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Modern Australian$$
Lovely day. Authoritative in its beauty. Boldly blue skies. Not a breath of wind. Hot sun on a chill day. A restaurant by the river. Inside, a jovial hubbub of voices was ricocheting around the modern interior like bullets.
This is why we go to restaurants.
“Cooee” was once the great Australian bushie’s callout and the only way to communicate from paddock to paddock or valley to valley before mobile phones, motorbikes and GPS.
Those of us of a certain age and situation can well remember a distant “cooee” rising from a smoky valley above the lazy cawing of crows and the white noise of cicadas in the heat.
It usually meant smoko had been delivered and all the ringers made haste to meet the farm ute and grab a big mug of Bushells and warm scones the size of a house brick.
Cooee is an inspired name for an Australian restaurant because it is so quintessentially, well, Australian.
If you’ve ever stared in wonder at a Tom Roberts painting, trimmed a fleece on a classing table or done circle work at a B&S ball like an idiot … well, it’s that kind of Australian.
Cooee is a garrulous restaurant, full of noise and movement and colour. Its waitstaff are well-trained. They are – to a man and a woman – cheerful, informed and keen to help without obsequity.
“Would you like to sit over this side, that way you’ll be out of the way of the umbrella?” A simple question and a young waiter taking charge of her customer’s experience. Brilliant.
We sat al fresco, out front with views to the city and South Perth.
Sweetcorn croquettes arrived. They were just OK. Bland. Under-seasoned. Their greatest achievement was the price. Two tiny pucks of crumbed and corn kernel studded baby food for $18. Nine dollars each! There would have been less than 50 cents of input into these risibly miniscule things. Phew.
Shark Bay cuttlefish was, on the other hand, the apogee of cuttlefish cookery. Cuttlefish is far superior to its cousin, squid. It is thicker, denser, chewier and it seems to hold a good char better than calamari. Chef kept it simple, saucing the chunks of cephalopod with a zingy nduja dressing and serving it with a sour cream, cashew nut crema. It was properly salty. Enjoyable.
The other starter was interesting. Slices of mortadella made by a local company, Snout To Tail, were folded onto a large plate with a charred capsicum relish and mild, vinegary guindilla peppers.
You might think that this thoughtful mashup of Spain and Italy might start the Italian Wars again (you know, when the French Valois kings invaded Habsburg Italy in the late 1400s), but no. It was an inspired mix of vinegary, peppery condiment and fatty, silky Bologna sausage. There were however too many of the green peppers – save your money guys – and, as good as the relish was, it too was plated up with a brickie’s trowel. Way too much. Clever flavour combination, though.
We have no idea what a fennel soubise is. Soubise is a pungent yet subtle sauce made from onions, melted in the pan and then blitzed to a fine cream with white pepper and cream. It’s a ripper.
We assumed the insipid, watery, white liquid that arrived with the barramundi was the advertised fennel soubise. Yeah, nah. Horrible. The barramundi, however, was surprisingly good.
Barramundi deteriorates rapidly to a mushy mess if frozen or not handled properly from boat to blast chiller. We always avoid it on a menu. However, caught wild and eaten fresh within hours, there’s no more superior fish.
Cooee’s was from a farm in Queensland and, for a frozen product from the other side of the country, it was in good nick: flaky and dense. Sure it was a little mushy around the edges, but all-in-all not too shabby. It was plated artistically with a perky sauce vierge.
Cooee’s owner, Andrew Forrest, talks a big game about the environment and carbon reduction, but he doesn’t mind burning fossil fuels to get his produce to the table.
Barramundi from Queensland and a steak from Gippsland in Victoria are standout examples of unnecessarily high carbon footprints, especially as Forrest has cattle herds and abattoirs in WA and seafood businesses from the top to the bottom of the state.
Perplexing.
A 300-gram Gippsland scotch steak with pomme frite and café de Paris butter was cooked well, but plated like roadkill in a puddle of engine oil. It looked dreadful. The red merchant sauce was banal. Sure, it was sticky, presumably from the reduction of something or other, but it tasted of nothing.
This rather arcane sauce is rarely cooked these days but, at its heart, it’s a beef stock, red wine reduction sauce which should curl your toes with flavour. The dish was also topped with a Café de Paris butter which lacked the urgent punch of mustard, anchovy, capers, curry powder and soft herbs which make Café de Paris one of the finest compound butter sauces ever invented. Bugger.
Full marks for the steak though. Magnificently red and meaty, it was cooked and rested rare as ordered. Nice one.
The wine list is compact and very good. Wine service is next level. Former Il Lido alum James Tuxworth is part of the Twiggy culinary juggernaut and not usually on the floor.
He was this day, and his humour and encyclopaedic knowledge of wine and wine producers was a delight.
Cooee is one of the finest-positioned restaurants in WA. The river views are panoramic. The room is lovely. The service is professional and friendly. The buzz is high octane. Cocktails on the terrace anyone? You bet. It’s a place you want to be.
The food? OK in parts, but more attention to detail is required, less “she’ll be right mate” and more tasting their own dishes before committing to them.
13/20
Cost: Starters/Snacks/Breads, $8-$9. Entree, $21-$28. Mains, $32-$59. Sides, $14-$16. Desserts/Cheese, $16-$18
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