Henry's Harbourside

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
The Henry Jones Art Hotel is an architecturally brilliant makeover of what was for well over a century, Henry Jones’ IXL jam factory. In a previous life it was a series of sandstone warehouses on the waterfront where the first convicts and English soldiers stepped ashore in 1804 to establish Hobart Town. The restaurant is a continuation of the reception foyer and its walls carry many of the 250 original artworks featured throughout the hotel. From the contemporary design of the ground-floor space to the crisp napery, quality table-settings and uniformed floor staff, the effect is one of understated elegance. It’s an open, welcoming, beautifully appointed space and one steps into it from the waterfront with heightened expectations and a sense of occasion.

Chef Andre Kropp’s food delivers on those expectations, laying to rest that old travellers’ adage ‘never eat where you stay’. As befits a hotel, the menu is a little more conservative than some of the city’s top eateries, but the cooking, elegantly modern plating and wonderful flavour combinations lift the food well above the hotel mainstream and above many other restaurants in the state. Kropp’s entrée of marinated beetroot with goat cheese in a honey, orange and Tasmanian bush pepperberry dressing is a visual and flavour delight, while you’ll find his soufflé of local hazelnuts to be a delicious, light-as-air puff of decadence.

Graeme Phillips