Trailblazing Attica is still a world-class restaurant, and too important for us to ignore. But critic Besha Rodell finds the whole experience a little odd.
17/20
Contemporary$$$$
When it comes to Attica, certain factors are far more important than others. For the sake of clarity, let’s sort those factors into macro and micro.
Macro: Attica is one of the most important restaurants ever to have opened or operated in Australia. It has helped to define our national edible identity, furthered understanding of Indigenous ingredients and foodways, and gained international attention and acclaim. Ben Shewry has led the kitchen for the past 20 years, a longevity all the more impressive because the restaurant is now independently owned by the chef. Shewry has done some incredible things to keep the business afloat, and Attica remains a bucket list dining experience for food obsessives from all over the world.
Micro: Shewry has a book out, Uses for Obsession, in which he takes direct aim at food media, and restaurant criticism in particular. He has been especially critical of this masthead’s Good Food Guide awards, and last year I was moved to publicly respond to his criticism.
Does the drama surrounding Shewry’s book and declaration that he does “not consent” to reviews make Attica a difficult restaurant for me to write about? Only in the sense that I can see how readers – and Shewry – might assume bias. (Also: the restaurant did not respond to a request from The Age to come and photograph the food.)
But again, these things fall under the “micro” column. I had always intended to review Attica in its 20th year under Shewry’s guidance. In retrospect, the chef and his team probably deserved the consideration of a full-page review in The Age when the restaurant went from three hats to two in the Good Food Guide 2023 edition, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about rectifying for some time. Also: Attica is simply too important for us to ignore.
I admire Shewry. I always have. If Attica is one of the most important restaurants in Australia, it is also one of the most important restaurants in my life, for reasons that have nothing to do with our recent kerfuffle. It is no exaggeration to say that a meal at Attica, eaten in 2017, restored my faith in expensive degustation menus at a time when I had decided that style of dining was vastly overrated. Shewry’s cooking was playful, soulful, and startlingly meaningful to me – at the time, a homesick Australian living overseas. He evoked in his dishes the gardens and forests of my childhood, and presented a version of Australian food that felt profound.
In almost every way that matters, that profundity can still be found at Attica. Over 10 or so courses, Shewry and his team deliver a meal that centres on thoughtfulness, Australian culture, and the respectful use of Indigenous ingredients. There’s a lovely interplay throughout between simplicity and complexity, which is an apt way to think about Australia and its food.
These days you begin with a simple fried sprig of saltbush, savoury and crisp, paired with a riberry tart and wattle wafer, both meticulously composed. Our country’s souvlaki obsession is represented by a take that replaces standard proteins with shredded saltwater crocodile ribs, wrapped in fresh flatbread, and accompanied by macadamia yoghurt. The slightly oily meat melds with the pliant and blistered bread, and is cooled by the yoghurt – the familiar made new.
There’s a map of Australia made from King George whiting, with daubs of ingredients from each state and territory marking their places on the map: blue quandong; rainforest cherries; green ants. Tasmania is made up of pepperberry salt. The fish is fresh, the bursts of flavour are fun, and the plating is so silly it’s almost clever.
Tender, sweet marron is served in a creamy sauce that’s overloaded with red champagne variety finger lime, a heaping-on of acid that somehow works beautifully. Kangaroo comes as a satay, tender and meaty and fantastic, alongside a fragrant rice that merges Indonesian and Australian flavours, with wattleseed, native currants, desert lime and quandong. It’s a dish that’s borne from a thoughtful musing about trade that took place between the Macassar people of Indonesia and Indigenous Australians well before European colonisation.
The interplay between simplicity and complexity is on full display once you get to dessert. Simplicity is represented by a dish of thick cream topped with sugarbag honey, from native stingless bees. Like all the best of Attica’s dishes, it tastes like Australia itself, the honey giving off soft notes of eucalyptus, reminding me of the sweet smell of the bush after a light rain.
Following that is a feat of complexity – a meticulously constructed and torched spiky meringue that holds frosted strawberry gum, grated strawberries, and frozen lime custard. It’s a dish that’s at once nostalgic and forward-thinking, lighting up your childish pleasure sensors and tickling your more adult cerebral appreciation at the same time.
Not all dishes reach those heights. As much as I love the idea of a macaroni-shaped, house-extruded pasta made in the style of soba using Australian grains (desert oak wattle), the result, served with king prawns, is a bit rough and inelegant. The play on lasagne you get near the beginning of the meal feels a touch out of place – more there for the self-reference of Shewry’s lasagne side hustle during COVID lockdowns (and loudly proclaimed love of lasagne) than because it makes any real sense on this menu.
And the overall experience of eating at Attica is an odd one. This staff is highly trained and extremely professional, with an almost theatrical bent – dishes are delivered along with thorough descriptions of the ingredients and the intentions of the chef. But there’s little potential for meaningful interaction, and the experience can feel cold and rote rather than fun or friendly. Over the course of a meal, multiple waiters swooped in to gush about the lore of a certain dish or the provenance of an ingredient, but they were gone before looking at the people sitting at the table.
We got a lot of information about the brilliance behind the curtain: the mythology of the lasagne; the method of prawn fishing (wild caught); the reasons Shewry feels it’s important to lead guests outside mid-meal for a “magic mushroom” choux pastry filled with mushroom parfait, in a playful forest-themed installation by LA-based artist duo Dabsmyla. But water refills – even when requested – were hard to come by.
There is so much whimsy in this meal, but the self-seriousness with which it’s presented makes the diner second-guess the fun of the thing. A map of Australia made from fish is funny! And because it tastes good, it’s also very fun! But when it’s delivered with all the humour of a mathematics dissertation, you wonder if you misread the joke. Even the server delivering the mushroom-shaped mushroom dish inside an enchanted garden art installation seemed tense and serious.
At a time when Australian hospitality is gaining much-deserved recognition for its relaxed professionalism, its confident and friendly joyousness, the way that service is run at Attica makes for missed opportunities for true connection with guests. It’s as if this is an experience happening to you rather than with you.
I’ve been to many restaurants around the world where this is the case. You are there to worship at the altar of gastronomy, not to take part in any meaningful way other than as a vessel for an exclusive experience. But Attica was an originator of relaxed and approachable fine dining – if its turn towards self-seriousness is intentional, that makes it all the more baffling. This is currently one of the most expensive restaurants in Australia – and at this price, I’d love a little more … well, love, I suppose. Affability. Communion.
In my estimation, Attica was more fun when it was less a temple, and more a celebration of the friendliness and deliciousness and culture of Ripponlea, Melbourne and Australia. But Shewry has earned his position, in the world and in his restaurant. If there’s an element of self-mythology in his work, perhaps he’s earned that, too.
Is Attica still great? World-class? Worthy of deep thought, hand-wringing, argument, pride and awe and confusion and respect? Not many restaurants are, but this one absolutely is.
The low-down
Vibe: Intimate, sleek, classic modern fine dining
Go-to dishes: Crocodile souva; kangaroo satay; marron with finger lime
Drinks: Extensive, smart wine list and one of the best non-alcoholic pairings in the country
Cost: $385 per person before drinks
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