» Article from Sydney Morning Herald
The summary Former Galileo chef Haru Inukai's Japanese-Franco bistro is a pleasing mix of well-priced local, comforting, assured flavours and wide-eyed innovation.
SOMETIMES, you can take the chef out of the fine diner but you can't take fine dining out of the chef.
Haru Inukai spent four years wowing diners with fancy-pants fare at the Observatory Hotel's luxe Galileo restaurant. In August, he downsized to open a bistro under the former Sebel Townhouse. It's Sunday night and he has a very special special. He's just spent three nights back at his alma mater cooking extravagant $600 degustation dinners with Iron Chefs Chen and Sakai. Perhaps that explains why he's just paid $10,000 a kilogram for white Alba truffle and is offering it with a fried egg ($30) at Blancharu.
A frying pan arrives containing two sunny-faced eggs smeared with mushroom puree. Inukai begins shaving truffle into the pan, where the warmth releases the exquisite perfume.
It's simple yet spectacular, so it seems churlish to wish the eggs were infused with the truffle's scent, yet it would make a difference.
Thankfully, the balance of the menu is sensible, nourishing bistro fare, so you needn't worry about blowing the Government's $1000 handout in one go. Entrees are well under $20, mains less than $40. The effort that goes into each dish makes them exceedingly good value.
His years of high end, Japanese-influenced French cooking - with Joel Robuchon in Japan, beside Tony Bilson at Ampersand, followed by the ephemerally brilliant Restaurant VII - produced a habit that's hard to break.
His purest moments produce refined and remarkable bistro dishes such as tempura zucchini flowers filled with an ethereal shinjo-style (no cream) cuttlefish mousse ($15) and a main of perfectly seared, buttery and lush Tajima wagyu scotch fillet ($39) with a layered potato cake, lifted by a gingery ponzu sauce. Both are delightful.
But the chef is also prone to the curious adventures. Roasted eggplant caviar, which forms a plinth for fine slivers of marinated octopus, accompanied by a red capsicum sauce ($14), reminds me of the childhood nightmare of curried egg sandwiches, since this entree reeks of curry powder like a cheap bathroom deodoriser.
... Simon Thomsen