Tried and Tested

Words: Anna King Shabab

Photography: Garth Badger, Josh Griggs & Kate Battersby 

The first Tuesday evening of the month sees the Gaggenau Test Kitchen fire up at The French Kitchen – the beautiful bespoke open kitchen and dining room at the rear of Sid at The French Café.


Chef and co-owner Sid Sahrawat is no stranger to the concept of test kitchens; they’ve been in his repertoire as an operator since 2011, when keen diners flocked to Sidart for his $80 eight-course affairs. The style at The French Kitchen is quite a different beast, both in what’s on the plate and the cooking and dining experience. With its large dining tables and completely open kitchen, The French Kitchen naturally makes for what Sid describes as “a communal, fun and experimental dining concept”. Guests “watch me and the team cook, explain and serve the dishes up close and personal in the room. Guests will often pop up and stir the pot or help plate a dish”. It’s a truly interactive experience that allows diners to get a sense of the incredible skill and care that goes into a world-class restaurant dish.


The recipes being tested are ones that will potentially make their homes on the menus of two distinct restaurants: Sid at The French Café and Sid and his wife Chand’s downtown modern Indian establishment, Cassia. We spoke with Sid to get a window on his creative process and the way in which OMG, the community garden just across the road from the restaurant, plays a part in continually inspiring Sid and his team.

How does the menu work in terms of serving three dishes from Cassia, three from Sid at The French Café?


It is definitely like building a story over the menu, but a balanced one – a dish we are trying at Cassia may be too strong to work with others on the test kitchen menu, so we will work to build another one to make sure the menu flows. Dishes come from seasonal produce we are trying, sometimes they are inspired by ideas we have and sometimes they just come spontaneously.


What are some of the challenges of serving dishes from two distinct restaurant concepts in one meal and how do you make it work?


We work on how the flavours balance with each other, the techniques and the way the temperature of the dishes complement each other, rather than the style of cuisine. You might get a dish from Sid at The French Café that is more European, but features boldly flavoured ingredients, and a subtle dessert from Cassia – or the other way around. We work on how the test kitchen dishes work with each other to balance the menu for our guests while giving our team the chance to experiment.


Build a picture of how the menu came together for the most recent test kitchen at the time of writing, the September edition.


I worked with both our head chefs, Tommy Hope from Sid at The French Café and Ketan Joshi from Cassia. Jerusalem artichokes were in season and so we wanted to do something interesting with them – that became a snack with Jerusalem artichokes, smoked duck liver and pumpkin seeds. Tommy made a beautiful butternut dish in the August test kitchen that we wanted to evolve further in the September

menu, so it then took shape into a butternut terrine with a seaweed cannoli filled with dry korma, cashew and ginger. Our pastry chef had a go at a parsnip dessert with green tea, apple and macadamia. Nadia Lim’s Arrowtown farm Royalburn is producing some amazing fallow deer, so we created a course with that alongside pomme soufflé with smoked eel cream, beetroot and liquorice. So you can see that the ideas actually come from the team being inspired by seasonal produce and we work together to tweak the concepts and make them suitable for the test kitchen experience.

 

Spring is here – what produce are you most excited about welcoming into the main kitchen at Sid at The French Café this season?


White asparagus, berries, zucchini flowers, globe artichokes and spring lamb to name a few. Our main dining menu changes frequently to keep up with how long a particular ingredient is in season – for example, fresh truffles are only in season for eight to 10 weeks over the winter and things like white asparagus are also quite short-lived, so we will put on a dish and then take it off as soon as the quality starts to change with the season ending. 


Tell us how you work with OMG, the urban community garden across the road.


We use the best of what is grown at OMG and we’re able to offer suggestions on what they can grow if they ask us. Some of the ingredients we get from them act as garnishes, while others become main components and we create a dish specifically to work with that ingredient. Our chefs pop across to OMG two or three times a day to pick produce. OMG gardeners also look after our kitchen garden in the courtyard of our restaurant, so we work very closely with them to plan that.


What does spring in the OMG look like from a chef’s perspective? What OMG spring produce have you enjoyed using in the past on your menus, and is there anything you’re requesting to grow in the future?


Winter is a bit slow when it comes to getting things growing and we have had a very wet season. I am excited to see all the vibrant produce return and the garden go back to its luscious self again. Some plants that come to mind that we’ve used are bronze fennel, radish leaves, yarrow, marigolds, mustard, carrot tips and radish shoots. I think of gardeners as being creative tradespeople – they know what grows best on the patch of land they have, so although we can request a lot of ingredients, we rely on their skill and expertise to know if the soil and weather are suited to plant something in particular. I leave it to the experts!


Priced at $175 per person, the Gaggenau Tuesday Test Kitchen includes canapés, six feature dishes and the choice of a glass of champagne, Seedlip cocktail or beer on arrival, as well as Vittoria water and tea or coffee. “


The main dining room at Sid at The French Café offers both a la carte and a tasting menu, including a vegetarian menu.

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