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Best Food and Wine Matching: Marque, Surry Hills

A significant trend in Australia’s restaurants is the rise of the degustation menu. We have enthusiastically revoked our right to determine our dining destiny and put our fates in the hands of chefs keen to display their skills on a broader canvas.

This also gives the smart sommelier a great opportunity to strut their stuff, which is why this year’s awards have included a specific category focusing on the matching of wines to a degustation menu.

The eventual winner, Marque, offers an exceptional dining experience, with some of Australia’s most ambitiously conceived and precisely executed food finding harmony with a selection of wines from Austria to Argentina, and most points in between.

“Each new dish at Marque is tasted as if it were a wine,” sommelier Peter Healy says. “Notes are taken on dominating flavours and textures, and the overall impression of the dish, then a wine is chosen to suit.”

Healy pays attention to presentation and perception as part of the experience.

“The wine is served first and no direct clues are given to the nature of the dish about to arrive as we tell the wine’s story,” he explains. “This element of surprise removes any preconception diners might have if a menu was presented or reference made to the food in advance.”

This gives diners an open mind with which to tackle pairings such as almond jelly, blue swimmer crab, almond gazpacho, corn and herring roe with Pegasus Bay’s 2006 riesling; roast quail, pumpkin tofu, pickled onions and pork crackling with a Beaujolais from Daniel Bouland; or Rutherglen muscat and ginger beer served alongside a chocolate ganache with praline, lemongrass and rosemary.

Marque, 4/5 355 Crown St, Surry Hills, NSW, (02) 9332 2225, www.marquerestaurant.com.au.

TEXT NICK RYAN

This article appeared in the August/September 2008 issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE.