RESTAURANT NEWS
TOKYO
There are strict rules at the newly opened Out in Shibuya: no menu, no bookings – just fresh truffle pasta, red wine and Led Zeppelin on vinyl. Melbourne restaurateur David Mackintosh (Pei Modern, Lee Ho Fook and Ides) is behind the “one dish, one wine, one artist” concept. If you’re lucky enough to snag one of the 13 seats, it’s not a bad deal: 150 grams of fresh pasta with five grams of truffle and a glass of red will set you back 4,000 yen ($46). SINGAPORE
Joining an impressive contingent of Australian chefs in Singapore (Tetsuya Wakuda, David Thompson, Dave Pynt), Automata chef Clayton Wells will open
Blackwattle in September, a 50-seater on buzzy Amoy Street in Chinatown. While he’s not sure what’s on the menu yet, as in Australia, the main event will be a set five-course menu. The restaurant will also open for lunch. MELBOURNE
The Grossi family is opening a late-night bar in Mornane Place, the grungy lane running behind their flagship Florentino restaurant. Designed by
Six Degrees architects and tipped to open as we go to press, Arlechin will feature bar food such as jaffle Bolognese, duck and porcini pies and prawn cutlets with wasabi mayo. SYDNEY
Rockpool Dining Group’s new branch of Rosetta is slated to open in August, the first sister restaurant to Rosetta Melbourne. Richard Purdue, who worked at the original Rockpool, will head the kitchen. The menu will have more of a seafood focus than Melbourne and feature plenty of Italian classics such as vitello tonnato, osso buco and cotoletta, made with milk-fed veal from
New South Wales. VICTORIA
Former Rockpool and Eleven Bridge chef Phil Wood is the new culinary director at Point Leo
Estate on the Mornington Peninsula. Opening in late spring, the family-owned estate comprises a 110-seat restaurant with impressive views, a cellar door and a sculpture park. Wood will no doubt make use of produce from the Estate farm. Watch this space.
COPENHAGEN
The next Copenhagen food revolution has begun at Strandgade 93, the site where René Redzepi opened Noma 14 years ago. Barr, a partnership between Redzepi and his friend Thorsten Schmidt, revisits Old Nordic classics. There’s frikadeller Danish meatballs, pork schnitzel, summer cabbage, and aged veal with mushrooms. On the drinks side, around 20 tap beers are grouped under headings such as crisp, smoke, and tart and funk. Redzepi will open Noma 2.0 in a new location later this year.