Everyone has a preference. When it comes to fine drink, some live for wine, others indulge in hard liquor, and many prefer imported beer over both. With so many variations out there, how are you supposed to find the perfect drink that defines you? The options can seem endless.
To choose the right social lubricant, you need a strong image you can count on. A familiar face that compliments the taste. Someone with grace and presence.
If you look around, you’ll find there are very few who can live up to the task. Only two men have proved themselves potent enough to reveal the perfect drink in short, masterful strokes:
The Most Interesting Man In The World…
… and legendary filmmaker, Orson Welles.
Entertaining, influential, and downright classy. What more could you want? Interestingly enough, this is the exact question I could not stop asking myself. For some reason, as much as these suave spokesmen made their impact, I still found myself at a loss. Why couldn’t I find my perfect drink?
Over time (seconds upon minutes), I grew wise and realized what was missing: Reality. That was the problem. These grandiose image makers didn’t feel like me at all. I couldn’t relate. Their effortless simplicity made me feel so common. This discovery was a bit of a downer as I began coming to terms with the fact that I would have to figure this puzzle out all by myself. I was scared and alone.
But as luck would have it, something miraculous happened instead. Little did I know, I had missed a very important extract. As soon as I watched it, my choice came to me almost immediately…
Eureka! Fine champagne. My drink of choice. Stay thirsty or stay French. The choice is yours, my friends.
A slight rain started our day, but after the sun came out we opened the doors to discover a beautiful day sitting at a perfect 75 degrees. In walked the importers of San Felice to taste us on their library release of 1997 wines. How could the day get any better?
1997 San Felice Vigorello – Big funk on the nose with barnyard and forest floor. The palate was massive with huge dusty cherry, crumbled chocolate, and prune. Loads of earth with black liquorish and crushed stone on the finish. Black currant and spice with wet earth and layers of earthy minerality.
1997 San Felice Poggio Rosso – Ripe blueberries and ripe plums up front with an underlying forest floor and spice. Lavender and red roses add floral complexity and a great earthy minerality finishes the wine out. Chewy tannins and a long finish tell a tale of quality.
So here I am sitting down to write a blog piece for my very own venue – one of the most surreal experiences that I have yet to encounter. For the first time it actually feels like my dream is coming to fruition after many years of late nights, early mornings, great customers, dickhead customers, great mentors, dickhead bosses, drunken staffies, staffies I can’t even remember and those staffies that my dear colleagues will never let me forget! By the way, I’m very disappointed that Microsoft Word does not recognize the word ‘staffie’. This will have to be remedied. Be prepared for an email, Microsoft, I have a sexy new letterhead and a wanky title now!
Seb chowing down while our Chef, Adam, looks on. Yes, he drank that much wine.
So when I started out on this little adventure I was expecting it to be all pornstars, trashing hotel rooms, messy drunken nights, numerous foreign cities – wait a second that was my other dream, being a ROCKSTAR! So I have finally come to the conclusion that being a rockstar might have been a bit more fun but hey I’m in this now so may as well rock it to the best of my abilities, the reality is opening your own bar is bloody hard.
Decisions, decisions, there are just so many to make. You end up relying on so many different people, and these people promise you things, and some let you down and then you’re back to point one – doing it all yourself. Fortunately I have surrounded myself with fantastic people that have been of great help and taken on a lot of the pressure. That said I am still finding myself at home on weekends and waking every night to scribble down ideas.
Being the self confessed boozehound that many of you know me for, I had one primary wish in my very own bar, the ultimate liquor selection. This selection would make many bartenders weak at the knees and have bar owners suggesting a bank-like shutter system come staffies time. I wanted the holy-grail of back bars. Now after many a meeting with suppliers and literally hundreds upon hundreds of liquors tasted Sam Bygrave, Garden Brasserie’s Bar Manager, this wish has been fulfilled, and in just one word it’s Legen….dary! Whilst having an insane backbar provides a great level of bragging rights it has also given Sam the liberty to create a cocktail list that is sure to wow even the biggest of critics, which in most cases are our closest and most dear colleagues.
Now I know Australia is well known for its wines, but golly gosh (am trying really hard not to swear in this piece) it seems like everyone I know has a friend in the wine game that would like their product on the menu. This is a good thing, it just means more tastings! My body is now a finely tuned, alcohol-injected vehicle! Fortunately there is another finely tuned, alcohol-injected vehicle by my side with a much finer palate, Nic Wright, our Sommelier and Restaurant Manager. Nic has put together an incredible list of local and international wines from all over Europe, North and South America as well as some incredible wines from Japan (yep, wine and not sake!).
Luckily on the business side of things I have a business partner (Stephen Gellert) of whom I have the utmost respect, and together we’re slaving away night and day to achieve this mutual dream of a venue on Sydney’s North Shore that provides great food, great drink and great entertainment in a venue that makes everyone feel relaxed and welcome.
Did someone mention food? Well, if you’ve ever had the privilege of dealing with Chefs you will know that many have very… colourful personalities. Ok let’s not beat around the bush, most of them are complete nutballs, on the edge of snapping at any given moment. That said I was very wary that upsetting a Chef in any way could only end badly, remember after all they carry sharp knives for a living! Our Executive Chef Adam Howe, however, has to be the most friendly, mild tempered knife-wielding person that you will come across. He’s almost too nice (got to be careful of those really nice people, seen too many horror movies where it’s always that nice guy).Well, last week I sat down to trial some of the dishes that will he’ll serve up at Garden, and to say that I was blown away was an understatement. The combination of beautiful presentation and sumptuous flavours leaves me, well, hungry thinking about it.
I look forward to opening the doors on this place and sharing it all with you. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from all of you guys following this blog, our Twitter page or our Facebook page and thanks to all of you so far for your support!
So I guess that’s me for now. I’m Sebastian Gallery, and I freakin’ own this place.
I visited Napa last week and went to a few wineries including Mumm, Alpha & Omega, and Baldacci. It was a wonderful visit and since I had my camera, I recorded a few images of my impressions of what I saw that day.
Work has been so crazy and you get into that mode where you have completely forgotten where the off switch is. The crazy begins to be normal . So it was just perfect timing to pack a day bag jump into our car and head north to the Hunter Valley for some great food, wine and to see Diana Krall in concert which was held a beautiful winery called Bimbadgen.
It was exactly what was needed, we came back to Sydney, rejuvenated with a car boot full of food treasures. Our Hunter loot was full of amazing Kieth Tulloch and Tempus Two wines
, beautifully soft & ripe cheeses from the smelly cheese shop , some chilli chocolates that packed a punch and Ryan got Turkish Delight liquor which his experimenting with for our next cocktail night . Yet by far the most amazing thing from the weekend was my meal at the Rock. the amuse bouche was till this date the most amazing meal of 2010. I will go back just for that soft ravioli filled with mushrooms and quail egg,which when you cut open the oozed out over the plate and into the amazing foie gras sauce…. each bite was heaven.
I love cooking with wine, mostly because I love drinking wine so adding it to my food is always a plus. I usually add dry white wine to pasta dishes but I’ve never added wine to chicken, much less used it to braise chicken. That all changed after I saw this fantastic looking recipe on Flavor Diva. I traded cherry tomatoes for chopped Roma tomatoes and and since I’m trying to incorporate more complex carbs into my diet, I served it with brown rice cooked in diluted chicken stock. It instantly adds a little flavor to the rice, so much so that I could have eaten it by itself. Also, the recipe calls for 1 whole chicken cut up but I was only cooking for myself so I used four chicken legs and carried the leftovers to work over the next two days. Speaking of which, I always think reheating chicken on the bone never tastes the same but this actually reheated really well! Must be the wine. I tell you, it makes everything better!
Wine-Braised Chicken with Tomatoes
1 whole chicken cut up (I used four chicken legs, so this is flexible)
1 tbsp of EVOO
1 tbsp of butter
1/2 medium sized onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup of dry white wine
1/2 cup of chicken broth
1 tsp of dried thyme
1/8 tsp of ground cumin
2 Roma tomatoes, chopped (or 12 – 16 cherry tomatoes)
salt and pepper
1 tsp of parsley
Directions
Rinse chicken legs and pat dry. Salt and pepper chicken liberally on both sides. Heat the olive oil and butter (hot, but not smoking) in a deep frying pan or dutch oven. Brown chicken well on both sides (should take about 10 – 12 minutes).
Deglaze the pan by adding the wine and chicken broth and bring to a boil for about one minute. Use a wooden spoon or whisk to scrape the bits (from browning the chicken) from the bottom of the pan.
Stir in the dried thyme and add the chicken legs back into pan.
Add the chopped tomatoes and about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper to the liquid and over the chicken. Cover, reduce heat to low/medium low and simmer for 20 – 25 minutes. Garnish with parsley and serve with rice.
Granted, I am getting ahead of the game here by blogging about Evan Goldstein’s upcoming book Daring Pairings, http://bit.ly/cJMwM3 since it will not be available until April 1st. But, it will be here before we know it, so put it on your ‘must have’ list, now!
One of the chefs featured is Dan Barber, of Blue Hill fame in NYC and his Hudson Valley outpost, Blue Hill Stone Farm. In 2003, Dan invited me and the winemaker I worked with at the time, Charles Girard, to dine at Blue Hill as his guest. Dan was a fan of Charles’ 2000 Cabernet Franc which he liked to pair with his infamous Short Ribs. Admittedly, I don’t remember the menu exactly, so I can’t regale you with details (it was many dishes)….but, I will say that even without specifics I remember it as one of the most enjoyable meals ever. After dinner, Dan invited us into the kitchen, which was so small we were aghast at how Dan and his team produced such exquisite and varied dishes from such a small area. Great chefs do great things in small spaces. Dan has always been a leader in sourcing local and cooking seasonal, and provides his restaurants with produce from his Great Barrington, MA farm. The specialty of that dining experience was beyond the amazing flavors and textures of the food. It was also special because Dan’s accessibility, passion and generosity made it so. When you are in NYC, or Hudson River Valley, be sure to make Blue Hill a stop….you will be very happy you did.
