Eat. @ Noir

175 Swan Street, Richmond 3121 ph (03) 9428 3585

Hubby and I celebrated our anniversary this year with a degustation at Noir in Richmond.  I hadn't heard much about this restaurant but it came highly recommended and I'm glad we booked here as we had an extremely enjoyable meal.

We went for the Tasting Menu ($80) which had essentially 7 courses with sides, some to share and some served individually.  We started off with an amuse bouche of a trio of tartlets for each of us.

The Eye fillet of beef tartare, wardorf salad and gaufrette potatoes was a fun and interesting twist on the traditional.  

The cold smoked Pacific oysters with chives came in little ceramic shells and the oysters were fresh with a subtle smokiness.

The smoked Skipton eel, potato salad, mustard and jellied eel consomme was a very beautifully plated up dish, with pretty colours and interesting flavours.  It's one of those dishes I love, with an interesting mix of colours, flavours and textures.

The Stinging neetle spartzle pasta with lemon, chilli, peas, pinenuts and broad beans was a pleasant dish, reminiscent of a homely stir-fry with very fresh and tasty ingredients.

The Hendricks gin and tonic sorbet, cucumber and dried botanicals (and good splash of Hendricks!) was the perfect mid-meal palate cleanser.  

The Crisp pork belly with poached pears and pickled vegetables was delicious, my only lament being that I could probably eat a whole lot more of the oh-so-tender pork with the crispy crackling!

The main to share was a Roast Partridge with Parsnips, served with seasonal green vegetables and a mornay sauce.  I'm not a fan of mornay sauce in general, but the rest of this dish was lovely, the partridge perfectly cooked and the poached pears offsetting the meat nicely.

We ended with a sweet dessert of rich chocolate marquise with orange and hibiscus.  Hmmmm such indulgence!

Overall we had a great meal at Noir.  We both agreed that it was an Estelle - like experience in a Saint Crispin like setting but with a quieter ambience.    It was a lovely meal worthy of date nights, even without the hype, and in fact probably all the better for it!