Welcoming Bert’s Brasserie and Bar
Bert’s Brasserie and Bar, inspired by Europe’s grand hotel dining rooms of the 1930s opened on Sunday.
Located at The Newport, the Merivale Group’s large-scale multi-faceted food and drinks venue at Pittwater, it will serve up a European range of dishes that hark back to an era long gone by.
Executive chef Jordan Toft and head chef Sam Kane, will be relying on fresh Australian produce, presented in a simple bar elegant fashion.
“We wanted to create that sense of relaxed indulgence you experience on a coastal European holiday; to capture the feeling where you walk straight off the beach and order a bottle of rosé and choose what type of fish you’d like,” Toft told Broadsheet.
“Or sometimes you want something a bit more glamorous with quality service, but you want it relaxed and effortless – a place where you go back to your hotel, put on a shirt, but leave the top button undone.”
The food being served will include delicate toasted brioche fingers, a daily selection of crudo served with virgin grape seed and muscatel vinegar dressing, and a selection of seafood (like hand-picked whole mud crab with lemon and mayonnaise, and oysters on the half shell) in the raw bar.
There will be salads like the ‘crudite & bagna cauda’, which is raw vegetables, warm shallot and anchovy dip, and the ‘Avocado Bert’ with creamy avocado, chopped egg, tarragon, chive, chervil and togarashi.
There grill and charcoal oven will serve up the mains.
“The Australian fillets of fish lightly kissed on the grill; or the whole drum dory served with a salad vinaigrette and light hollandaise; or even the hapuku with preserved lemon dressing and fried grape vine leaves,” Toft told Broadsheet.
There is also a wine list of 750 items, with a focus on European and Australian wines, courtesy of Merivale’s two master sommeliers, Franck Moreau and Adrian Filiuta.
by Leon Gettler, January 23rd 2017
