Restaurant Inspiration - Confit at Circa the Prince

Does the environment you eat in affect your experience?   I would like to think that I only care about the food and so am not unduly influenced by such things as my surroundings, so that I can enjoy good food on a grimy Bangkok street just as much as in an unadorned, cheaply decorated Fitzroy cafe. 

Last week at Circa the Prince,  I had one of the best meals of the last year in a setting which almost but not quite overwhelmed the food. 

Imagine this room:

To my right, a table of property developers in pressed jeans and blue striped shirts, their silver hair brushed back in in the style of a lion's mane.  To my left, a well known intellectual property lawyer dining with his wife.  Immediately next to us, a completely rotund couple from Holland who talk of food and recipes all night and proceed to order each item on the menu and share all the dishes (just in case you are in any doubt, that is quite a lot of food).   Over past the black tiled central column, a table of beautiful women including a Kim Raver clone sit with their large labelled leather handbags piled up next to them.   Past them, a table of mohawked and bepierced young men with a 6 foot tall boxum women in a Talitha Getty style silk turban with body image issues (I overheard her in the bathroom).   Further behind me sits Luke-who-used-to-work-in-our-local-wine-shop-and-is-now-a-sommelier, dining with two 23 year olds wearing short shorts on this cold Autumn evening.

The people are not the problem in this restaurant.  The acoustics are.   So full of people, sitting in a hard concrete room, eating to a background of loud house music, it is nigh on impossible to hear the person opposite.  I probably seem middle aged saying this, but restauranteurs - please - enough with the loud bass music.  It's not a nightclub.   

And it is a shame, that this newly renovated room, on which I am certain a large amount of money has been spent (it is essentially the old courtyard covered over), feels so temporary, so last minute, so cramped, so unsuited to the delicate, great value food which is being cooked by Matt Wilkinson.    The old restaurant, which faces the bump and grind of Fitzroy Street, is now used for functions. What a waste.  

The very best element of the room, visible above, is the vertical garden, housed in a square frame of boxes.   Oh, and those black lights.   And the upholstered chairs.  And the little tables work really well for closeness but not if you have long legs. 

I ate:

• kromeskies
• warm salad of partridge (confit breast and terrine) with rhubarb and heirloom vegetables.
• 150g Sher wagyu beef 
• gingerbread parfait with warm apple rice pudding. 

The kromeskies (pork shoulder shredded and deep fried based on a Russion recipe) were salty and moreish.  

The partridge salad was unpeakably divine.  Dotted with tiny peeled carrots, dressed with something piquant, the partridge (not easy to find in Australia) was full of flavour.  The whole dish sang. 

The beef deserves special mention.  It came with the following:  mustard, tomato relish, a lentil and green bean saute, a little copper pot of glistening smooth mashed potato and a perfectly dressed green salad.  All for $45.   Not cheap but good value when you need to order sides to make up a properl meal in so many restaurants. 

The wine service was slow but the sommelier did a great job of plying us with Barolo.  The wine list allows you to order different 'serving sizes' from 30 ml through to a normal 120 ml glass.   Just to be clear, 30 ml is two tablespoons, barely a gulp, and for some of the more expensive wines this size costs more than $15!   However, it is a chance to taste some amazing wine. 

In summary: go for the food, trust the sommelier, and pray that the owners re-think the renovation.  

The partridge salad inspired me to do a different kind of confit to my usual duck (great standby dinner party dish because it needs no attention. Also good for killing off unwanted dinner party guests with a nice overdose of cholesterol with the duck fat). 

I couldn't find partridge but I did find jumbo quail, which I jointed. 

Warning: photo of meat below.

Put the quail, one sliced garlic clove, a bay leaf and a sprig of rosemary into a small ovenproof dish which just fits the quail. Put enough duck fat to cover into the dish and bring to the boil on the stove top. Then cook in the oven for about an hour at 160 degrees. I find this works much better with leg joints than the breast which tends to dry out.  (I used both, and didn't end up eating the breast).

I served this with cubes of roasted beetroot, some greens and a vinaigrette.

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