell&tell" team I love your work!
This really is art on a plate. Looks amazing
.-= john@heneedsfood´s last blog ..Malacca Straits, Ultimo =-.
Ahhh, the home of the infamous petits fours tray! Must get myself here soon if only for that, although I definitely agree the artistic naming and presentation of the main dishes are something to be admired in itself.
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