Muse Restaurant | Pokolbin, AUSTRALIA
Ask anyone who has been to the Hunter Valley for a restaurant recommendation and he or she would more than likely suggest Muse Restaurant.
Not only is Muse Restaurant listed as one of the Hot 50 in The Australian Restaurants List for 2016, it has also, for the third consecutive year, kept its Two Chef Hats. So it’s an understatement to say that this restaurant enjoys celebrity status in Pokolbin, and without any question, when we were putting together our itinerary for our Hunter Valley trip, Muse Restaurant was on the top of our list.
The restaurant is situated at the Hungerford Hill Winery on Broke Road, and given its size, it’s a hard-to-miss spot. We arrived slightly earlier than the opening time for dinner service but the maître d’ kindly opened the door and let us in to keep warm in the reception area until we were lead to our table right in front of the food pass (where all the action happens).
The restaurant was dark, it felt extremely intimate for a space that’s so open with its high ceilings. In the center of the restaurant, flames danced and sprung in a stone fireplace, throwing up tiny sparks that were simply mesmerising to look at.
We went for the three-course option instead of a 5-course tasting menu as we didn’t want to push the friendship with Minibun George (mind you, he behaved extremely well and ate most of his meal - chicken schnitzel with steamed greens, hand cut chips and tomato sauce <$16>). We asked the sommelier to pick two glasses of wine for us and rubbed our hands together in anticipation of the food to come. The meal began with an amuse-bouche, which involved taro chip, a spiced macaron, as well as a shiitake mushroom broth served in a miniature glass teapot. The flavour of the broth was intense and aromatic and left me lingering for more and more.
Entrees didn’t take long to come out - yellowfin tuna sashimi with citrus koshu, cucumber, yoghurt, tangerine, whey for me, and Redgate Farm Duck Leg and Swede Confit - smoked and cured breast, English spinach, nashi pear for the other travel bunnie. Both were beautifully presented and tasted good. The restaurant filled up pretty quickly and our mains took a while longer to come out. As expected, the Armidale spring lamb shoulder and rib w’ roast onion, Binnorie goats’ curd, rapa leaf, black garlic togarashi, wood sorrel was tantalising but the Berkshire pork jowl and tenderloin w’ heritage carrots, quark, golden raisin, buckwheat tasted even better with the succulent texture of the meat.
If you ever dine at Muse Restaurant, there is one thing that you should definitely order - Muse Coconut, after all, the restaurant is renowned for this dessert. A husk made of dark chocolate hugged airy coconut mousse and vanilla scented coconut water, all sitting on a base of coconut cloud, light as a feather. It was such a marvellous dessert to look at and it took me a while to finally dig into it as I didn’t want to ruin the perfection of its presentation. Mind you, the Valrhona chocolate mousse and brownie w’ black garlic ice cream, wild fennel was also a fascinating looking dessert.
It was our first meal in the Hunter Valley and we started with a bang. ♥
Total Bunnie Dollars Spent: $247
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