Life with Bees

Bowral - a sort of upmarket hill station for Sydney colonials - is where ladies who lunch retire. They go to country house hotels for a pedicure, trawl the shops for vintage furniture and take their antiqued mothers out once a week for afternoon tea and champers. So what is a trendy joint like Biota doing here?

Biota - sorry, Biota Dining - has only been open for a couple of months. It’s modern and stylish with a  kitchen garden, a tiny pond and an automated greenhouse (no, neither). It’s set incongruously next to a pink motel but clever hedging makes the restaurant and its surrounds seem secret and sanctuary-like. There’s one of everything - a sunny stone courtyard, a private dining room, a lush garden, a chic cocktail bar, a verandah for alfresco eating, a casual lounge for tapas.  It’s a wonder they remembered to include the restaurant itself but everything is cleanly put together, from the wide, theatrical kitchen window to a centrepiece table full of glassware and bonsai.

Biota’s gastronomic aspirations are made clear very soon. Two glass beakers with cubes of rhubarb are set down and a chef arrives armed with a chrome soda siphon. Oh dear - it’s the liquid nitrogen. “No, no, it’s an infusion,” he reassures, filling the beakers with a gleaming froth. The eucalyptus-infused foam is mentholated without being harsh, its sweetness cut through by the tart rhubarb cubes. As an amuse bouche it works well, bringing a little smile and setting out the terrain that this kitchen wants to explore.

TK opens with potato in smoked buttermilk with burnt beetroot and egg yolk ($19). The potato is light and fluffy with hints of smoke. It’s accompanied by a perfect yolk wrapped in foam that simulates the outer white of a boiled egg. A thin strip of duck breast in juniper sugar ($20) is tender and sinuous like sashimi, surrounded by crunchy grains of cereal and served with another perfect, buttery duck’s egg.




The mains are equally interesting - a fillet of mulloway ($38) is straight out of the Heston Blumenthal “Sound of the Sea” playbook. There’s sea-foam topped with a grey curl of what appears to be kombu, salted and crispened to emulate fish skin. The fillet itself tastes a little plain, but is tender to the fork. As the foam dissipates, the briny broth yields sunken treasures, including green soybeans and tapioca pearls like fish eyes.  TK has a lamb rump ($41) which is clean and juicy without being, as he puts it, “mindblowing”. It’s set off by oat milk,  a smoky “garlic ash” and bursts of olive, all flavours that make welcome but sporadic appearances.

Crappy iPhone shot

 For dessert, a cold infusion of eucalyptus with fruit ($14) is refreshing and exceptionally pretty. There’s no foam here, thankfully, just a chilled eucalyptus liquid over soft plum segments, pumpkin and rhubarb. Cubes of cucumber and speckled chia seeds add to the pleasure. It’s a lovely summer dessert but at odds with Biota’s seasonal mandate, given that we’re nearly into winter. TK’s honey and pumpkin cream over a pumpkin shortbread ($15) is silken over crisp shortbread with a ginger sorbet. The individual elements are excellent but the dish becomes a little overbearing.

The food is intelligent and the work of a thoughtful chef who backs himself. It’s nicely executed and some of the combinations may not be to everyone’s taste but there’s no doubting the skill underlying the trendy locavore manifesto. Worth stopping over on your way to Sydney just to see what they come up with next.

www.biotadining.com
Kangaloon Road, Bowral
02 4862 2005

We moved house a couple of months ago and the camera charger disappeared in the move, leaving us without photos. I only found it today during a frantic attempt to clean up the spare room and have been reliving ancient memories from Christmas and the new year.

Among them was this glorious monstrosity - my birthday cake. TK couldn't decide which of my favourite cakes to make: black forest, red velvet or chocolate. So he made all three, bless him.

It's got layers of red velvet and Scharffenberger chocolate cake sandwiched together with a ready-made choc mousse. TK pierced it through with kirsch syrup, covered it in cream cheese frosting and topped it all off with kirsch-soaked cherries. It fed eight people at birthday dinner and we were still cutting tall, ship-like slices off it well into the next week. TK was definitely my cake hero that day. And he still is!

The leftover batter was delightful, but it killed me like a velvety, lemon assassin.