My partner and I travel to Bowral many times each year. Although we dined at Biota Dining almost a year ago the experience is still a fresh memory and has sat as a draft form for nearly as long. Working as a full time chef it is hard to get time to write so memories and notes as well as photographs are important. Some of my work sits in draft form for quite a while as time and the right words are formulated. Below are the words and the memories of a really beautiful time and meal.

The Southern Highlands

The southern highlands of New South Wales is cold. That's the attraction, the freezing, bitingly, all consuming and bone chilling cold. Arriving from my sun drenched home on the coast, I got out of the car in a T shirt to 5 degrees celsius. A fair shock to my system. But that is what the southern highlands of NSW are about, and why I love them so much. As young boy I was often dragged off to see my great grandmother, Mossy. A rather apt name, as too a young boy she almost looked mossy, particularly as she was a hundred and six when she passed. She had ran the general store on Spring street in Moss Vale, a then small and poor country town just south of the up market town of Bowral. Having spent considerable time in my younger years trying unsuccessfully to return, in some forlorn attempt to restore the family tradition, I just gave up. Only to end up with a partner from the area and thus my serial returning. My constant visits are a reminder of the families attraction to the area. The beautiful country side, great produce and wine, beautiful gardens and fabulous restaurants. Over my many visits I have always mean't to visit Biota Dining, which I have been informed would be adventurous even in Sydney, let alone in a smallish country town, no matter how posh the town thought it might be. I have always been treated to many fantastic food experiences in the area, a steak at the Berkelouw Book Barn at Berrima, a great vegetarian sandwich at the little blue cafe, whose name escapes me, the crazy Raj-ness of the Elephant Boy and the hippy whole food at Raw and Wild. These experiences although different and not at all cutting edge provide a self sustaining experience that I often find absent in the "haute couture" modern cutting edge restaurant. Cold places need sustaining food and experiences to centrally heat your life. Food that compliments the weather rather than contrasts.

Boita Dining

The buzz around this place is like the one that seminally buzzes around the Chiltern Firehouse, the Zoolanderish "so hot right now" best regional restaurant in New South Wales. Having spent so much time in the Southern Highlands it was time that we went to Biota. So how doses Biota Dining fit into the equation considering that it is a restaurant that serves modern cuisine in a rural country town, which to do successfully in Australia takes luck and timing as well as hard work and endeavour. Very well I'd say. The closest restaurant that I have recently dined in that compares directly is the Hedone in Chiswick or the exceptional, Fera at Claridge's, London. Both places serve a smiler style of food, modern, conceptual and cutting edge, but there is something different about Biota. We dined on a freezing winters Thursday evening arriving at 7 we found that a large and open dining room with earthy tones and furniture to match. All keeping within the concept of the Biota. From my understanding this is a restaurant that aims to reflect food that is foraged, grown, hunted and caught in the "biota" around the restaurant. This is very similar to the concept of Fera, but with a distinctly Australian feel. There is a real earthiness to the room and the food, real Biota Dining. Even the rather dark and mysterious house made bread was served in a fur like marsupial pouch with really good (house made?) butter. The wine list was strongly Australian with a real emphasis on wines from the southern highlands area.

The food

As the menu is presented as a degustation of five courses. Its best to look at each dish in the context of the meal rather than as individual stand alone dishes. A plate of complimentary Canapés arrived blue cheese cigar and raw tuna, both good in there own right. The first dish was the standout a mix of marinated south coast clams, salmon roe and charcoal. I found this the most interesting dish of the evening. A dish that for me was a journey back in time and memories to boyhood to campfires on the beach on a cold winters days with big pots of steaming pipis and mussels . The dark earthy tones and sea flavour with subtle burnt characteristics, combined with the fresh salty pop of the salmon roes made for an impressive starter.

The next course was a de-constructed ravioli of sorts with a low temperature hens egg , cooked curds, chickpea and rye. Inoffensive flavours in an in offensive dish that promised more than it delivered. It wasn't bad, just ordinary. I had hoped for more.

The fish course was Blue Eye Trevella with sweet leeks and dehydrated milk. My impression of this dish is sweet. The fish was exceptionally cooked with soft, sweet and salty flakes of flesh. The leeks were cooked until sweet which added a layer of intense rich caramelisation and an almost creamy softness to the dish. The dehydrated milk was lactic sweet adding crunch. Exceptional. Plates cleared. Wines topped up. Ready now for the beef. It was excellent beef. Arriving wrapped in green, quite understated in delivery simply adorned with nasturtium and a dab of rich sauce. Good flavoursome beef, well cooked and rested. The sauce was well balanced with good meaty flavours and mouthfeel. Delicious

The service was friendly, professional and well paced, given the only handful of tables in the dining room that evening and the modest number of servers who were both section waiters, both food and wine, as well as food runners.

Ready now for the sweet. Bitter sweet citrus, clementines if I remember correctly, or was it cumquats. Either way I adore both so for me this dessert was an exceptional end to a really good meal. The intense bitter/sweetness of the fruit was contrasted with lactic sweetness and coolness from the cream and crumbs. A double espresso with some petit fours and we stumbled out into the frighteningly chilly night air and a beautifully warm fire waiting at home.

At this point Im drawn to the Quentin Tarantino movie "Inglourious Basterds" and the strudel scene where Hans Landa, played by the disturbingly good Christoph Waltz, asks the deceptively well meaning Shosanna her verdict on the quality of the strudel. To which he, some what arrogantly, answers "not so terrible" as he eats the pastry with an almost over the top gusto. Why this analogy works is because Biota dining is a restaurant both within and out of its biota. Just like serving a national Austrian dish such as strudel in a Paris cafe during the Vichy ruled France. Food as good as, and as interesting as this, seems strangely out of place in a renovated motel on the outskirts of the Bowral main street. Perhaps the restaurants biota is more suited to a big city high street, as the food and service is good enough to stand toe to toe with the best modern restaurants I have dined in. Yet at the same time paradoxically still feels as if it belongs there in the back streets of Bowral, in the freezing cold. A true reflection of the environment, place and time that it sits in. Just remember the food and service is considerably better than "not so terrible"