The Brix, revisited

The Brix
Rear 412 Brunswick Street (cnr Westgarth St), Fitzroy (map)
9417 6114 (phone bookings taken)
Open lunch Friday & Saturday, dinner Tuesday to Saturday
website


I'm moving house on Monday, so since my trip to Hong Kong and an intense week of movie-going at MIFF (11 films in 8 days!) my life is a blur of packing boxes, utilities disconnections and mail redirection.

But I'm coming up for air to publish a post about The Brix, the Fitzroy restaurant modelled loosely on Le Chateaubriand in Paris. I wrote about The Brix shortly after it first opened a year ago, and I was saddened to read in this week's Espresso column in Epicure that the restaurant is now on the market. It's been a difficult journey for co-owners Emma O'Mara and Keir Vaughan: they lost their head chef, sous chef and pastry chef in February and were forced to close for a week or two, but then reopened with new head chef Ashly Hicks (who came down from Brisbane's Buffalo Club). I dined at The Brix last month with a friend and had a sublime meal - I'm afraid I've only got time to post the photos with brief descriptions, but I urge you to get down there while you've still got the chance and enjoy the set menu.


There's an à la carte bistrot menu, but the best option is definitely the five course set menu ($90, or $70 for vegetarian if you give them notice). The five course set menu comes with an amuse and a cleanser, and there's also an optional additional cheese course (when my friend and I dined there, the cheese course was comped). The dishes were certainly intricate as you can see below, but they never felt fussy or overworked.


The amuse-bouche was a miniature sandwich of pain d’épices (similar to gingerbread) filled with duck parfait and topped with dabs of rhubarb juice gel and espresso gel and a few mache and baby coriander leaves.


The first course was a riot of purple, featuring venison that had been cured for 24 hours, dried for seven days and then dehydrated. There was also a thin slice of raw venison, beetroots cooked in juniper salt, oven roasted and raw, juiced red cabbage foam, candied chilli, Ossau-Iratty, chickpeas and red cabbage leaf.


The second course consisted of South Australian squid shaved and confit in hazelnut oil, together with fried squid tentacles, variations of cauliflower (juice, a charcoaled floret, slow roasted, dehydrated then thinly sliced), lardo, pig's ears, roasted squid powder and parsley oil.


The third course was Bundarra Berkshires pork shoulder with celeriac cooked in a salt crush and coated in ash (from a vine branch), thin sheets of roasted celeriac, pickled celeriac, a celeriac ribbon boiled in chicken stock, burnt onion juice, slow roasted onion petals, caramelised onion paper and onion flowers.


The fourth course was Aylesbury duck breast (cooked sous vide at 58 degrees for 45 minutes) with rendered fat, roasted parsnip, a parsnip and vanilla puree, a celery juice gel, buttered celery, crisped chestnuts and duck sauce.


Then out came a "cucumber ice" palate cleanser: a gin and tonic foam made from Tanqueray and tonic water. The garnish was compressed cucumber dusted with dill pollen and juniper salt.


The cheese course that was comped: Langres rolled in dried mushroom powder, fresh walnuts, fried and raw enoki mushrooms, raw pine mushrooms and crisped leek roots. It came with a mushroom consommé, which was poured at the table.


The dessert course was a chocolate mousse made from 66% Valrhona chocolate, served with grapefruit gel and the most beautiful candied grapefruit wheel. There was also a house-made buttermilk and vanilla purée, toasted meringues, lychee and a sprinkling of chocolate cookie crumbs.


And just when we thought it was all over red rover, out came an additional sweet snack: sensational pumpkin doughnuts in a bag! They were made from a sweet pumpkin and beurre noisette purée, rolled in candied seeds and nuts and sprinkled with cumin. Wee bottles of vanilla and malt milkshake with red and white stripey straws were an additional playful touch.

The Brix comes to Fitzroy

The Brix Cafe and Bistrot
Rear 412 Brunswick Street (cnr Westgarth St), Fitzroy (map)
9417 6114
website

Tuesday 6pm-late, Wednesday-Friday 12pm-3pm, 6pm-late
Saturday, 8am-3pm, 6pm-late, Sunday 8am-long lunch
(Set menu Friday, Saturday nights & Sunday lunch)


The Brix is the snappy new kid on the Brunswick Street block, run by Emma O’Mara and Keir Vaughan. It's a modern French bistro, with ex-Royal Mail Hotel chefs Joel Alderson and Daniel Dobra in the kitchen. Ainslie Lubbock, also formerly at the Royal Mail and more recently at Attica, helped put the excellent wine list together.

Emma's background in interior design has really paid dividends, particularly when you consider what the site looked like before.


I went along with my housemate J on a Tuesday night not long after it had opened, when every second table seemed to be someone from the industry (I counted three local restaurateurs and one major newspaper restaurant critic). We were seated in the narrow vestibule dotted with hanging plants which links the main room to the outdoor courtyard.


Over dinner we shared a bottle of 2009 Paul Janin et Fils Moulin-à-Vent Clos du Tremblay, a pleasantly chewy and weighty Gamay.

The à la carte menu (which is available Tuesday-Thursday) is simple: five entrées, four mains and on the night we visited two specials. Unfortunately for my vegetarian housemate there was only one vegetarian dish listed (an entrée), but when we asked the kitchen was happy to prepare a vegetarian main for him.

I had a sensational entrée special of marron poached in a rich and viscous roasted chicken broth, with very fresh roasted baby artichokes and tiles of crisp chicken skin ($17). J had the equally good shallot and Banyuls caramel tarte tatin, which was served with a dollop of fromage blanc and a baby leaf salad ($15). The pastry was buttery and crisp on the bottom, and the sweet shallots were still a bit sharp. Great stuff.


After a very very long wait between courses (hopefully just the teething problems of a new restaurant still finding its feet) our mains arrived. My main of roast beef came with smoked spring onion, leek, potato red wine and braised tendon ($32). Holy hell, the texture and concentrated flavour of those strips of mucilaginous tendon was pretty damn outrageous. J's off-the-menu vegetarian main consisted of smoked oven roasted vegetables, including heirloom carrots, spring onions, leeks and potatoes, served with a nettle sauce. He wasn't crazy about the nettle sauce, but really appreciated the quality of the young vegetables.


We shared a $14 dessert of chestnut, honey, apple and date, served in the deconstructed-mélange-of-flavours-and-textures style that's so popular these days. The chestnut purée was a winner, as were the supersoft apple meringue and chewy, candied date crumbs. We were split on the slivers of raw chestnut: J hated them, but I loved the dry crisp texture.


I went back two weeks later with T and our friend F, cos I wanted to see it during daylight and to try out the breakfast menu. The space is even better looking during the day (as Essjay and Jess noted, it's no mean feat to get that much natural light into a narrow south facing room).


The menu cover reproduces a section of the remarkable commissioned painting on the north wall of the restaurant: it looks like one of those Dutch 17th century banquet still lifes, but updated with a few choice contemporary objects (like a toy train and an electric guitar).


The aforementioned painting, in situ.


I ordered the cured ocean trout, which came with a zippy little sauce "bois bourdan" (I think it's meant to be "bois boudran", a shallot, worcestershire sauce, tabasco and fresh herb vinaigrette), and lovely soft coddled egg and brioche ($16). T got his protein and iron on with rich black pudding, fried duck egg, brioche and an apple, cider and sorrel salad ($16).


Our friend F (one of the 310Fitzroy crew - check out their brilliant new food blog here) ordered a dish you don't often see on a breakfast menu: pork cassoulet with baked egg, persillade and rye bread ($17).


Having all the floor staff wear black skinny jeans, white shirts and braces is a little precious, but the space is brilliant and I love what I've seen so far from the menu and wine list. Particularly keen to go back in a few weeks to try the five course fixed price dinner ($80 per head) served on Friday and Saturday nights. Very promising, go check it out.

And be sure to give the life sized pig statue a pat on the way out.