Earlier this year, Steve Liebeskind won both Chef of the Year and the Chris Alexiou Seafood Trophy for his smoked poached salmon in broth. Last week, he was back in the kitchen to give us a dish of barramundi in a Thai coconut sauce – and by crikey he may have done it again!

Before the main event, we enjoyed a fresh zingy gazpacho in shot glasses, some superior gravlax with crème fraiche on bread rounds and an intriguing mix of shredded smoked chicken and cranberry sauce with chives and walnuts served in whitlof “boats” providing a touch of contrasting bitterness to the sweetness of the sauce. The aperitif wine was the 2010 Den Mar chardonnay from the Hunter, still fresh if a bit one dimensional, and the ever reliable Lustau oloroso sherry.

Steve, with help from Graham Fear, used wild barramundi, less mushy than the farmed variety, and baked individual fillet slices with a salted skin, served upwards to preserve a bit of crispness on bok choy, on a puddle of rich coconut-based sauce made on chicken stock with galangal, kaffir lime leaves, some enoki mushrooms and, of course, a red hit of sliced chilis to give it the real flavour of Thailand. The fish was very well handled and the whole dish sang with the hot sweet and sour characters required of the region. Always a challenge with spicy food, the wine choice was thoughtful, with a 2012 Hugel gewurtztraminer from Alsace providing plenty of perfume on the nose and sweet fruit, while a 2007 Barwang 842 chardonnay from Tumbarumba was an elegant, well-structured cool-climate wine with some wood evident which made it less of a match with the food, although a superior wine.

For cheese, it was up to France with a Pont l’Eveque washed rind cows’ milk cheese from Normandy. Served quite cool and firm in the French manner, it showed some good nutty washed rind notes, but without the runny lusciousness which a tallegio from Italy showed a few weeks ago. A green salad of mizuna and rocket leaves was dressed with sliced pears and white radish and a sweet vinaigrette. The accompanying wines were a 2010 Port Philip pinot from the Mornington Peninsula, showing good soft slightly funky fruit but lacking acid to give it length, and a 2007 De Bortoli shiraz viognier from the Yarra, good drinking with the viognier dressing up the shiraz into a spicy lighter style, showing that the Yarra can do shiraz.

The coffee was a monsoon Malabar from India, the touted exposure of the raw berries to monsoon rains giving it a reduced bitterness and a rich chocolate feel in the mouth.