SUZIE LUCK' S COMES TO LIFE
2 Salamanca Square, Hobart Open daily, 11.30am–11.30pm 6224 2554; suzielucks.com.au
Same same but different – so goes the phrase uttered by many street sellers in Indonesia or Thailand trying to flog off a fake Rolex or a dodgy pair of Ray-Bans.
The new Pan-Asian venture in the restaurant formerly known as Smolt has the same owners operating out of the same premises but is very, very different.
After a lightning-fast refit, Suzie Luck’s swung open its doors to a curious public in Salamanca Square just a few weeks ago. A consistently strong player on the culinary scene for a decade, Smolt’s Scandi-styled interior was a favourite with many for a weekend breakfast, a leisurely lunch or a special dinner with friends.
Working in an office right upstairs, I have long been a fan of their morning pastries, take-out foccacias for a speedy lunch and their duck ragu for dinner. It is, therefore, with some trepidation I return to try its new incarnation as a canteen and cocktail bar.
Co-owner Kif Weber recently promised the restaurant redux would be “unlike anything offered in Hobart before”.
Unable to secure a booking for four on a Wednesday night, we arrive unfashionably early at 6pm to try our luck as walk-ins. We find a place on one of three largish tables adorned in colourful chequerboard tiles. The dark panelled woodwork remains, but a long bar has been installed, running parallel to the open kitchen. A few families with young kids are also eating early at the shared tables. The more sophisticated zone at the back is mostly empty but accounted for.
“A pink panther to start?” asks the waitress. What I had always thought was a Peter Sellers movie is also a cocktail with Applewood Red Okar (an aromatic aperitif), pink peppercorns, lemon and sparkling wine. I instead opt for a tamarind soda, a tart beverage served with lime, soda and dark sour puree lurking at the bottom. As soft drinks go, it’s yum.
Next come bite-sized betel leaf morsels topped with beef, coriander, peanuts, red onion and a lip-tingling bite of chilli. The spring rolls, served Vietnamese-style with roll-your-own lettuce wraps and fresh herbs, are among the best I have had. Of generous proportion, they are filled with pork and prawns and are ready to be dunked in a tangy nuoc cham dipping sauce. The texture of the crisp iceberg lettuce around the crunchy roll works well.
The wagyu beef carpaccio, while not something one would normally associate with an Asian eatery, is given the eastern treatment with cassava crisps, a splash of fish sauce, peanuts and more crispy shallots.
The eggnet that arrives after a brief hiatus is a work of art, a delicate wrap encasing spanner crab (which is a little difficult to discern), crispy chunks of twice-cooked pork belly, bean shoots and a coconut caramel. Crispy-skinned duck lands shortly after, bringing with it a heady aroma of star anise. Mandarin segments and pickled cucumber help cut through the richness of the meat.
We finally tackle the slow-roasted lamb shoulder “with flavours of pho”, Vietnam’s national noodle-soup dish. We struggle to get through the pull-apart flesh and rustic roti bread, victims of enthusiastic over-ordering. The food is delicious, full of punchy Asian flavours lifted by fresh herbs.
As we near the end of our Pan-Asian adventure, Suzie Luck’s really starts coming to life. Diners flood in, including a couple of homegrown reality-TV stars from renovation show My House Rules.
As Hobart dining experiences goes, our night at Suzie Luck’s reminds me much more of dining at an eatery such as Longrain in Melbourne’s Chinatown.
It’s much more frenetic, louder and edgier than its classy-yet-casual predecessor – perhaps best described as a South-East Asian version of the Smolt team’s South American-inspired eatery Frank just a few blocks away. Same same but different.