The Heritage Brasserie

Friday night marked the start of the WA Day Long Weekend. Good times and what better way to celebrate a 3-day break than with a dinner out with my handsome fellow. So we were booked in for a dinner at one of the fancy new establishments on the terrace – the Heritage Brasserie. I was a little bit excited, two seperate visits to new restaurants in town in one week. I do so like to eat out.

We wandered into the CBD, hand in hand and despite being slightly early for our 7.30pm booking our table was ready for us. The fit out is very impressive. Beautiful black and white marble floors, high ceilings with stunning light features, long leather booths and these uber cool pineapple shaped lamps. They were my favourite feature.

The place to me had almost a Mad Men feel to it. I could imagine Don Draper swanning in with his latest squeeze on his arm. All a bit New York steak house I felt, situated in downtown Perth…. what a treat!

The well kitted out wait staff, in their crsip white shirts and black aprons, brought us out menus to peruse and filled our water glasses. Given there was a white fan and a red fan among our pair we decided to ordered wine by the glass. Also at this time we ordered a serve of Baguette and salted butter ($5.00 per person) each. The bread came out relatively quickly. It wasn’t particularly impressive baguette, but the butter was nice and I enjoyed how salty it was.

We also decided we’d share the Charcuterie rillette, parfait, chorizo, bresola, coppa and roast ($24.00). My first thoughts on the platter when it arrived was that it was definitely a generous size. I especially loved how many little gherkins were included! And GG was reminded of his youth with the other little dish of pickled vegies, just like Piccalilli I was told. I really enjoyed the bresola and also the rillette and GG thought the parfait was good, but the coppa didn’t do much for either of us. Nice enough flavour, but just very, very chewy, especially given the larger size of the slices.

Now my main issue at this point was that we’d worked our way through this large starter, also taken our time eating our bread and yet, alas there was still no sign of our drinks. As the waiter cleared our entree plate we asked if he would be able to check on them for us. Was probably close to another 10 minutes before our drinks arrived, which I’ll admit I found very disappointing, but granted it was busy.

On to mains and I had ordered the Orange duck leg, pilau rice ($33.00). It presented very well, with a decent amount of duck and modest but appropriate amount of rice. I started with a bite of the rice and while it might sound funny to rave about rice, it really was delicious! The flavours infused through the pilau rice were so fragrant and even by itself was so, so tasty. Despite the bones on show in the duck, there was ample meat and it had been cooked perfectly. Just fell off said bones. The only issue with the dish was that the orange sauce was perhaps just a touch too sweet for my taste. Despite this, I did enjoy this dish.

Across the table GG stuck with one of his long established favourites and ordered the 300 gram sirloin, grain fed, West Australia ($43.00) with peppercorn sauce. It plated quite well – the impressive piece of meat, well scored and with an ample jug of peppercorn sauce on the side. Plus a few token greens.

Had just wanted to include this photo to show off the height of the steak. Very respectable.

It was also cooked to the medium rare perfection, so another tick.

From all accounts it was a nice steak, well cooked and a good size for a growing lad. His only comment on the sauce was that it had a sweetness to it, which I’m not sure is what you want in a peppercorn gravy. And as far as steaks go, while it was nice it was not memorable enough for him to want to rush back for another.

Between us we rounded out our mains with a serve of Steamed vegetables ($9.00). They were definitely on the crunchy side, but I’ll take them that way over overdone any day of the week. It was a nice selection too, with the baby carrots, squash and even baby corn – lovely!

We didn’t have desserts or cheese on this visit. I had this feeling throughout the meal that I wasn’t enjoying myself. Definitely no fault of the company as GG is my favourite dining partner and the food was fine, the cost for the meals did not feel unjustified, given the care that had been taken with the meals. I think my problem was with the atmosphere. I found it to be so incredibly loud. Yes I realise its a Friday, which is always going to be a busy time, both with every table in the restaurant full, and the bar overflowing with happy punters starting their weekends, but it was almost deafening. I was sitting at the table opposite GG and was having to basically yell to be heard. And the vicinity of the tables was definitely on the snug side. I might not have been able to hear GG all the time, but I could hear the conversation of both diners on either side of us. It was almost like the seating along the booths were just one long table. Service had been ok, on a few occasions it had been difficult to find someone to assist, but its only week 2, so I’ve no doubt there are a few newbie staff issues to iron out to give the place a more polished feel on the service front.

I think i’ll give it a month or so and aim to head back for a lunch to see if the atmosphere then is slighlty more mellow. It could just be me and we suspected that if you were there is a larger group then all that noise wouldn’t really have been a bother. But as it was I’d headed out on that Friday hoping for a lovely dinner with my fellow and as an experience, it didn’t quite wow me. But there’s always next time Heritage.