Sunday 17 February 2008 Sorrento Lunch with Andrew McConnell in Fi Brockhoff's Garden
Noon for 12.30 start at Sorrento. Directions and parking instructions will be provided on receipt of your booking.
Andrew McConnell of 312 has agreed to collaborate with Marieke to create a special lunch in a celebrated water-wise garden, "Karkalla", owned and designed by renowned landscape designer Fi Brockhoff and David Swann in Sorrento.
The theme for the lunch is truly cuisine spontanée, where the inspiration for dishes will come from the produce freshly harvested from Fi’s organic garden, from local fisherman, from neighboring Italian’s gardens, from the Bay and the sea. You might expect heritage tomatoes, seaweeds, bay scallops…….There will only be 36 places.
We will be partnering with an outstanding innovative young new duo of Mornington Peninsula Winemakers, David Chapman and Barney Flanders from Allies, whose Pinot and Chardonnay are wowing the critics.
Email us your expressions of interest. Please indicate how many places you wish to reserve and if you have any dietary restrictions.
Andrew McConnell, a humble wunderkind, has had an illustrious and diverse cooking career and we continue to consider him one of Australia’s most refreshing and leading exponents of great cooking. Andrew’s persona, motivation and cuisine are seamlessly matched in a philosophy dedicated to striving for perfection, cooking exceptional food, and enjoying his chosen career that he practises with consummate excellence.
Nearly 20 years in the industry sees an impeccable pedigree starting with an apprenticeship at Marchetti's Latin, progressing on to tutelage under Melbourne's culinary heroes that included Walter Bourke, Greg Malouf, Tansy Goode and Andrew Blake.
Overseas experience took him to London and Chicago and then three years with Michelle Garnaut at M at the Fringe in Hong Kong, and M on the Bund in Shanghai. At both these restaurants he gained huge acclaim and awards that included one of the best 50 restaurants in the world.
At diningroom211, Andrew created his own jewel. Dining there was described by one food journalist as: "being one of those meals that touches all the pleasure buttons and leaves you as dreamily sated as after a massage....one of the most enjoyable meals in very many months. At Mrs Jones in Carlton,- Andrew created an equitably priced, casual, snappy service, clever wine list and most impressively a weekly changing, limited menu that focused seasonality and lesser know ingredients like cardoons. At Circa he shone and raised the bar. Now at 312 he continues to be showered with praise and in 2008 he embarks on some exciting new developments in the city.
Andrew's food is distinguished by its sparkling simplicity, immense refinement, purity of flavour, integrity, and culinary intelligence and notable for his unparalleled interest in lesser known and used ingredients. He is well on the road to becoming a Melbourne institution of great distinction and it will be a pleasure to work with him again in this private setting.
Fi Brockhoff and her partner David Swann have created an imaginative, organic, water-wise and inspirational garden, vegetable garden, vineyard and orchard in the sand dunes of Sorrento, "Karkalla", the speial setting for today's lunch.
“I think beautiful and productive gardens are not born of extravagant inputs and high water usage, but of careful selections and appropriate choices. I have tried to design with the surrounding environment in mind, and a lot of that has been about using plants as forms and textures to emulate and capture that surrounding environment, rather than seducing people with flower colour……so you won’t see many flowers in my garden, and often they are pruned off. We have beautiful views to Bass Strait and Port Philip Bay, so it is about complementing and enhancing those views rather than competing with them.” Fiona Brockhoff