Excuse the awesome terrible pun, but I would like to discuss 'Press Food and Wine' on Waymouth Street. Let me start by saying that I love this restaurant. When I imagine owning my own establishment in the future, this is sort of place that I would love to create. It certainly has had much hype surrounding it since opening in late 2011. It is the latest establishment to come from Simon Kardachi of 'Melt' (on King William Rd & Waymouth St) and 'The Pot' (on King William Rd) and Andrew Davies (formerly from Bistro Dom). Each beautiful establishments, although I'd have to say Press Food and Wine is my favourite.
You can tell that this is a place where everything has been really well thought out, from the layout, to the small details such as having individual hand towels to dry your hands on in the bathrooms, to the small table at the entrance of the restaurant where diners sit if they are waiting for a table or someone else from their party to arrive. My favourite 'detail' would be the use of Aesop hand wash and hand lotion in the bathrooms. I could go into detail to describe the beautiful interior that uses many recycled materials, but I won't because I feel you should just visit yourself to experience it.
Moving onto the food, where I firstly must commend the prompt arrival of a bread plate, a sight I feel is too rare in restaurants. The menu is broken down into seven main components, where the raw and smaller plate options are like you appetisers, and the others are your mains. On the two occassions I've been there I've tried a variety of the dishes. I like that many of the dishes feel familiar when reading them, but when they arrive and you actually eat them you discover a whole new appreciation for the ingredients and what they have been transformed into. The roasted 'kewpie' pork buns have to be a highlight. They're perfectly balanced and have just enough salad and kewpie mayonnaise in them to complement the pork, rather than over power it. On my second visit (which was January 24th, 2013) we chose to pick a few of the smaller plater options and share them for lunch. One of the dishes was a squid dish (pictured below) which was cooked perfectly, was crunchy, zingy, refreshing and complemented the wood-grilled taste. The chorizo dish was also beautiful with chargrilled capsicum and some sort of tomato sauce accompaniment, could have easily been eaten as a main.
Once we had finished lunch a desert menu was brought out, and even though we were full we decided to try the pineapple sorbet served with fresh pineapple, it was over 40C outside after all! The sorbet arrived, and it is honestly the best sorbet I've ever eaten. It was smooth, not too acidic, not too sweet, and it tasted exactly like pineapple. Not a weird pineapple flavour. I would have happily bought a tub of that to take home and devour.
Lastly, I'd like to compliment the staff on the great service. The staff were friendly and accommodating, they were attentive but not to the point where they were intruding, and they all had sound knowledge of the menu. I really can't wait to go back, I am eager to get the tasting menu ($65 per person).
Check out their website to see the opening times, there is also a sample menu posted on there but from experience, don't set your heart on one of these items as the menu in the restuarant may differ slightly!
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