The Devonshire
Restaurant Review by Franz Scheurer
This new, cosy and comfortable fine-diner in Devonshire Street ticks most of the boxes: professional service, great ambience, intimate lighting, readable menu and great food.
We started with ‘King salmon rillettes, hot smoked belly, watercress bavarois and horseradish’ ($20), ‘Scallops, squid, celeriac, pomegranate and golden raisins’ ($25), ‘Veal sweetbread, tongue, Brussels sprout coleslaw, almonds and madeira’ ($24) and Quail bird nest salad, golden eggs, frisée and bois boudran’ ($22). The salmon was probably the weakest dish with the scallops and the sweetbread vying for the number one spot. The scallops were beautifully dry, served with a brunoise of pomegranate and raisins and a smear of squid ink and celeriac and the dish worked extremely well. The acid of the pomegranate and the sweetness of the raisins contrasted with the sweetness in the scallops and the acid in the black sauce. The sweetbreads were a cracker and the tongue springy and juicy.
For mains we tried ‘Bangalow pork loin, belly and shoulder, pumpkin, prunes and apple’ ($34), ‘Duck breast, confit leg, fig tarte fine, bitter leaves, baby onions and roasting juices’ ($36), Snapper, katchumba salad, pakoras, curry sauce and rice foam’ ($35) and the ‘Potato gnocchi with pine mushrooms, parmesan and peas’ ($26). The pork symphony looks great and surprised with a myriad of different textures, the duck breast was fine (although hard to cut with the puny knives on offer) but the fig tart was the dish of the night. A wonderfully crunchy pastry base, covered by juicy bitter leaves and onions definitely stole the show. Everything else paled in comparison. The snapper was competent, well cooked and the gnocchi themselves memorable, although nothing else on the plate lived up to them. The bread was superb, as were the two kinds of butter served with it, but I will state it here again: Do not take the bread plates away after entrée has been served. I want bread throughout the meal and I can’t for the life of me figure out when the bad habit of whisking away the bread plate became fashionable. It’s wrong!
Desserts were good and looked even better. We tasted the ‘Bittersweet chocolate pave, chocolate sorbet and chocolate ice cream’ ($14), “Pineapple caramelised, pudding, ice-cream and soup’, ($14) and the ‘Devonshire tea crème brûlée, scone ice-cream, cherry jam and whipped cream’ ($15). If you love chocolate then you’d go for the plate with all the chocolate goodies but I must say that I couldn’t decide which one I liked best.
The food is excellent and the staff already works very much as a team, which is remarkable after such a short time. There are a few minor service issues, e.g. a waterglass missing and undetected and a salad ordered that never materialised. These are however a small price to pay for a place that deserves your attention.
Noise: 72 db
Did I like it: yes
Best dish: the tarte fine by a country mile
For more information or bookings:
The Devonshire
204 Devonshire Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Tel.: (02) 9698 9427
