Food review by James Hill and wine review by Stephen O'Halloran

Food

A full house for our truffle lunch today with new head chef Amosh at the Royal Exchange preparing our main course with truffles very generously donated by member David Gregory. Steve Liebeskind and yours truly prepared the canapés.

Canapes

Canapés were topped with scraped and shaved truffle.

• Warmed leek and potato soup aka vichyssois in a shot glass.

• Goat’s cheese on crostini.

• Vic’s meats black truffle salami kurobuta rare breed pork pinned with radish.

• Seared roast beef topped with enoki mushrooms and truffle sitting on pea purée and toasted bread. The truffle pea purée was made a day before for a flavour boost.

Main course

Chicken pithivier on chicken cream sauce with bowls of pomme purée and lashings of truffle!

Breasts of chicken were seared and then marinated overnight with seasoning and paprika. The pie filling was made with truffle, shiitake mushroom, bechamel sauce, seeded mushroom and tarragon.

Butter pastry was used for the and it sat on a sauce made from leftover bechamel sauce, chicken stock, Dijon mustard shredded truffle and cream. It was an interesting observation that salt highlighted the truffle aroma.

As many commented it looked simple yet a complex dish, as Richard Gibson said “the ultimate comfort food yet fine dining quality”.

A flavoursome pie filling with not overly creamy delicate texture and perfectly presented.

It was Amoush’s solo first lunch cooking for us since being made Head Chef and he was presented with a chef’s toque as a token of appreciation by our Society.

Canapés and main were highly commended and enjoyed by members at lunch today.

Cheese

Many had an idea of the cheese (French origin?) today presented by our master Mark Bradford however when revealed it was a pleasant surprise as it was a high-quality Australian cheese. It was Woombye Cheese Company Triple Cream Brie Artisan Cow's Milk White from Queensland.

Woombye Triple Cream Brie is made using this fine quality local milk to which extra cream is added. This extra cream means that below the delicate white bloomy rind found on the outside, there is a deliciously rich and creamy paste. This cheese is turned by hand every day throughout its maturation to allow the rind to develop perfectly.

Accompanied by a salad of mixed leaves and tomato and a dried fig softened with brandy and star anise.

Wine

Today our resident sous Chef Amosh, became our resident Head Chef with the departure of Rob Doll. So today it was Amosh on the high wire, without a net, and boy did he come through with flying colours! The main course was a chicken and mushroom truffle pithivier with creamy truffle mash, in a word magnificent! Congratulations to our new Chef. Steve Liebeskind and James Hill created some superb pass-arounds, so we were well fed, to say the least. See the full food report for more detail.

The aperitif wines were two top Chardonnays, first a Curley Flat and the second a Yabby Lake, both from 2015. Of the two, the general consensus favoured the Yabby Lake. To my taste, the Curley Flat had a hard to identify problem on the first sip. The wine was fairly deep yellow and now being 9 yo, perhaps a little oxidised? The flavour was still good, very buttery with some oak evident. Very much like a Chardonnay made in the 1980s. By no means unpleasant, the wine left me thinking, was there a winemaking fault or just getting on a bit?

The second wine presented no such issues, it was a delight. Much lighter in colour and texture, well balanced with generous fruit and acid, taught and disciplined on the mid-palate, finishing with a crisp lingering taste. A top wine. More please.

For the main course, the first was a Tolpuddle Pinot 2014 from Tasmania 12.5%.  Great PN nose, with a medium weight. A very good Australian PN, however when compared to the following wine its one dimensional character became obvious. Nothing wrong with the wine at all, left alone would be well regarded, but the contrast with the following French PN showed its lack of complexity.

The second wine was the Cheron Chambolle-Musigny also from 2014 12.8%. These French folk really know how to make great PN. Considerably denser in colour than the Tolpuddle, with a more alluring mouthfeel, and a clean finish. Beautiful balance of fruit, acid, soft tannins and gentle oak. In my view a really lovely wine, wish I had some. A great choice for today’s lunch.

Third wine was a Massolino Langhe Nebbiolo 2014 13.5%. Apparently an entry-level Nebbiolo which to me was more than just acceptable, indeed I really enjoyed it. Medium weight and quite elegant despite the usual strong tannic and acidic taste of this particular grape. A perfect food wine, as the Italians are such masters in creating. A smooth but firm finish with hints of tar and licorice for which this grape is well known. If this is entry-level, please escort me to the next level!

The final wine for the day was a beauty, the Tyrrells Vat 9 Shiraz 2014, 13.9%. The vintage of 2014 is widely regarded as one of the best in the Hunter for decades, perfect growing conditions produced wonderful reds and whites in that year. For this reason, I was really excited about tasting this wine, one of Tyrrell's top reds. The wine presented in glass with deep black/purple hues, and a strong aroma of dark fruits and spice. On the palate, the wine was superb, great balance, elegant yet powerful with restrained oak and tannin aspects. Plenty of acid still, resulting in a clean satisfying aftertaste.  No sign of ageing, I see this wine drinking with excellence well into the next decade.   Whilst I was a great fan of the Musigny, I was super impressed with the Vat 9, a classic Hunter destined for greatness.