Vue de Monde flips the menu

Before the mystery first course of Vue de Monde's tasting menu is set down on the kangaroo-leather tabletop, a choice of two pinots – a 2012 Chatto from Tasmania's Huon Valley and 2011 Weingut Bernhard Huber from Baden, Germany – is offered by the sommelier.

Red wine to start? The unexpectedness is compounded when the dish arrives – a main-styled barramundi tail with potato, caviar and lemon. Haven't we paired fish with white wine since forever? And since when did we start with a main course?

These apparent contradictions are part of a new approach head chef Cory Campbell is adopting where he has flipped our preconceived notions of dining on their head. In the process, not only has he turned upside down both the conventional order in which we should eat certain dishes but also what we should imbibe with each.

“There is no strict menu,” says Campbell, who asks and entrusts diners to go with the flow he has created for each particular sitting. “We don't look at food as entrée to dessert. You have a main and red to start with, and have no idea where you're going next. It's almost like an adventure.”

True to his word, a second main – this time wallaby fillet seared on binchotan coal with semi-dried blueberries, matched with a smoky shiraz – follows the first. Then the menu pivots on cucumber sorbet atop snap-frozen wood sorrel, which helps to cleanse the palate and transition the meal.

At this juncture, the dishes become lighter, more entrée-like, the grapes white: duck yolk, pear and truffle, paired with Dom Perignon; a mud crab sandwich with New Zealand's Ata Rangi Chardonnay; and marron, Spanish thyme, sweetbread mousse and lamb floss with a Chablis.

Campbell has by no means rushed headlong into this. “It's not just a gimmick,” he stresses. “It's something that we have really looked into.”

Campbell first hit on the idea of changing things up with a friend over dinner, a pastry chef, who didn't drink white. He challenged him to take red with every course, which his friend was up for. “It was exciting,” recalls Campbell. “Some dishes we found were better with red. I thought, 'let's take it further, let's put it into play'.”

Still cautious, Campbell worked closely for several months with Vue's team of sommeliers, knowing full well he needed to bring them round to his way of thinking and ultimately win them over.

Vue's wine director Jackson Watson says the restaurant's sommeliers have jumped at the chance individually to perfectly match each dish. “Each sommelier chooses their own wine,” he says.

Watson, himself, puts forward the wine that set him on the road to being a sommelier – Vincent Paris Granuit 60 Cornas from France's Rhone Valley. A 2010 Christian Moreau 'Guy Moreau – Vaillons' Chablis Premier Cru is among his all-time favourites.

What appeals to Watson, especially, is surprising the customer. For instance, after two rounds of seafood and white, the menu flips again: ox tongue with beetroot, bone marrow and frozen crème fraiche, which Watson pairs with either a Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Vintage Rose or, if the customer is up for the challenge, a sweetish Pineto Brachetto d'Acqui.

“When customers tell me they hate the [brachetto d'acqui] but love what I've matched it with, you know you've found the right wine,” Watson says.

Initially, Campbell tested the concept only on regulars, whose views he trusted, in the lead-up to Christmas. Rave reviews convinced him to introduce it permanently. Although, he admits many of Vue's customers still struggle to “get their head around” what the restaurant is doing. “The somms are explaining it and about half [of the customers] are going for it,” Campbell says.

While Campbell is trying to “push boundaries” creatively, he has also drawn on different food cultures – elements of Asian dining and the easy-going tempo of the Australian BBQ, in particular. More than anything he wants diners to enjoy themselves and use their hands. They are even encouraged to grind their own wood sorrel before it is snap frozen in liquid nitrogen.

“It's not just about the food and wine, it's about the experience,” Campbell says. “If you're eating for three or four hours, we want to keep an air of excitement. We don't want just another plate in front of you.”

Dessert doesn't figure in Campbell's play with the conventional menu. It remains at the end of the meal, for now.

"Who knows what's going to happen down the track."