JUST like Kenny Rogers’ gambler, John and Lisa van Haandel seem to know both when to hold them and when to fold them. It’s not as though Circa was actually past its use-by date but 10 years after opening in a blaze of swooning commentary about its sexy/romantic dining room and edgy Britpack food, some of the glamour had waned and ruts were appearing. So with the faded-glory tipping point on the horizon, the van Haandels made like the gambler, slammed the door shut for three months and took a broom to the place.

Folding (however briefly) has paid off. The new-look Circa feels fresh and revitalised, equally sophisticated but with a more casual and inclusive attitude. Its best attributes – including the much-acclaimed, encyclopedic wine list – have been transplanted whole, while some of its underutilised potential (such as chef Matthew Wilkinson’s cooking) has been given the timely chance to break free from the way things were.

The most obvious change is in the layout. The dim and pokey bar has been opened up and now sprawls languidly through several timber-floored spaces, sporting a communal table and various couch and armchair options. It also has its own menu of booze-friendly, shareable food – green tea salted prawn dumplings ($4 each), steamed buns stuffed with grilled wagyu ($10) – available daily until late. It’s a well-considered ploy to get more people into Circa more of the time.

The former dining room overlooking Fitzroy Street has been converted into a function space and the paved internal courtyard – now glassed over, climate controlled and home to a vertically stacked herb garden – is the main dining space.

What the new dining room has lost in big-occasion atmospherics, it has made up for with purposefully casual, slightly retro usability. A mix of wicker armchairs, dining chairs upholstered in ’60s-style floral fabric, splay-legged oak tables (no cloths) and some houndstooth-upholstered settees add to the quirky, gazebo feel.

A side dish of toasted grains, herbs, dried apricots, lentils and labne ($9) is a good idea let down by the cooking. Some of the grains had not been cooked through, leading to an unpleasant sticking-in-your-teeth texture.

There was no such problem with a very good Angus steak ($45), sourced from Gippsland and dry aged. It’s served with a little jug of jus (refreshingly more about the meat juices than the usual syrupy, flavour-destroying muck), seeded mustard and some good, slightly sweet, Branston-style pickles. There was also a little copper pot of fluffy, creamy mash and some slightly elderly asparagus topped with boiled egg and lilliput capers.

The sharing theme continues at the sweet end with the list divided into single servings and dishes to share. The shared desserts lean towards modern versions of nostalgic favourites, as with the thoroughly enjoyable morello cherry and white chocolate trifle ($22).

Arriving in a glass bowl, the top is studded with cherries (some incredibly boozy from being soaked in cherry brandy, others fresh) and shards of classic praline dotted with almonds and streaked with milk chocolate. The white-chocolate mousse hides a classic sponge soaked in cherry syrup, with the strong alcohol taste admirably balancing out the sweetness.

This sort of balancing act runs all the way through the rebooted Circa. It may be less ”restauranty” than it used to be but there has been no dip in the service, wine list or cooking. It’s certainly more relaxed and perhaps even more hospitable, while maintaining a sense of luxury. If Kenny were singing about it, you’d know that this was one to hold.

Read review online here.

When the rain starts to fall after a long hot summer and the leaves of the trees begin to fall, something very special in nature begins to happen, the arrival of wild mushrooms.  For me heading out to a pine forest to go mushroom picking feels like an easter egg hunt for grown ups and there is nothing more satisfying than getting the days bounty back into the kitchen and whipping up a risotto or a pappardelle of freshly picked wild mushrooms. 

I must admit there is an art to procuring our little fungal friends not to mention a certain level of knowledge required to choose good from bad.  I stick to what I know and choose the pine and slippery jack varieties.  Although I recently discovered some shaggy ink caps growing on the nature strip out the front of Etihad stadium.  After taking to them with a paring knife I went home and enjoyed a fresh pasta of shaggy ink caps, garlic, thyme and cream. Delicious! 

Although nature gives us some good signs of when the mushrooms are going to be about, it’s not always that obvious when it comes to some other varieties such as the ever elusive morels, of which ever keen fungi foragers will always keep one eye out for.  Morel mushrooms are not easily found in our country and they are unique in the sense that there is so many elements that need to align for them to come to be. The spawn of the morel lays dormant until spring, so don’t expect to make any discoveries right now but with a little research you’ll start to get a feeling of where they may pop up.  I am forever being asked where wild mushrooms can be found, as if it’s a big secret.  Like I mentioned earlier its all about the elements, there needs to have been plenty of rain to soak deeply into the warm forest floor after the summer at the base of the pine trees, remembering it takes a lot of rain to penetrate the canopy of the forest and soak into the ground but with enough rain you’ll be skipping through the pines with a cane basket like Jamie Oliver in no time.  I do advise strongly that you go along with someone with a little experience as there are a lot of interesting mushrooms out there and unfortunately there are far more varieties that are not fit for consumption so it’s very important to know exactly what your doing before taking to the forests. 

It is going to be a great season this year so you should see plenty of wild mushrooms on restaurant menus.  My personal favorite is an old classic from The Lakehouse in Daylesford where Alla Wolf-Tasker would serve a warm brioche filled with buttery wild mushrooms with garlic and thyme. The aroma of the mushrooms and the freshly baked brioche always brings back fond memories of my early days as a chef where Alla would take us into the forests to collect the produce and gather chestnuts and quinces from local farms for use in the kitchen that day.  It is such a beautiful time of year with so much interesting produce on offer. Happy hunting and if you have no luck check out some of the great local mushroom tours that are around during this time of the year. Enjoy! 

Circa together with The Prince hotel are offering a wonderful winter dinner and accommodation package.  Starting at $350 for 2 guests, the package includes one nights accommodation in a Deluxe Room, breakfast at Circa, newspaper, WiFi, carparking and a delicious three-course dinner at Circa.

Mon – Thurs   $350 all inclusive
Fri – Sat   $425 all inclusive

Offer valid until 30th September, subject to availability.  For further enquiries please contact The Prince on 03 9536 1111.

Recently, I took two weeks off to do some vintage work at Curly Flat, a wine producer in Lancefield, Macedon Ranges (70km north of Melbourne). Having grown up in Woodend, it was great to spend some time near my old stomping ground. The Macedon Ranges is one of, if not the, coldest wine growing regions in mainland Australia and as such is perfect for growing fine Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – two of my favourite varieties. No surprise then that Curly Flat specialises in these two varieties, with a little Pinot Grigio and Rosé to round out the range. Circa has been buying Curly Flat wines for many years and I can still remember the excitement my mentor, Chris Crawford showed when serving the Curly Flat Chardonnay in my early days at the restaurant.

Getting up at 6am every day for the commute was a rude shock to the system but it was a change that the night-owl hospitality worker soon adjusts to – given that it is more ‘normal’ than our regular working week. So to be up before the sun and asleep before midnight was a strange but welcome treat and there were some amazing sunrises to ease my feeble mind into the day ahead. I usually arrived by 730am and after a quick caffeine fix it was into the winery where I was given the responsibility of ferment management along with another sommelier Ben Richards (most recently of Fins restaurant in Kingscliffe, Queensland).This seemingly important task that connotes some serious level of knowledge and perhaps even chemistry, is actually just about taking temperatures and baumé (sugar levels) of the all the ferments, and plunging the caps of the Pinot Noir. Not that I am belittling the task. It was certainly much better than being put on cleaning duties (which often happens in other wineries to untrained newbies such as we were) and I am truly grateful to the team for all their help and for being so generous with their time explaining what they were doing and why they were doing it. I was one of the last to join up and in fact, invited myself, so they would’ve been excused for not giving me the time of day but they were great, and so, a shout out to my peeps from the Flat: Phil, Jennifer, Matt, Ben, Lisa, Blair, Ben, Tiff, and the token Frenchy, Tomas. They’re a really great crew and I’m looking forward to catching up with them at the end of vintage bonfire in a few weeks.

2010 as a vintage looks to be of very high quality in Macedon, and most of Victoria for that matter. The one consistent thing seems to be that most winemakers were thankful for how relatively easy it was given the stress of drought and fires of the last few years. After seeing the vibrant, healthy fruit come into the winery and looking after some of the wines at Curly Flat I can’t wait to see how the wines shape up.

Before I start this little story about hosting Mads Refslund I have something to get off my chest. We English aren’t the biggest whingers around, that title now goes to the Danes. Sorry Mads.

What an amazing 12 days we all had with Mads, Kare and Asbjorn (aka Frank, we couldn’t pronounce his name) and many thanks and congratulations to all involved at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival for another fantastic event. I was a little nervous, I had no real menu and certainly no recipes so my preparation was a little, lets say erratic.

The boys all arrived on the Monday night prior to the event and the ride home from Tullamarine was a lively chat about Australian produce and discussion about what the hell are we going to put on the menu?  

Tuesday morning, after very little sleep, I picked up the Nordic three wise men and headed to Circa. I unpacked the fridge and dry stores showing them every bit of amazing produce we had on offer, then went to the drawing board. After three hours of deliberation we had finally organised the menu, produce, plates, wine, masterclass dishes and recipes.

The mis-en-place list was, well, long and dinner was less than 48 hours away.It was at this point that I told Mads that over the next 30 hours, we needed to prep for 170 people, but to be on the safe side lets just prep for 185 so we can test the dishes, get the sommelier to test the wines against them and to educate the staff. Mads’ exact response was something that I didn’t quite understand, but having a small out there guess I would say that it was a swear word. But then he laughed and went on to tell me that his restaurant only seats 30 people!

Wednesday and Thursday all blended into one and there we were, 6.30 and the first guests ready to arrive. I have included below the menu with my tasting notes next to them, it is easier this way…

On arrival – Salt baked oyster with sake

Jedd’s oysters from Coffin bay baked into rock salt mixed with whipped egg white, with sake in the shell. You bake them on the stove and when the sake is steaming you scoop the whole salt mixture with shells, oysters and sake in tow onto a wooden slab and off they go.

Raw mackerel, young coconut, forest mushrooms, almonds & nasturtiums

Amazing dish, it gave my fish supplier James from Clamms a near heart attack getting the mackerel to me so fresh and perfect. It was a simple and elegant dish, ¼ of raw mackerel, some pickled and some fresh pine mushrooms picked that morning from the Peninsula, grated raw almond, almond dressing, cep powder, nasturtiums from our garden and fresh coconut meat. The texture of the mackerel and mushrooms with the unique coconut flavour, heat from the nasturtiums, nuttiness and silkiness of the oil and almond left the palate, I’ll say excited and yearning for the next course.

Heirloom tomatoes & watermelon, Moreton Bay bug & fresh pistachio

The simplest of dishes yet all about the produce, execution and marriage of flavours. It defines the movement in Denmark at the moment and I love it. This dish reconfirmed my love of seafood in it’s purity. Just and I mean just cooked at low temperature to enjoy the best of it’s flavour and texture. All we did was make a tomato consomme from all the trim of the tomatoes used to garnish the dish, gently heated the Moreton Bay bugs in it until they where just cooked, garnished with new season pistachios, watermelon that was grilled and a little finishing touch of about 6 different tiny herbs. Actually not that simple!

W.A. Marron, Parmesan, rapeseed oil & acidulated salad onion

Mads was amazed by the quality of seafood, well actually all the produce we have here in Australia but especially the marrons from W.A. This dish comprised of three slices of marron, some acidulated slow cooked onion petals, samphire, purslane, a Parmesan froth and a soup made from a pure and refreshing vegetable stock and oil. This is where we had a bit of a bumpy road. Rapeseed oil in Denmark is like a national emblem but the quality of it here comes nowhere near. So, we tried and tested around 24 oils until we found an oil made from corn germ that was as close to the colour, taste and consistency of the Danish rapeseed. In a couple of weeks I’m thinking about doing a garage sale to try to sell the other 23 oils, I’ll keep you posted on the date.

Burnt field: textures & perfumes of late summer scorched fields

This is Mads’ signature dish  and is simply one of the best I have ever tasted. So many tastes, textures and very arousing to the eye. It was hell of a lot of work but the story behind it is one of a true artist. Mads has a holiday house by the coast and every year around late summer they have burn offs just as we do here to rejuvenate the soil. Mads thought about all the vegetables from under the earth and came up with this dish. The vegetables included baby potatoes, carrots, radishes, beetroots, celeriac and turnip, we par cooked them, burnt them with a blow torch (you should have seen Mads face when we turned up with an industrial blow torch that I borrowed from the maintenance department). He was expecting the burning of the veg to take about a day but after minutes it was all done.  We  then lightly smoked them. There was a puree of truffle and cep mushroom, some fresh peanuts, a peanut oil dressing and a ‘soil’ made from shiitake mushroom, sugar and dried potato skin. Mads wanted to smoke the entire restaurant out before the dish came out but I finely managed to persuade him that the sprinklers might go off, he understood.

Barramundi, horseradish, parsley & burnt baby cucumber

The last of the savoury dishes and what a cracker! The barramundi filleted and skinned, lightly brined then steamed at low temperature to perfection, parsley puree, horseradish sauce, a burnt baby cucumber that is going straight to the pool room and a salad of warrigal greens, sea lettuce and watercress.

Öllebröd – rye bread, Scotch ale, chocolate & caramel

Dish of the year. Mads’ first dessert unfortunately or actually, no fortunately didn’t eventuate due to unavailability of produce but it’s replacement was a cracker. This was the highlight of the discussion on the way back from the airport, firstly me trying to pronounce the damn thing, u le broo. But most importantly that it is a classic breakfast dish from Scandinavia consisting of beer and rye bread made into a porridge. Ka pow. Jokingly I told Mads that I would have St Johns ambulance at the ready to wheelchair everybody out after seven courses and the last being a porridge of bread and beer but it was quite the opposite. What was served was a light and moreish dish that left most wanting a second helping. The basics of the dish was rye bread soaked over night in Red Hill’s Scotch ale, then blitzed the next day.  We then added warmed, grated dark 74% chocolate and prune juice. At the bottom of a bowl was some warm white chocolate mousee which the rye bread sat on top of, a caramel ice cream next, some salt then a sweet rye bread tuille. The bomb.

Dinner and lunch had come and gone, I’d made three great new friends and learnt some dirty words in Danish.  I was very proud of my team for all their hard work and dedication over the event.  We had consumed a few beverages of the alcoholic variety with some late nights notched under our belts, had done two masterclass demonstrations at the Langham where Mads had educated and wowed the crowd with seven dishes in 1 ¼ hours ( he was only supposed to do three dishes) but reflecting on it all now, the word inspired is all I can say. Thank you Mads Refslund, you are an absolute gem. 

Artwork for our menus by Studio Racket

We recently welcomed Coffin Bay oyster farmer Jedd Routledge to Circa Bar for a gorgeous oyster tasting, the first of a series of producer visits coming up.  Jedd together with Sous chef Jake Nicolson freshly shucked his carefully cultivated, hand-selected oysters from the pure waters of the Southern Ocean for very happy guests of Circa bar.  We will be welcoming more producers to Circa over the coming months with more details soon…

This post may not be everyone’s cup of tea and I apologise now if I do offend, but the reality of the situation is that in the not too distant past, humans had to hunt to survive.

As a bit of background, I was brought up in a small mining town in South Yorkshire. If you have read the book A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines or the later movie Kes adapted by Ken Loach you’ll kinda understand a bit about my childhood years which were spent hunting rabbits, pheasant and partridge in the local river. My parents were opposed to me owning a gun but a few of my friends were farmers’ sons and hunting was a way of life.

Now shooting for fun is a no go area, however when the purpose is to either educate or to eat, then hunting is ok in my book.  While always remembering that you are dealing with a living creature and ensuring a swift, painless death. With this in mind, a couple of Sundays ago I went hunting with a good friend of mine chef Riccardo Momesso from Sarti restaurant in the city. We arrived at dusk at the private property of a well known farmer and set out on an expedition to shoot some rabbits and hares. Once killed, they were skinned immediately, and packed in ice before we set off home. The next morning in the kitchen I broke them down and tried a recipe out for staff lunch, Jugged Rabbit. Further down is a recipe that we now have on the menu and serve using farmed rabbit.  For one reason or another the men in black (at least that’s what we shall call them for now) only allow us to serve farmed rabbit.  It seems crazy to me that in Australia we are not allowed to serve the majority of wild shot game in a restaurant. This includes rabbit, venison and ducks but strangely not hare. And this is where I get confused. We are allowed to buy and use wild rabbit, but they have to come from licensed gunmen with an approval stamp from an abattoir – but not hare!!!. Seriously I don’t understand the logic. Anyway, having these wild rabbits in the kitchen is a big no no, but hey. In the past I have brought back the rabbits unskinned to show the guys in the kitchen how to do it. It is a dying art along with other butchery techniques and fishmongery that can result in chefs lacking basic skills and knowledge but most of all respect for the product they are using.

On the way to the farm Ricardo pointed out where the first few rabbits were let go in Australia by a bloke named Thomas Austin, who released 24 rascally rabbits from his farm/mansion near Winchelsea, Victoria in 1859. Apparently he said at the time “the introduction of a few rabbits could do little harm…” Massive understatement, Tommy. By 1926 there were 10 billion of them.

The destructive thing about rabbits is not only how fast they multiply, but the way they graze, cutting the vegetation down much lower to the ground than sheep or cattle. Thus affecting the regrowth and leaving the pasture open to infestation from inedible weeds, not to mention soil erosion which can affect water catchments.

Things got so bad that by the 1880’s farmers were abandoning their land to the rabbits. To alleviate the problem, in 1901 three rabbit proof fences were built in Western Australia to stop the plague spreading. These fences covered thousand of kilometers, running north to south across the state.

The virus myxomatosis was released by the Australian Government in 1950 to try and halt the growing rabbit population. It was spread through blood sucking insects, and 99% of rabbits died. The ones that were left though developed strong antibodies and passed these down to the next generation and so on, so that now ‘myxo’ is only fatal to about 50% of all rabbits. The government then released calicivirus in 1996 to further drop rabbit numbers. So far though, Australian rabbits remain.

So how do wild and farmed rabbit compare in taste? For me, wild game taste a lot stronger, deeper and a little more nasal (by this I mean the flavour comes through in the back pallet close to the nose airways where we can pick up stronger flavours). They don’t have a strict diet that is determined by man so I think this counts for unusual tastes in the meat that we no longer recognise but I do prefer wild. And in terms of texture, I think farmed rabbit wins. Less movement equals less use on the muscles so a more tender meat structure.

So, rabbits for eating… A traditional way of cooking hare- which I’ve substituted with rabbit in the recipe below is termed ‘jugging’. This method has been around since 1700, and was traditionally a way of preserving the meat since of course there were no refrigerators. The meat is cut into pieces and placed in a tightly sealing earthenware jug or dish with a brine or gravy and then stewed. The animals own blood is traditionally added to thicken the sauce. This was a very popular dish right up until the middle of the 20^th century.  Below is my version of jugged rabbit, I use the mustard and redcurrant jelly as the thickening part and put it in a pot instead of a jug (as jugging is really a way of a slow braising) then serve with colcannon – mashed potatoes with cabbage and spring onion.

Jugged Rabbit
1 rabbit serves two hungry people

You will need to procure 1 farmed rabbit or a wild one (if you’re game) and have it broken down into front legs, back legs and loin.  I would recommend the Chicken Pantry at the Vic Market

Lightly flour the front runners (legs) and sauté in pot, remove.

Caramelise half each of 1 diced carrot, 1 onion, 1 turnip, 6 large dices of pancetta and 6 mushrooms in the same pot.

Add 1 ½ tablespoons of Dijon mustard and red currant jelly and lightly caramelise.

Deglaze with 500ml of white wine, reduce by half.

Add front legs back, cover with water bring to simmer, for 1 1/2 hours until cooked

Oh, add bouquet garni of sage, tarragon, white peppercorns, thyme, and bay leaf.

Meanwhile chop up the back legs and loin of the rabbit discarding any bones. When the front legs are cooked at the previous stage add the back legs and loin and return to heat for 12 minutes. Stir in some chopped parsley then serve in the pot you made it in.

So what goes into hosting an international chef that has one Michelin star, has demonstrated at other world renowned food festivals and whose food is cutting edge?  I have since discovered, a lot of work!

To get the ball rolling, mid-way through last year I sent Mads a list explaining the types of meat, seafood, vegetables and fruit available in Australia in Autumn.  Then, through researching the MR website I gained a rough idea of some of his dishes and the produce he may need. 

I received a first draft menu just after Christmas and without spoiling it for those who are attending the dinner, wanted to share two of his dishes with you and the changes that we have made. The first dish from his repertoire is Rapeseed oil, black lobster with radishes and wood sorrel. The black lobster (Northern hemisphere crayfish) is poached in rapeseed oil then garnished with sliced raw radish and an emulsion made from radishes, wood sorrel and a cheese that sounds a bit like… Veschavost!!!. Interestingly, Ben Shewry from Attica restaurant found we had wood sorrel here in Australia when Rene Redzepi was here for MFWF 2009.   Now for the problems, generally in Australia our rapeseed/canola oil is from GM crops so I have changed that to Powlett Hill’s bio-dynamic sunflower oil and the blacklobster will be replaced with W.A marron.  Now the cheese, well unless it magically arrives, I have no idea what we will use.  One thing I do know about this cheese is that it is produced from cows that graze on beaches and has a slightly natural salt taste to it. When I’m next in Denmark this will be on the top of my list of things to try.

Dish number two (pictured above): Burning field; perfumes & texture from late summer scorched fields, what the ….! Even to me this seemed, well, a wee bit out there. However after Mads’s explanation I cannot tell you how excited I am to try this dish. The basic gist of it is, smoke infused earth grown vegetables (which I will be sourcing from Glenora Heritage Produce and Daylesford Organics), purees, powders and herbs of this and that, a fresh peanut paste (again can’t wait to see) and preserved truffle, which I luckily got in fresh from Piedmont last week and have now preserved.  Mads did ask to set Hay alight in the restaurant when this dish goes out, but for some reason I declined…

Now I am waiting in great anticipation on his final menu and recipes but with only two weeks to go we have an enormous amount of work to do.  There are wines to match, mep lists to be written, suppliers and producers to be briefed and I need to scrub up on my Danish.