Happy holidays everyone! This is my last post of 2016 and also one of my FAVOURITE eats to date. Just two weeks ago that I had the pleasure of being invited to dine at Chef Louis Hong's newly opened restaurant, Monté. It is situated at 256 Norton Street, Leichhardt. To get right into it and help you guys understand more about Monté and its head chef, I'll copy and paste an excerpt from the information that was sent to me by Katrina at Multiconnexions:
About Restaurant Monté
Restaurant Monté offers Modern Australian food - a cosmopolitan palette of flavours that express culinary excellence. Located in Leichhardt in Sydney’s Inner West, Restaurant monté combines a mouth-watering menu with a relaxed, stylish and contemporary dining experience. Our food is the freshest, the service is welcoming and there is an extensive range of carefully selected Australian wines, unbeatable coffee and other beverages. Whether it is a special occasion, a function, or a cosy spot for a pleasant night out, the monté team will make you feel welcome.
About Restaurant Monté Chef and Owner Louis Youngmin Hong
“I love the food we cook and create. Making people happy is the first goal of my career.
Using fresh ingredients with texture and flavour is how I create delicious food.”
Owner and Chef, Mr. Louis Youngmin Hong, has spent a decade-long career finding that answer to the question, ‘What makes food great?’ He began his culinary journey as a humble student with a love of cooking, by completing his formal training at Le Cordon Bleu Australia – Sydney. He honed his craft further by working in some of Sydney’s finest restaurants, including ‘Bistro Moncur’ in Woollahra and the hatted restaurant, ‘The Cook's Garden’ in North Turramurra. And after much refinement and experimentation, he has now opened his own, first restaurant the menu at monté. Louis leads the restaurant with his wife, Jasmine, who is also a talented chef and Le Cordon Bleu graduate. They have two children, Christian and Gloria.
After reading all of this, I knew right then and there that I was going to be in for a real treat! On this fine evening, it just happened to be very rainy but as Monté is a few blocks out from the main business area of Leichhardt, there are convenient bus stops and lots of street parking available. From the outside, Monté seems like your local little cafe gem with its outdoor seating and vibrant green plants, yet upon walking closer, we realised that the inside of the restaurant was actually very big, fancy and spacious!
Before we go any further let me just paste this video blog I made here:
Hope you enjoyed that because I really enjoyed putting it together!
Now let's get into this write up post :)
Francis and I were greeted immediately at the door by Kevin who was our waiter for the night and definitely contributed to the amazing dinner experience we were about to have. We were seated in the middle of the restaurant where we were close to the counter and able to have a little peek into the kitchen. Soon after, Chef Louis personally came out to greet us and present the tasting menu he had prepared for us to try. I was so delighted to see my blog name "Kimmie Bites" at the top of the menu and nearly cried because it felt so special!
Even though the menu seemed overwhelming, everything was served in smaller portions so we did not feel tired or full in between each course. This way, I'm so glad I had the opportunity to sample the dishes that monté currently feels most proud of. However we were given another look at the regular menu and everything without a doubt sounds appealing!
The first item that arrived was the warm sourdough with olive oil & balsamic vinegar. I think that although it is not a very traditional Italian item to serve, it is a simple and modern way to begin a tasting experience. It's also such a treat with the most generous amount of balsamic! The olive oil had a hint of fresh mint to it (or was it just my imagination). We were also poured complimentary glasses of sparkling wine!
Not too long after, the second item arrived and this was the Freshly shacked Sydney rock oysters with ginger, sweet sake and pickled cucumbers. Served on a bed of rock salt with cubes of cucumber garnished over the top and a wedge of lemon and watercress, this little package was beautifully presented!
I was thinking back to my last recent experience with oysters which I thought was too fishy underneath the cheese and bacon topping so I was feeling kind of skeptical. To both Fran and I's surprise, the oysters were absolutely delicious! A light squeeze of lemon added a hint of bright acidity to the delicate sweet sake and warm ginger flavours. The cucumbers were very lightly pickled and added a welcome crunch. In the end everything was perfect with the oysters.
I would gladly order more these oysters because I enjoyed them so much! Highly recommend it to you all. Great starter.
Our next item on our menu was the Caramelised Canadian scallops with sweet corn puree, charred corn, coriander salad and crispy pancetta:
Scallops are one of my favourite seafoods and sweet corn is one of my favourite vegetables so this plate delighted me SO MUCH. Plus that one special piece of crispy pancetta was Fran's highlight. The scallops themselves were perfectly caramelised on both sides being golden brown and still very tender and juicy to the bite. It went very well with the smooth, silky and irresistibly sweet corn puree which was my favourite by the way. There was a small garnish amount of coriander which added a very subtle non-overpowering freshness.
Kevin paired our dish with two types of beautiful white wines from France:
Next up was the Twice cooked Bangalow pork belly with pumpkin puree, salad of crispy farro, fennel, orange segments, apple, currant chutney and jus:
So so so beautiful on this plate and the abundance of orange to brown colours just makes me feel so comforted to look at. The day before this one I had a really disappointing pork belly dish so I had really high hopes for this one.
I think this was my first time trying Bangalow pork and it was SO good, very sweet and practically melted in my mouth. The pork skin on top was delicate and crispy but very thin which I thought was unique but nice because it meant my knife could cut through the entire pork belly like butter! The currant chutney on top was sweet like jam and the pumpkin puree was the smoothest puree ever. Both really good with the pork belly. The salad was exquisite being sweet thanks to the apple, extra crunchy and nutty thanks to the farro, fresh thanks to the fennel and well balanced by the savoury jus.
This dish was paired with a bold red wine:
We both received a glass from Alamos' Malbec 2015. This is a dry red wine and we found it to be VERY strong. Although it had hints of sweetness and a great intense flavour, it may have been a tad too overpowering for the pork belly dish.
The last savoury dish we had before dessert was the Crispy skin King reef barramundi with king prawn stuffed zucchini flower, cauliflower puree, sautéed broccolini, sauterne sauce and herbs dressing:
Francis described this dish as his favourite and I would say the same but I do have big love for everything we had eaten so far. Every single dish had blown us away with how beautiful and delicious they were so when our this savoury course was set down we felt so sad that this was the last one! In hindsight it was so great we were able to try a large portion of the menu and I could not imagine another dish more perfect than this one to round things off.
The barramundi had a clean and buttery flavour and the large, firm yet flakey texture against the salted crispy skin was so satisfying. It actually stands well on itself but its the addition of all the other components and sauces on the plate that make this even better. The king prawn stuffed zucchini flower was so delicate and crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. The prawn was sweet and juicy. It was similar with the sautéed broccolini. The sauterne sauce was white, light and airy providing an extremely subtle sweetness while the cauliflower puree was so silky and buttery with a light nuttiness.
This dish was paired with the Triennes rosé wine:
Rosé in my opinion makes the perfect accompaniment to almost any dish, and this is no exception. We really enjoyed this one and it was on the elegant and sweet side.
Finally all good things have to come to an end but thank goodness for dessert!
This was the Raspberry soufflé with cream anglaise and vanilla bean ice cream. The raspberry soufflé was so delicate, soft and airy. It bounced back when pressed with the back of the spoon and jiggled ever so slightly upon me turning the plate to try and get a good shot. The creme anglaise was great with the soufflé. I was really happy with the vanilla bean ice cream because we could see the black specks of vanilla bean and it lived up to this by being full of creamy and fragrant vanilla flavour!
Chef Louis came around to our table to greet us again and have a chat with us about our experiences and well as his restaurant during this time and I've got to say that he is such a friendly and humble man! He was great to talk to and I learnt quite some new things from him.
Monté serves up Modern Australian cuisine and yet I honestly had very little idea of what this term meant. He explained that even though there are foods unique to Australia such as meat pies, lamingtons, etc we are such a diverse country and Modern Australian is the emerging cuisine of our country that takes different aspects of different cuisines and blends it into one. For example, our dinner tonight used both local and imported ingredients but also what we may not have exactly seen is the techniques used to cook these dishes. Chef revealed that his current menu features a lot of influence from French cuisine yet will continue to change and evolve in the future. I asked him if he had any plans to incorporate his Korean food and heritage into his menu and he said definitely as he sometimes makes dishes such as Korean green onion pancakes in the kitchen for his staff and they love it. In the suburb of Leichhardt that is strongly full of Italian cuisine, I believe that Monté is very bold and with more people becoming aware of this gem, set for great success.
I feel entirely thankful and grateful for this experience to dine at Monté restaurant in Leichhardt and have such an enlightening conversation with the head chef, Louis Hong. It has certainly been one of the highlights in my food blogging adventures and I highly recommend all my readers venture out to Leichhardt to share in this Modern Australian cuisine with me. It's easy to become intimidated by the types of food out there that you haven't tried or don't know, but I believe that Modern Australian is something that all of us here will feel both pleasantly surprised and yet familiar with.
It has been nothing but amazing, perfect and delightful at Monté and I would like to thank Katrina at Multiconnexions, Chef Louis Hong, his wife Jasmine, and our waiter Kevin for giving it their all. I wish Monté all the success and will look forward to returning here for another wonderful dining experience! xx
monté
256 Norton St,
Leichhardt NSW 2040
Open 6 days a week
Monday 8AM - 2PM
Tuesday - Saturday 8AM - 11:30AM, 12PM - 2:30PM, 6PM - 9:30PM
Kimmiebites dined at Monté as a guest of Multiconnexions and the restaurant itself. All opinions and thoughts expressed in this post are a genuine and honest representation of my true experience.
