Fidler's Brisbane Street Bistro

PROFILED BY DE GROOTS MEDIA
Terry Fidler made his name as one of Tasmania’s leading chefs a decade or so ago at Schouten House in Swansea on the East Coast. He’s now returned to his home town and opened Fidler's Brisbane Street Bistro in one of the beautiful old Federation townhouses that decorate this central part of the CBD. And, in the name, “bistro” is the operative word for he’s serving up simple, well-cooked, satisfying dishes that are unpretentiously aimed at the mainstream. At a time when the fashion is for smaller delicate dishes, he’s sticking to the style he’s always done best – food with big, robust flavours in servings that ensure you won’t leave hungry.

A classic French onion soup is a bowl of rich, sweet mellowness, thick with caramelised onion. Six plump scallops come, in a gesture of modernity, flash-seared, double sauced, artfully garnished and parading single-file along a long white plate. The menu’s “mushroom gateau” is more mushroom than gateau – a piled mix of fungi in a rich veal stock, the fungi spiked with truffle oil and the stock sweetened with Muscat – while a long-braised best end of lamb is just what you need on a wintry night. A signature of Fidler’s style is the pig’s trotter – boned, stuffed with good forcemeat, slow-cooked in maple syrup and soy, the skin crisped in the oven, halved and served on buttery parsnip mash with shaved black truffle. Follow with a moistly-textured and beautifully spiced apple pudding topped with rhubarb and you’re sure to be comforted into the night.

Graeme Phillips