Reviews
Tasmanian Life, 2007
MARQUE IV is so named because it's the fourth restaurant to occupy this prime space on Hobart's Elizabeth Street Pier over the past 10 years. Aqua Blue, Splash of Parish and Aristos have all come and gone, but on the evidence of two recent meals, Marque IV is here to stay.
The Marque IV team is led by general manager Ben Morton and head chef Paul Foreman in the kitchen. Ben's experience includes four years at the neighbouring T42, so when the adjoining space became available, he jumped at the chance to do his own thing.
The large open tiled space of the Greek taverna, Aristos, has been transformed into a warm, inviting and upmarket restaurant. "We've tried to create a room that's comfortable and inviting, with earthy colours, generous table spacing and blackwood dividers to create smaller, more intimate spaces." Ben says.
It works. It's now one of the most pleasant dining rooms I've seen in the State. The service on two visits was bright, attentive and knowledgeable, so all Marque IV needed for the complete package was great food, and I'm happy to say that it passed this test with honours.
Paul Foreman cooks with assurance, style and invention and the nine dishes we tried over both visits ranged from very good to sensational. Marque IV offers an eight course evening degustation menu for a very well priced $95 per person and this would have been the obvious choice, but we'd had a long lunch followed by a cocktail party and simply lacked the fortitude for an eight course extravaganza.
CC started with the Balmain bugs ($19.90), served in a small pastry-covered casserole with a generous serving of succulent bugs in a light fish-based broth enlivened by cognac, garlic and onion and studded with tiny cherry tomatoes. The balance was just right; the fish broth was light enough not to overpower the delicate seafood flavours.
I was intrigued by the crisp-skin salt and pepper Rannoch quail ($21) served with Vietnamese salad and century duck egg relish. The quail was cooked perfectly and there were some challenging flavour combinations with the chilli-hot salad. They worked, as did the "hundred year egg" relish.
CC loved her caramelised pork belly ($32.90) and I had to try one of Paul's "signature dishes": the twice roasted duck ($34.90). This is one of the dishes that set off the Gondwana/Marque IV debate about who owns a "signature dish": the chef who creates it or the restaurant that employs him?
I can understand why they're fighting about it. It was simply the best duck I've eaten outside France, with its intense flavour, crisp skin and succulent, falling-off-the-bone flesh. The duck is the centre of attention, accompanied by only a parsnip and sweet potato mousse and an intense duck "essence" reduction. The superb combination with a 2003 Apsley Gorge pinot noir is a match I won't forget in a hurry.
We liked Marque IV so much that we went back a week later for lunch. The lunch menu is simpler, but just as interesting. We started with an excellent house baked ciabatta bread with a smoked tomato relish. Between us we tried the Thai salted beef with palm sugar, chilli, peanuts, tatsoi (sometimes called mustard spinach) and rice noodles ($15.90), the king prawn chilli, tomato, garlic and basic fettucine ($25.50) and the Macadamia crusted blue eye code with Paris mash and a cognac, orange and lemon myrtle sauce ($27.50).
All were excellent dishes both in flavour and presentation, but the standout for us both was the mille feuille of seared scallops and smoked salmon on Scottish puff pastry with rocket and orange, topped with fennel dressing ($19.90). Sensational.
To top it all we shared a "Sweet Eggs Benedict" ($13.50), a witty dessert constructed as an eggs benedict lookalike, with a toffee coated brioche as the muffin, rose water meringue as the poached egg and an orange sabayon drizzled like a hollandaise.
The wine list is comprehensive and Marque IV also offers special vegetarian and gluten free menus. In summary, Marque IV is a seriously good restaurant that offers a complete experience and which quite deservedly took the AHA/RCA Best Tasmanian Restaurant Award back to Hobart (from Launceston) last year.
© Tasmanian Life 2007
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Right on the Marque, Sunday Tasmanian - June 17, 2007
Graeme Phillips
SHORTLY after Marque IV opened, I wrote that it was a little at odds with itself with dishes ranging from bistro-styled crumbed and deep-fried "why-bothers" to the delights of baby abalone and saffron leeks on squid ink risotto.
Some time later my Mercury colleague Leo Schofield suggested to me that it was on a par with Lebrina as the best restaurant in Tasmania. I begged to differ.
But last week, along with chef Paul Foreman's latest eight-course tasting menu, I had to swallow my words.
On the form of his current winter menu, Marque IV is up there among the two or three best in Tasmania.
As good as Lebrina? They're totally different styles. Stillwater? Again, the styles are different. Theirs against the degustation menu at The Terrace? More expensive ($99 against $75), a different style but on a par. But who cares? We all have our best and arguing about it is pointless.
Let me just say, that of the eight courses, only two were less than superb - pigeon rillettes, which were under-seasoned and had been brought to a little more than room temperature so the fat had liquefied, and, being very picky, the wagyu beef with pickled ginger omelette, where ginger was a too dominant flavour.
Of the others, the cooking was perfect, flavours clean and precise, visual presentation brilliant and the combinations balanced, often surprising and exciting.
The menu opens with sashimi of ocean trout draped in a contrast of colour and texture over squid ink risotto with blood orange and ginger vinaigrette and finishes eight palate treats later with a cutting edge Ferran Adria-influenced peanut butter and jelly parfait.
In between, there's a deliciously rich and creamy lobster and corn bisque, first-class miniature mustard fruits, cured Marrawah beef carpaccio stunningly presented with a Nicoise of tea-smoked yellow fin tuna, quail egg and saffron potato and a light-as-air Roquefort souffle contrasted with pinot noir treacle, all refreshed somewhere in the middle of the procession of plates by a chilled sake and Ashbolt elderflower sorbet with lime confetti.
All the dishes are small-plate tastes taken from the a la carte menu, which also includes Spring Bay scallops with lemongrass foam, ocean trout tartare, twice-roasted duck, venison with a risotto of morels, rabbit and a Chateaubriand for two, so you don't have to have the eight-courses or spend the $99 to enjoy the magic.
It's great to see a chef and kitchen team grow and mature in confidence and technique as they have done here over the time since Marque IV opened. And it's fabulous to have food of this quality gracing our waterfront matched by an informed and well-selected list of wines, a pleasant modern ambience and impeccable service.
© Sunday Tasmanian 2007
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Flashes in the Pan, The Weekend Australian, July 29-30, 2006
Elizabeth Meryment
WHAT makes a restaurant hot? Is it the food, the service, the buzz, the design, the reviews? Is it the difficulty it takes to secure a booking, especially at a good table? Is it the fact that ritzy companies organise parties at such places and invite glamorous people to attend, and whose photographs then appear in the social pages of Sunday newspapers? Perhaps it's all of these things, as well as a little bit of X-factor. [...] So here is our list of the nation's hottest restaurants. [...]
MARQUE IV
THIS cosy restaurant on Hobart's Elizabeth Pier has been open for more than a year, but in Tasmania, politicians, yachties and people who matter are only just catching up with the trend, making Marque the place to be seen. The menu is heavily inspired by local produce, albeit with a modern twist-think wasabi tempura whitefish and slow-braised ox cheek - but the atmosphere is the real winner. Try an aperitif while you watch rich men's cruisers jostle in the freezing waters outside. Or, if you're lucky, you might catch sight of the resident fur seal that lounges about outside when the sun is out. Chef Paul Foreman is a Hobart culinary luminary and the leather-couch ambience is a warm treat. Elizabeth Street Pier, Sullivans Cove, Hobart. (03) 6224 4428; www.marqueiv.com.au.
© The Weekend Australian 2006
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On The Marque, The Weekend Australian, November 19-20, 2005
Matthew Denholm
THERE'S nothing like a little controversy to help any new business, and swanky restaurants are no exception. Shortly after Marque IV opened on Hobart's Elizabeth Pier in July, tongues began to wag among local foodies.
The head chef, Paul Foreman, was lured to the new waterfront eatery from the well-regarded Gondwana, up the hill on Battery Point. Foreman took some of his trademark dishes with him to Marque IV, much to the fury of his former employers.
It was lawyers at 20 paces for a while and intellectual property and copyright law was consulted. Nothing ultimately came of the spat, but it did alert Hobart to the presence of a new restaurant with a coveted chef.
When dining at Marque IV (it's the fourth restaurant on the site), it's easy to see what the fuss was about. Foreman and his creations are worth fighting over.
Parking ourselves at a window table, my lunch companion and I spend some time agonising over the relatively small but varied menu and admiring our surroundings. The service is friendly and informal. The decor is chic and tasteful with distinctive works by local artist Ian Bond adorning the walls. The restaurant takes up part of an old pier shed and there may have been a temptation to opt for the sort of cold, minimalist interiors often found in converted industrial buildings. Instead, Marque IV is warm and intimate, even cosy, with couches for pre or post-meal lounging.
Adding to the upmarket ambience, we watch the comings and goings of yacht owners, tending to their floating status symbols moored at the nearby marina. One or two of the motor cruisers are obscenely large, although not on the scale of one I once saw in Antibes, with a sports car and jet ski on the lower, rear deck. Sadly, we arrived via Ford Laser. Still, we console ourselves with the culinary voyage ahead and prepare for it by ordering a bottle of crisp Wellington sauvignon blanc ($33), from Relbia, in the state's north.
I ambitiously get under way with a scallop, mussel and fish chowder ($13.50), which is rich and hearty and not as heavy as I had feared. My companion takes the panzanella salad ($15.90), a salty combination of toasted Turkish bread, calamata olives, cos lettuce, anchovies, confit tomatoes, red wine vinegar and Ashbolt extra virgin olive oil.
As we rest between courses, we spy a strange shape in the water outside. A sleek brown body arches languidly, followed some time later by the emergence of a whiskery snout. It's a fur seal, known to locals as Sammy, which loiters at the nearby fish punts, waiting for tasty discards.
Well, he's not having my ocean trout, which arrives, as promised, with deliciously crispy skin ($27.90). Fish skin can often be undesirable but this is the fish equivalent of pork crackling and is a perfect counter-point to the wonderfully tender, moist flesh. My trout has come all the way from the tannin-stained waters of Macquarie Harbour, in Tasmania's stunning southwest, but has not suffered for the journey. It is well complemented by a potato, caper and olive galette, curious but refreshing pickled cucumber spaghetti and a subtle orange and fennel dressing. My companion has opted for a land-based alternative: an eye fillet ($29.90) from the lush pastures of Marrawah, in the state's far northwest. Marrawah is another beautiful isolated spot on this island. It's also a long way from France, but a Gallic influence is exerted via the Grey Guerande sea salt with which the meat has been lightly seasoned. It's also discernible in the accompanying Paris mash and the pinot noir treacle and white truffle oil.
Foreman successfully designs dishes that are rich but balanced and not overpowered by single, intense flavours. So we decide we can manage dessert. The gin and lime brulee tart, served with candied cumquats, mascarpone and Marque IV buttermilk ice cream ($12.50) is a sensation, while the three shades of Lindt chocolate (white choc and pistachio brulee; milk choc and praline parfait; dark choc, cardamom and fig pudding, $19.90) is every bit as outrageous as it sounds.
Marque IV may have been born into controversy, but it is thriving without it. Full marques.
© The Weekend Australian 2005