You may be wondering why you are looking at some photos of Bourke Street Bakery taken during the night, but Cheesecake Boy, K and I were here for Bakery Nights a couple of Saturday's ago. Katrina Hollis is the chef behind the Bakery Nights, who has had stints at Rockpool, Icebergs and Bourke Street Bakery. Bakery Nights is basically best described as a carefully constructed surprised dinner that utilities the best seasonal produce available. Dinner started at 6.30pm, and Cheesecake Boy and I were running a bit late due to the traffic, so I was definitely flustered by the time we got there.
Bakery Nights is BYO, so Cheesecake Boy and I bought along one of our last bottles of wine from our Hunter Valley trip earlier this year. We got the Gewurz at The Little Wine Company which has a lovely range of wines from some of the smaller vineyards in the Hunter as well as their own range. The Gewurz was lovely with its delicate sweetness, but bold notes. Must remember to get some more when we are up there.
Cheesecake Boy and I were the last to arrive, but we were just on time for the starters. Lovely crusty bread was served with an antipasto platter.
Our antipasto platter consisted of ricotta, polenta chips, grilled eggplant, roasted capsicum and olives with anchovies. It was a nice and simple combination that all went well together. However, Cheesecake Boy favourite were the olives and anchovies, whereas I enjoyed the polenta chips that were nicely seasoned with rosemary and the beautifully sweet roasted capsicum.
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| Antipasto platter with ricotta, polenta chips, grilled eggplant, roasted capsicum and olives with anchovies |
We were served an amuse bouche of creamy artichoke soup. It was delicious with the garlic crisp garnish on top. It's one of those soups that are perfect on cold winter night's.
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| Artichoke soup with garlic crisp |
Our entree of potato and ricotta gnocchi with Queensland spanner crab meat, organic morels and broad beans was next. The ricotta in the gnocchi gave the gnocchi a softer and plumper texture. However, the subtle flavours of this dish really allowed the sweet and tender crab meat and the hint of chilli in the sauce to come through, and the addition of the morels and broad beans added a nice firm texture to this delicate dish.
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| Potato and ricotta gnocchi with Queensland spanner crab meat, organic morels and broad beans |
By the time our duck mains came around, we began to realise that the stools at Bourke Street Bakery are strictly for a quick sausage roll and sweet treat, as opposed to this five course meal we were savouring. I had been looking forward to our main, as I love duck. Our main consisted of a roasted Thirmere duck with juniper berry and orange, braised lentils and globe artichokes with speck and chestnut stuffing. Unfortunately, we all found our pieces of duck overcooked, but we enjoyed the accompanying lentils. I particularly enjoyed the roasted and stuffed globe artichokes, but Cheesecake Boy was not as keen.
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| Roasted Thirmere duck with juniper berry and orange, braised lentils and globe artichokes with speck and chestnut stuffing |
A standard side salad was provided with the main. The sharp acidity of the salad really helped cut through the richness of the duck meat, it was the perfect accompaniment for our mains.
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| Side salad |
Don't let the simplicity of this hazelnut torte with burnt caramel cream and orange sauce fool you. It was delicious and packed with hazelnut goodness. I really love hazelnuts, so I was quite smitten. However, Cheesecake Boy found this cake slightly too dry for his liking, he prefers gooey and moist cakes. One side of our slice of cake had a lovely burnt caramel cream that was my favourite and the other side had a slightly bitter, but sweet orange sauce. Both sauces were also lovely mixed together, and added a robust sweetness to the intense hazelnut flavours of our torte.
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| Hazelnut torte with burnt caramel cream and orange sauce |
I guess there is no better compliment, than having your dishes after a meal scrapped clean. The dessert was a clear winner, and was the only dish to be completely demolished on our table.
A Bakery Nights dinner costs $65 per person and is cash only. Dinners get booked out as soon as dates get announced, so you will need to be quick to secure your spot. Small groups bookings will need to share a table though. If you're not a fussy eater than Bakery Night's is something different, and with your own bottle of wine in one hand and some good company in tow, Bakery Night's makes for a good night out.
Dining away, Dumpling Girl.
Bakery Nights
Bourke Street Bakery
2 Mitchell Street
Marrickville NSW 2204
E: bakerynights@gmail.com
http://www.bakerynights.com.au/
7 comments:
Crusty bread looks good but I would have loved a sneak peak of a flustered Dumpling Girl :)
heh love that last shot of everyones clean plates!
love antipasto!! and oh god that caramel cream looks good
Lol, chopinand. I don't think Cheesecake Boy wants a permanent reminder of what a flustered Dumpling Girl looks like on this blog.
Hey Suze, it was the caramel cream that made us scrap our plates clean :)
Hello sugarpuffi, I love a good antipasto platter too.
Artichoke soup with garlic crisp
that sounds really interesting.
my mum always makes artichoke water when its in season.. i dont think us viets really eat it at all..
though i did have pickled artichokes in my baugette at Made in italy... tasty!
so many of these sort of dinners are popping up - great concept but love it though! it's nice to not know what's on the menu!
Hi Dolly, I love pickled artichokes too. My mother also use to make a beef broth of artichokes but added carrots. The soup though was really lovely.
Hello minibites, we had no idea until we got there. Totally agree it's good sometimes not to know what you are eating, makes for a more adventurous meal :)
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