Date attended: 5 February 2014 Style: Restaurant, Open Kitchen Cuisine: Modern Australian and Japanese Fusion What to look out for: Smoked Eel
“I enjoyed discovering the different flavours and concepts of each of the dishes offered at Garagistes.”
In early 2014, my best friend and I decided to travel to Tasmania for a week. We’ve never been and just needed a well deserved break. For us, it was a given that in our week in Tasmania, we would hit up a handful of restaurants to see what Tasmania has to offer.
Sure enough, the coveted two-hatted restaurant Garagistes was first on our list! This restaurant set the standard for us as we ventured on with Tasmania and it's restaurants.
Every restaurant knows that bread and butter is a staple in degustation
Verbena-Cured Striped Trumpeter, Char-Grilled Cucumber + Biodynamic Sesame Oil
Poached Spanner Crab, Young Onions, Apricot, Ginger + Shiso
Eggplant, Courgette, Black Garlic, Chilled Consommé, Toasted Amaranth, Fried Pickles
Smoked Eel, Grilled White Peach, Sampire + Brown Butter
Agrarian Kitchen Suckling Pig, Pickled Nectarine, Kohlrabi + Lovage
Roasted Peach, Blueberries, Jostaberries, Sorrel Curd, Mascarpone, Frozen Shortbread
Fresh Van, White Cherries, Beetroot, Cherry Kernel Parfait, Basil
What Lexxie Says: I enjoyed this degustation, but it wasn’t a top favourite degustation of mine. Still, I enjoyed discovering the different flavours and concepts of each of the dishes offered at Garagistes. The most important factor about this menu is to keep an open mind. It is a modern Australian/Japanese fusion which means that textures and flavour may sound or look weird at first, or make take a couple of bites before understanding the concept.
One really good example was the Smoked Eel, Grilled White Peach, Sampire + Brown Butter dish. It didn’t sit well with me at first, but then the smokiness of the eel with sweetness from the white peach as well as the salty brown butter came together quite well.
No stand out dishes from this menu for me. They all were good in their own way, but at the same time, I couldn’t determine a hero dish. If you look at the snapshots more intricately, you’ll see that each dish is quite detailed in plating by the Chef.
Whilst I do recommend you give Garagistes a go, sadly they have closed down. It was definitely worth experiencing this place out once in your life.