Wickens

For my birthday this year we travelled to Dunkeld for dinner at Wickens restaurant. The room is quite lovely, tables set out overlooking the bush seen through the full windows to the side – it was hard to photograph as you can see. But you got to see wallabies feeding outside.

Here is the interior; carpeted floor, elegant lighting. Guests able to observe the kitchen at one end, the other wall covered in alluring bottles. It reminded me of the layout of Troisgros the French restaurant filmed by Frederick Wiseman.

Here’s the menu – the one I received had Happy Birthday at the top.

First up the canapés – which were spectacular. They came in a different order to the menu. This is a plate which reflects the layout of the kitchen garden – from which came most of the vegetables presented. The Wickens version of tomatoes on toast on the left was wonderful – no fuller description required, so full of flavour. On the right we have the doughnut of smoked lamb belly, black garlic, mint and eucalyptus yoghurt. Tasted terrific, but slightly strange texture – covered with a sugar-like substance and which was sweetish.

And these pretty things were absolutely amazing. The multi-coloured one was tart of fermented kohlrabi, hemp seed puree, apple marigold. Also on the plate is the watermelon, frozen sardine parfait, anise-hysop – really cold and bracing but amazing conjunction of flavours. Amazing.

This is the first item on the menu, although it was served last; a mille-feulle of beetroot and goat cheese, sugar-beet caramel. I, who am not so keen on beetroot, loved every mouthful. So pretty, so delicate.

I was too excited to photograph the purple corn pudding, sweetcorn mousse, sunflower seeds, tarragon but it too was delicious. This is the crayfish tartare, ice-cream, toasted rice, celtuce, thai spices which was my dish of the evening. Again, I’m not that keen on the taste of crayfish but I found this very tasty without being overpowering, although it was extremely rich. That’s crayfish ice-cream on top. It was served with a 2013 chateau rieussec ‘carmes de rieussec’, semillon blend, sauternes, france which was the perfect accompaniment.

This was a little taste cleanser preparatory to the main courses. My basil noodles spelt out Happy Birthday while the others got Wickens. A tomato flavoured clear sauce was then poured over.

After a slice (tiny taste for me) of stout & golden linseed sourdough with cultured brewers malt butter we moved on to the first of three main courses. This is steamed blue eye, zucchini flower, pickled clams, marjoram which was a fully flavoured fish dish – a bit too much so for me. Beautifully presented.

This great ocean duck, meadowsweet custard, fermented rhubarb was more to my liking. Duck perfectly aged and cooked, the trimmings perfect.

I had room for only a small taste of the royal mail beef, green manure, snake beans, bordolaise sauce before passing the rest to Joe. It was very good and would have been wonderful – on its own! An amazing rich sauce. I couldn’t quite recognise the green manure which didn’t sound all that inviting.

This is compressed plum, tomato sorbet, quark, plum wine which I liked a lot although the sorbet was surprisingly crunchy .

And this final dessert peaches and cream swiss roll, poached peaches, biscoff ice cream looked far too good to eat! Although that might have been my tummy talking.

I loved everything about this restaurant: the room, the service, the presentation of the food – wonderful crockery, the ambience. Everything. It’s well worth a visit. We stayed in one end of this beautiful old refurbished workers cottage.

It had a back verandah where we had breakfast on each of the two mornings we were there. Where we were joined by a lonely yellow horse.

And the occasional kangaroo.

Great views of Mount Sturgeon – so named because it resembles the bony spine of the fish of that name.

Here’s the view from our bathroom window.

Joe got into bird watching.

The people from the Royal Mail picked us up each evening taking us into our meals. The first night at the Parker Street Project which is the bistro located in the hotel. Which was very good – but no pictures. The second night to Wickens which is located just behind and to the right of the hotel. It gave us a good chance to speak to the people working there. Most from overseas – France, Slovenia, Italy. Most have only been there a few years. They like getting away to Melbourne for the weekend. They’ve had a tough time since the fires in December – January but numbers of guests are picking up. It’s a great way to spend a couple of nights. And cheaper than going to France.