VAT: Claremont calling

It doesn’t have the locals in paroxysms of joy. One commented wearily, “It just isn’t Margaret River”. It seems ‘U’ and ‘non-U’ is alive and well in the Capes region. The fuss is about a new restaurant in Margaret River’s main street; VAT 107.

It’s a pleasant dining experience, but its presence does seem incongruous in a town where, for the time being anyway, farmers, surfies, hippies and small business people co-exist in a world where Blundstones are still the most popular footwear and meat ’n’ three veg is alive and well on dinner tables.

VAT 107 is simply a sign of the times, and these are wine times. Wine is both Margaret River’s future and its agent of change: a two decades long gold rush, which shows no sign of petering out and the progenitor of the greatest cultural shift the region has experienced.

No other commodity has the capacity to attract yuppies, city lawyers and dreamers like wine does. Drawn by the gravitational pull of the wine lifestyle, these St George’s Terrace oenophiles are like comets, bringing behind them a streaming tail of pervasive city culture: latte, Country Road, chambray, Range Rovers, real estate speculation, Vogue interiors and an insatiable appetite for chowing down on neo-peasant cuisine (the Maggie Beer style of simple, yuppified farm food: nostalgia on a plate for Western Suburbs

brokers and their wives).

VAT 107 is the inevitable result. It may be the first to so blatantly ape the urban restaurant experience in a rural setting. It won’t be the last.

VAT 107 is pleasant. Its citified interior scheme is café lite: all looks, no personality — but none the less colourful, airy and

pleasant. It is a shiny, glossy palette of

cartoon colours, polished timber, stainless steel and opaque glass. A wall mounted wide screen TV plays surfing videos, perhaps to ensure that inveterate couch potatoes don’t feel like they’re missing out.

Externally, it is an abomination: an architectural style so distracted by a mish-mash of trendy typological references and gratuitous adornment that it’ll look dated by this time next year.

The menu is small and well formed. There were nine meals on offer the day we lunched including smoked salmon with salad of capers and sour cream ($13.00/$19.00), a shitake mushroom broth ($8.00), grilled swordfish with a salsa verde & leek and garlic mash ($23.00), char-grilled Dardenup beef with fries and horseradish ($19.50), roast vegetable stack with parmesan, polenta and olive tapenade ($9.00/$15.00) and penne with basil, field mushrooms and pecorino ($11.00/$16.00). This is a safe menu, providing a little something for everyone without scaring the punters.

It’s important to point out that, at the time of this review, VAT 107 had been open all of two days (The Saturday evening opening party was the talk of Margaret River). It would be unfair, then, to dwell on minor lapses in food and service, as every new restaurant needs at least a month or two to sort itself out. The good news is that, despite some forgetfulness from the floor staff and shakiness in the kitchen, VAT was enjoyable.

The five of us — publisher Kate Rowley,

Pippin Jacobs of Ogilvies, Blue Cow Cheese supremo Nick Bath, The Blonde and myself — crooned a chorus of “mmmmms” and

“aaarrhhs” at the bread and olive plate.

The kitchen-cooked sour dough was fantastic: dense, yeasty and rich in floury, peasant flavours — a rave in every mouthful. The oil, decanted into a small porcelain server for dunking, happened to be my favourite:

a fruity, lurid yellow number from Spoleto

in Umbria.

Our mains were a mixed success. The char-grilled beef was well aged, well cooked and well presented. Its accompanying fries were crisp and golden. It came to table with a simple garnish of fresh peppery rocket leaves. The horseradish cream was a disappointment — a mix of commercial horseradish and sour cream, rather than utilizing fresh horseradish root. All in all though, a satisfying, well cooked dish.

The penne was cold and gluggy with a pesto sauce of sorts. The swordfish was generous, well grilled with a creamy, flavoursome leek and potato mash and a small thatch of salad greens on top.

Pip’s shitake mushroom broth was good

— clear as a bell, aromatic, balanced.

There were six desserts on offer: raspberry and passionfruit pavlova with raspberry cream ($7.00), VAT churned ice creams

— three scoops ($5.00), vanilla bean brulee

with almond biscuit ($7.00), lemon tart

with mascarpone ($7.00) and a slice of

pan forte ($2.00).

A selection of Australian cheeses was curious in that two of the cheeses were French. The cheeses were sold individually

or together — a terrific customer-friendly

initiative ($4.50 for one, $8.50 for two, $12.50 for three).

The ice creams were ok. Serving the three scoops one on top of the other in a tall parfait glass was a mistake. The flavours quickly melded together as they melted, making it impossible to discern individual flavours.

VAT 107 is good. Its prices are more than

reasonable; its service comfortable and casual.

In another few months VAT will have

polished its service and food and will be

even better.

What one does notice is the lack of regionalism on the menu. Restaurants in wine areas usually make the effort to source and serve local produce, which is as it should be.

Perhaps once the kitchen begins to make contact with local suppliers and growers, regional foods will play a larger role on the menu.

It’s a little bit of Claremont in Margaret River.

With Dennis Hagger now chief stove jock at San Lorenzo, his eponymous Subiaco restaurant, is now in new hands, and called Bibendum. Curious name, considering it is a contraction of the latin motto for the Michelin Tyre Company, and the name of the original Bibendum restaurant was built by Conran in the London HQ of the old Michelin favtory, so it kinds makes sense there. But here? Anyway. the launch party was a full blown throw back to the Ad Fab 80s. For a moment there Bibendum was the air kissing capital of the western world.

The muscular boys in red satin togas serving champagne on arrival would have gladdened the heart of Patsy and Adina. A great party. New owner / chef Opel Khan says he’ll be cooking an east-meets-west-Australian-contemporay cuisine.

The Hagger’s dining room has been left as it was, which is just as well. It’s one of grooviest, well designed dining rooms in Perth.