Friends Restaurant Hyatt Centre
20 Terrace Road East Perth WA 6004
Phone: (08) 9221 0885
Fax (08) 9221 0883
www.friendsrestaurant.com.au
Five-Star Dining, One Star Performing
Five-Star restaurants often conjure image of bow ties, untouchable museum-like furnishing, and silent reserved appreciation for meticulously created food- all business, all boring, all encompassing. How wrong can people be?
Friends Restaurant in the Hyatt Centre was again awarded the Best Restaurant with Entertainment in Australia this year for its coupling of fine food with some of Australia's most loved performers. Musician, actor, and musical thespian Normie Rowe and his band were on stage tonight and the spirit of expectation and festivity filled the air, which was already dancing with mouth wetting aromas.
As the last orange hues over the river melted into the soft pinks of the mood lighting, the first course arrived. The set menu started with a showcase of the versatility of salmon: Smoked salmon tartare, arranged with wasabi cured salmon and chilled Atlantic salmon on an avocado salsa. This dish, which reads like a lisper's nightmare, tasted like the fiction of dreams. Friend's Chef, Alexis Jackson, paraded the full range of textures available in the fish, almost willing the palate to discern between them more deliberately. Combining wasabi and avocado salsa on the same plate provided a strong argument for multiculturalism, showing what can happen when preconceived opposites intermarry.
The main course was a fillet of beef, served with fondant potato, asparagus, mushroom, caramelised shallot and red capsicum ragout. This unpretentious dish showed the value of prime quality ingredients and uncomplicated cooking. Choosing such a dish was wise because it shone the spotlight on the wines for the main act.
Unsurprisingly, Friends' cellar was judged as Australia's best. Our bottle of 2003 Serafino McLaren Vale Shiraz ($49) was blessed with the best of pepper and plum notes, blissfully accompanying the beef fillet mains. However, I must admit that the Chateau Lafite-Rothchild Pavillac 1 st Growth 1948 from France ($3500) would have been a wiser choice. Wines start at about $30 for a bottle, so if you cringe at spending thousands for wine, rest easy, even thirty bucks will get you something great from this list.
The final act consisted of passionfruit pannacotta with coconut and Bacardi sorbet. The sorbet's coolness and fizzing zinginess awoke my palate like a splash of fresh water. Its contrast to the wine's tannins was like a tennis match between John MacEnroe and Ivan Lendal- a thrilling interplay of whimsical delicacy and raw power.
Finally, to the encore: Normie Rowe opened with Van Morrison's "Bright Side of the Road", which only served to lift the already festive crowd. Waving hands and a one-for-all singalong broke out. Normie periodically halted mid-song to talk to the diners who were only four feet away. Qué será, será lifted the crowd higher and I knew there was no turning back.
So many restaurants are weak impersonations of each other; Friends is not. The restaurant's name is particularly appropriate, with owners Clyde and Lesley Bevan and their team treating their diners with anything but the detached hovering of many fine dining establishments. No wonder Normie rated it amongst his top two favourite Australian restaurants.
Australian legends Joe Camilleri, Daryl Braithwaite, and Mental as Anything are all scheduled to perform at Friends in the coming months, so book your seat, raise your glass, and toast them in style.
