Scholé – A fascinating experience

Scholé – Introduction

Hobart is undertaking a renaissance at present unlike nothing we have seen for many decades. Often we have seen a single restaurant open which everyone flocked to but rarely have we seen so many restaurants arriving at virtually the same time and rarely have we seen a food precinct emerging with such gusto!

Let’s explain. This week we were lucky enough to book two seats for the first night of a brand new restaurant in Liverpool St run by our friend Luke Burgess. If his name rings a bell with you, he was the chef at internationally lauded Garagistes which was highly innovative being the first restaurant in Australia to only serve natural wine and also an early adopter of organic food items. We have a story about Garagistes on this Web site even though it is closed to remind people about this gem of a venue here.

Now to our meal on opening night. We arrived at 6pm sharp and as soon as the door was opened we saw that the table was almost full except for our two seats and we knew everyone at the table, including two who had flown in from Sydney.

We were greeted by front-of-house veteran Millie who looked after the table calmly and professionally throughout the evening. Chef Luke attended to the food items he was preparing in the kitchen behind the dining room. And it wasn’t long before the drinks started arriving and then the food.

We ordered a white wine imported by our friend Giorgio di Maria who has an excellent portfolio of natural wines from Italy, Spain and France. The wine was the Cumbres de Igualero Blanca Forastera from La Gomera in the Canary Islands which was absolutely delicious and went perfectly with each dish.

The food menu looked very exciting. The dishes we ate were:

Hemp Seed Fröknäcke, Albacore and smoked green zebra tomato.

In the photo above you can see the albacore sitting underneath the green zebra tomato and both sitting on the Swedish style cracker made from hemp seed.

Marinated cucumber, fermented carrots, shiso and konbu condiment (essentially a plate of pickles).

The pickles were absolutely delicious with the cucumber and carrot providing different flavours and textures lifted by the shiso and konbu.

Tamagoyaki, sweet corn plus curry leaf sauce and sesame oil.

The thin Japanese rolled omelette was stunning, bathed in the curry leaf sauce.

Striped trumputer preserved in oyster vinegar with florence fennel, tarragon and bay oil.

The striped trumpeter had gained flavour from the time spent in the preserved oyster vinegar. The fish sat on a bed of fennel which had been bathed in bay oil spiked with tarragon. A clever combination of flavours and textures.

Freycinet mussels, sugarloaf cabbage, fragrant snake beans.

This photo and the next do not do proper service to the dishes as they were both beautifully contrived plates. This one was based around fresh mussels sourced from the Freycinet fishmongers as well as sugarloaf cabbage and snake beans which provided a contrast in both texture and flavour.

Feijoa sorbet, keffir cream and Felds Farm Rockmelon.

We don’t know what happened to this photo, but the dessert was beautifully composed and the combination of the sorbet made from in-season feijoas that are so good at this time of year was masterful. The ice cream was napped with keffir cream and both sat in a beautiful section of rockmelon supplied by one of Tasmania’s great organic suppliers of fruit and vegetables, namely Felds Farm.

There is also action on Tuesday nights when Luke provides us with a taste of his fascination with everything Japanese (he has worked in Japan and has also co-authored a book on eating in Tokyo). On Tuesday he holds a tachinomi evening. You may well ask what is that! Well here is his explantion.

We attended the first tachinomi along with many others from around Hobart and beyond. It was an absolute success! When we arrived the place was already packed despite the extra room available as a standing bar.

We enjoyed chatting to friends who were also at this first tachinomi event while sipping on a glass of excellent organic Riesling made by one of Tasmania’s best winemakers, namely Rory Duggan who is one of he few Tasmanian winemakers doing the hard yards of not using damaging sprays in his vineyards or any additives in his wine except in very rare circumstances.

The idea of the tachinomi is to stand, chat and sip wine/sake and enjoy some small snacks. You can seefrom the menu below that you can order a Kushi Katsu set which has four small temptations or snack on the two other slightly larger offerings which were grilled rice onigiri and a stunning sando with a fermented shiso filling.

We ordered the two larger snacks andthoroughly enjoyed the experience.

The photo above is of the beautiful white bread sando – just like they serve in Tokyo. Delicious!

Next came an old friend. For medical reasonswe have to go to Melbourne once a month and have done so for the past three years. Just near where we stay is one of our favourite breakfast locations in that city called Two Seven Nine and it is in Victoria St, North Melbourne. Every breakfast we have there involves onigiri and it is the perfect way to start the day while enjoying their excellent coffee.

And the grilled onigiri served to us at the tachinomi was a wonderful accompaniment to the tomago sando and to the riesling. It was very satisfying all round.

But Scholé isn’t the end of the story. We also want to talk about the effect this new blood is having on the Hobart restaurant scene.

We have already written about the opening of Six Russell Bistro in nearby Sandy Bay which we have eaten at three times in the first three weeks of opening. Under the guidance of Kobi Ruzicka from Dier Makr and Lucinda, this venue is really kicking goals and providing exciting food and interesting wines in an area that needed more dining options. We have our story about Six Russell Bistro here.

But there is more! Virtually opposite Scholé, Zoë Erskine and Javier García Tornel have opened an amazing ramen bar called Ranita Ramen. This is a tiny venue (9 customers at a time) that we also have started visiting regularly due to the excellence of the offerings which are well-worth the wait. The stock is packed with appealing flavours, the noodles are made on the premises and have wonderful texture and the pork is very tasty! We have written a full story about Ranita Ramen here.

And there are other food-related venues in close proximity such as Eumarrah which is just around the corner from Scholé where we shop for organic fruit and vegetables each week and other items such as organic yoghurt and wonderful organic meat (both beef and wallaby).

Also vitually opposite Scholé and one door down from Ranita Ramen is one of Hobart’s best coffee venues called Straight Up Coffee where the coffee is roasted by their sister organisation in Moonah called Lottie Lane Coffee Roasters and the food is gluten free.

A few doors down on the other side of Harrington Street is one of Hobart’s quiet achievers by the name of Hometown Secret which turns out dishes galore to the throngs that make their way here for excellent Chinese food.

You can read some of the interesting background to this venue on their Web site here.

We have included this venue in our story about where to dine in Hobart here.