BISTRO GUILLAUME
Crown Complex
8 Whiteman Street
Southbank, Vic
03 9693 3888

The advance blurb trumpeting the arrival of Guillaume Brahimi’s  entry into the Melbourne restaurant scene was over-the-top even by Crown’s standards.

I received one e-mail that said:

‘Guillaume Brahimi – award-winning chef and proprietor of Guillaume at Bennelong in the iconic Sydney Opera House – opens his much-anticipated Bistro Guillaume at Crown later this month (March)
bringing to Melbourne bistro-style cooking at its best.

Guillaume’s philosophy of “l’amour du travail bien fait” (the love of doing something well ) is for the Robuchon-trained chef, the foundation and the essence, of providing good, authentic bistro fare that is simple yet nourishing, humble yet elegant, robust yet refined. Bistro Guillaume will create a dining experience that is wholesome and homely, delivering French comfort food with a simplicity and goodness which will prove thoroughly irresistible.

Over the years this cynical old journo has got used to such puffery. Hyperbole is a PR flack’s middle name. What I wasn’t ready for was the realisation that the media release was right.

What was it ? ‘L’amour du travail bien fait’. Guillaume must truly love doing things well because this romance with Crown is a stunner.

Bistro Guillaume is the latest in Crown’s new policy of  installing celebrity chefs in opulent surroundings. The bistro’s neighbour is Nobu. On the other side is Neil Perry’s bar and grill.

The Saturday night we dined there the place had only been open for a couple of weeks and it was so in demand that they called me not once but twice in the three days before my booking to re-confirm it.

The décor is opulent and clever. They say it cost millions and wines for his personally selected wine cellar cost $250,000. I believe it. The designers were the same team who did  Est  at the Establishment and The Ivy in Sydney.  

There are three different feels. The bistro itself with marble top tables is separated from the Yarra’s Southbank promenade by wood slat Venetians. The inner circle of the place has linen table clothes under soft lighting encased in French ‘pantaloon’ style shades that give the place a salon (even boudoir) feeling.

And separating them are incongruous giant wooden trestles supporting wooden planks where you can perch for wine and cheese or coffee.

They have a plat du jour which on our Saturday was  braised beef cheeks in red wine. It sounded like such a Guillaume favourite that even the vegequarian Mrs. Nosebag  let the waitress enthuse about it without demur.

For the big carnivore this place is a carnival. There’s a roasted rib eye of beef  with rosemary, thyme and garlic. You might balk at the price until you realise it serves two or three people –which works out at $40 a person.

The mains are mostly between $35 and $40 for dishes you’d pay  $50-$60 for in Sydney and, unlike the harbour city where I’m still smarting over $15 for a side order of  mash at Aria, all sides  are eight dollars. And that includes a terrific sauté spinach with garlic and olive oil and a side order you can feel doing you  bad: Gratin dauphinois, cheese topped, sliced potato in a sizzling copper pan.

One critic mentioned the most expensive battered fish and chips he had ever heard of at $45 but then he saw and tasted it and liked it.  I didn’t eat it but saw the spectacular display at the next table.  It’s a whole whiting served with head and tail attached. It’s been de-boned somehow and then fried whole with its back arched.

On my new entrees only kick in an attempt to lose weight (even though my doctor told me he’d rather see me ‘fat and alive than thin again and dead’) I started with the Jamon Iberico. It’s heralded as the best ham in the world. Taken only from special Spanish pigs that have distinctive black sox.

I’ve seen it other menus and gasped at the price (fifty bucks)  but at Bistro Guillaume it came as a sort of mini antipasto served with olives, delicious pimento, rings of fennel and a quail egg for $25.

Mrs Nosebag had a great salad of baby vegetables, including tomatoes the size of Jaffas, goat’s curd, herbs and a walnut vinaigrette.

For a main she had a truly vegetarian Risotto. I say ‘truly’ because so many restaurants call a Risotto ‘vegetarian’ but put chicken stock in it. This one had peas, spinach, asparagus and Reggiano parmesan.

I stuck to the entrees and went for seared scallops (which I always ask to be more than just seared) with a cauliflower veloute and shitake mushrooms. I thought they were being a bit ‘Frenchy clever’ by adding veal jus. How can you combine scallops with the taste of veal? It worked. But then I often order grilled prawns with pimento and slices of chorizo sausage at Number 8 and that combo works.

The bread was as good as you get at Neil Perry’s. In fact could be from the same oven. And a baby cheese brioche between courses.

Downstairs is a huge yet intimate space called Le Bar -- incorporating the old Fidel’s Cigar bar which was snuffed out when the new anti-smoking laws came  in.  That place could become a favourite haunt. But more about that some other time.

To attempt a French-accented pun…. There’s no place like Guillaume.

April 14, 2008