By Kirsten Lawson
Daniel Patterson attracted a gathering of Canberra’s restaurant who’s who when he spoke at a lunch at Aubergine on Wednesday.
More than a dozen chefs and restaurateurs were there to hear what Patterson, chef and owner at San Francisco’s two-Michelin starred Coi, had to say, among them Serif and Gulbahar Kaya from Ottoman, Peter Harrington from Sage, Leanne Gray from Silo, Owen Kenyon from Rubicon, Clement Chauvin from Waters Edge, Grant Kells from Smoque, Jai Dawson from Flint in the Vines, Keaton McDonnell from Pulp Kitchen, and David Keeley from Pistachio. Also there were Marilyn Chalkley and Owen Saddler from Dream Cuisine, and Patrick Reubinson, Bemboka’s resident cooking teacher and cheesemaker.
Coi restaurant’s Daniel Patterson.Credit: Jay Cronan
What this says about the Canberra industry is anyone’s guess, but perhaps that it is not every day you get to meet one of the stars of your profession, who just might divulge that invaluable tip, the secret to success, and at the same time answer that perplexing question in the restaurant world – should we go upmarket or casual?
Patterson has five restaurants in San Francisco, and at his flagship Coi offers only a tasting menu that has been described as “cerebral”, made up of dishes firmly in the sphere of haute cuisine but based on humble, pristine produce, wild ingredients and essential oils.
Coi restaurant’s Daniel Patterson with The Canberra Times’ food and wine editor Kirsten Lawson.Credit: Jay Cronan
Patterson told the lunch that he was told he was crazy when he set up a tasting-menu-only restaurant in a world of casual dining. But he’s started something of a resurgence. A tasting menu allows a chef to offer dishes with just two or three things on the plate but with such a concentration of flavours that you would eat only a little at a time, and to create a menu with an overall ebb and flow and “dynamism”, he says.
Like chapters in a book, each course has its place in the overall story. But just as in a book, you must keep the diner engaged and keep the energy throughout.
You don’t want someone looking at their watch halfway through and wondering how many courses there are to come; you want them disappointed it’s over.
Patterson says customers were happy when they shaved half an hour off their service time at Coi, with the 11 courses served in 2 hours, and he aims for no long pauses in the flow of food. He, too, has endured enough bad tasting menus to know what he wants to avoid.
“A lot of what the opposition to fine dining comes down to is, how much are you thinking about the customer and how much are you thinking about yourself.
Cooking is an act of generosity and if that’s what’s going through your mind it shows,” he says.
Aubergine chef and owner Ben Willis served a menu that included a quite phenomenal piece of beef short rib, all shot through with its fat, and very tender and gently cooked, with fermented Bredbo black garlic and passionfruit-spiked fennel.
His dessert showcased the fleeting seasonality of fresh mulberries with a custard hot with Indian long pepper, meringue flavoured with anise and mulberry mousse.
■ The Daniel Patterson lunch was a Fairfax Good Food Month event.