Much anticipated in the pre-publicity, the Buffalo Club has opened on the corner of Wickham and Brunswick Streets in Fortitude Valley.
The chef is Ryan Squires. A skinny chef. He was last seen (tasted?) at Urbane in Mary Street in Brisbane. The Buffalo Club, together with the Sky Room are two new ventures of Cameron Birt and Stephanie Canfeld. They also have the Bowrey Bar in Ann Street in the Valley which has recently taken out the Gourmet Traveller 2009 Bar of the Year award.
The pre-publicity for this restaurant referred to many awards. The chef worked under Adria Ferran at El Bulli in Spain often referred to as the Number One Restaurant in the World. He also worked with Thomas Keller at the French Laundry in California and at Per Se in New York, both regularly featured in the top five restaurants in the world.
I know that not many of my friends were polled to decide these world rankings.
The restaurant has only been open for a few weeks. The menu changes daily. The current format is to provide a number of small tasting dishes with the only option being the full tasting menu or the shorter version. The full version cost (on the night I attended) $155.00. The shorter version was $80.00. I attach the food program for your consideration. We chose to match the menu with the drinks for an extra $70.00. We just got with the program but there is a goodish mid-range wine list if you prefer that.
We sat down just after 8.00pm on a Saturday night and received our metal commemorative takeaway “Buffalo Candy Box” (including grapefruit (?) bubblegum!) just after midnight. A group of ten we sat at a u-shaped table which forms part of a bar around the kitchen. Those sitting at the end of this table are about a metre away from the food being prepared and the whole of the kitchen is visible from this table. Most of the language is audible. The “juniors” in the brigade only say “oui chef” so its quite like being in court.
The food has many of the components associated with molecular gastronomy. There are foams and powders and jellies and smears. Mostly this is stuff you don’t get at home. The sense of complexity if overarching. Food here is not fuel but an experience. The presentation is striking.
But what does it taste like? It was great.
On our table a few didn’t like the wheat beer sorbet topped with the roquette soup. On the plus side the foie gras marshmallow (lightly pan fried to be crispy on the outside) appeared to be the unanimous favourite. I particularly liked the variant of the toasted cheese sandwich (wafer thin brioche encasing a thin slice of raclette cheese, a hint of cucumber and perhaps passing memory of mustard, lightly fried). I enjoyed every dish although in some I could not identify any of the ingredients.
In such a large group with the theatre of sitting around the kitchen, the experience was supercharged. I thought later about how uncomfortable the whole thing would have been had there been even one non believer amongst us. I remember being in the Stoke Newington Jazz Club with a mate (now a Sunshine Coast solicitor) who after being shushed repeatedly for talking did ejaculate the words “play leavin’ on a jet plane ya tools” as he was being ushered out. That was a bit awkward. Some of my mates would have dialed a pizza before 10.00 only after giving the kitchen many tips. This would have occurred well before the Tasmanian Summer truffle on white corn, egg yolk and white asparagus was served up.
Because we were surrendering ourselves to the experience we took the associated drinks package. I regret that now. In the drinks we were served two okay white wines and one reasonable medium bodied red. The majority of the accompanying drinks however were cocktails served in shot glasses that were as complicated (and in this instance complicating) as the food. With the exception of the wines and a wheat beer, the drinks did not complement the food for me. Instead they were as a separate course being a liquid taste sensation punctuating the solids. The espresso martini was in tune with the desert but those featuring the mescal tequila, the gin with elderberry and the single malt scotch, whilst all being interesting were not to my taste. I drank them all however. Perhaps they worked their magic in a way that I am unable to even appreciate.
Perhaps my criticism of the drinks is a bit like saying I don’t like the cannon in the 1812 Overture or the brightness of the yellow sky in a Van Gogh painting. Frankly, I’ve never cooked anything one tenth as good as what we ate at the Buffalo Club nor have I attempted (at home, at another restaurant, in my mind) an ambitious matching of food and drink as was attempted here.
So the retort of the troglodyte (I mightn’t know much but I know what I like) does spring to mind. I would have liked to have asked the chef if he would recommend the drinks.
For those looking for a foodie experience the Buffalo Club is a great addition to the dining scene in Australia. I expect that it will be reviewed in glowing terms by those who have heard about and read about and talked about (but not been to) those restaurants at which Ryan Squires has previously worked. I also expect that with a constantly changing menu and the fact that the place has only just opened that the story will alter considerably over the next month or two.
I would certainly go again.
Michael Liddy
