- Fenix Restaurant & Events, 680 Victoria Street Richmond www.fenix.com.au
- Description in the festival guide: This stylish and unconventional high tea will blow your mind when Sydney-based master Adriano Zumbo brings his magnificent macaron madness served with passion, flair and artistry to Fenix.
- Party of two.
- Da cost: Despite a misprint in the guide of $50 per person with first sweet offering and non-alcoholic beverage, it was $25 per person with each item charged separately like a yum char menu.
With the 2012 Melbourne Food & Wine Festival now a distant memory, I guess it is better late than never to share this post about a memorable event for both its positives and negatives. When my good friend Maya snapped up tickets for a high tea by no other than Adriano Zumbo (of Masterchef fame), at no other than Gary Mehigan's restaurant Fenix, I thought I had died and gone to foodie-wannabe-heaven.
As the high tea started at midday, I thought I would do the sensible thing and not eat anything beforehand to be ready and prepared to indulge in the sumptuous and delectable treats that awaited me. We both did not really know what to expect and arrived to find the function room, upstairs at Fenix, dressed like it would be for a wedding, complete with a seating plan. The host was Mr Gary Mehigan himself, who is a very witty and entertaining character and needless to say I was very excited to see him however admittedly I have dreamed of meeting him in the Masterchef kitchen rather than seated in his restaurant!
Gary made a big deal of introducing Zumbo (well I guess it was his event) and he enters the room to a round of applause from very excited (mainly) females. He proceeds with a cooking demonstration of how to make macarons, it felt like we were in our very own masterclass. The macaron flavour of the day: peking duck macarons with spring onion and cucumber filling! Yes, true story, it did sound strange to me but I would be willing to give anything a go. Unfortunately I was not one of the lucky few who got to sample this macaron that pushed the boundaries of macaron flavours.
During the demonstration, trolleys holding the sweet treats were being pushed around and served. Well that was what it appeared like. By the time we even got a waitress, we were told the savory food had run out, not that the waitresses seemed to have any clue what was where or what. We had already got tick-happy with our yum char like menu and ticked everything we wanted only to be told that certain flavours of macarons had run out including, and yes I'll mention it again, the savoury food. I was just really looking forward to the 'lamb & harissa' sausage roll.
I have to apologise for the state of my photos, we were so hungry by the time we got served, we had already started to share and halve our macarons and other treats! The macaron pictured that is in tact on its own, is the lychee flavoured macaron. Lychees are my favourite fruit so I had high expectations for it, it was ok but did not blow my mind. The notable macaron flavours for me were the milo, cola, salted butter caramel and salted gianduja caramel. Gianduja is a sweet chocolate that contains 30% hazelnut paste originally from Turin, Italy. These macarons were the best I have ever had, perfectly bursting with the flavour it was, melt in your mouth and made me want to instantly jump on a plane to Sydney to visit the home of Adriano Zumbo. The good news for Melburnians is that he is planning on opening a store (or two) in Melbourne soon.
We also orderded the 'Lemon Meringue' cake that seemed to be missing one major element - the meringue! The 'Decorated Chocolate Fondant' was very modestly decorated, I was left wishing that I stuck to the macarons and ordered more. Oh that's right, they had run out!
Despite the lack of food being a disappointment, the energy of the event was fun, casual and interesting. The audience were able to ask questions directly to Zumbo, where we learnt he trained at Laduree in Paris, and that the correct pronunciation is the French way: macaron, one O only and the other word macaroon is in fact the coconut biscuit!
After the macaron cooking demonstration, there was an opportunity to have Zumbo himself autograph his cookbook. I don't have his cookbook myself however Maya does so we made our way downstairs to have the book signed and to sneak in a photo with him too. We also had the opportunity to chat with Gary, who also autographed Zumbo's book, and told us the next season of Masterchef starts end of April and where Maya squeezed in a plug for shy old me and this very food blog to the Masterchef himself! Although we left with somewhat unsatisfied stomachs, we left with extremely satisfied memories.
