Location: Level 1, Crown Metropol, cnr Whiteman and Clarendon Streets, Southbank, VIC 3006
Phone: (03) 9292 8300 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (03) 9292 8300 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Cuisine: French, Modern Australian
After months of waiting, we finally secured a booking at Maze Melbourne and got to try it out.
Maze is located in the new part of Crown, where late night shopping really is late night shopping. We arrived and were shown to our seats. The dining area was dimly light, but the atmosphere was elegant and classy.
Complimentary warm bread with seaweed cream butter
I have never tasted better butter than this. The seaweed cream butter was smooth and rich, with a nice hint of seaweed infused in the butter. The bread was warm and crispy on the edges, soft in the centre. We were particularly pleased when they topped up the bread between courses!
Queensland mud crab, pressed watermelon, pickled ginger, rock melon sorbet
Dish of the day. Actually, probably one of the best dishes I have ever eaten. The whole dish was well-balanced and so so fresh! Pressed watermelon base was sweet and crunchy, the crab was fresh and mixed in with the pickled ginger and some greens. The rock melon sorbet was surprisingly soft and smooth. Who would've thought there would be so much fruit in what was supposed to be a savoury dish!
From what I was told, the cauliflower veloutte was smooth and creamy, but not too heavy. The lobster, whilst nice, was not the star of the dish though (the key part being the veloutte).
Marinated pink fir potatoes, smoked eel, sour cream, blackened leeks, shaved foie gras
From reports, this was also quite nice.
Coral trout, chicken skin, trompette royal, fennel, lemon thyme consommé
This was the second most popular dish at our table - credit probably goes to MasterChef when a Maze chef and Jonathan had to make this dish for the Celebrity Chef Challenge. The trout was beautifully cooked - tender and lightly flavoured. The chicken skin added a really good texture and flavour to the fish as well. The consumme was amazing - not too strong, but there was a depth of flavour from the vegetables.
Roasted quail, black olive caramel, young spring onions, rocket
Hot chocolate and violet fondant, salted almond ice cream
The dessert looked amazing. A few of us were slightly disappointed as we didn't quite like the violet taste (a little too strong and odd for the dessert). The salted almond ice-cream was also quite odd and something you really don't expect in ice-cream. The fondant, however, was rich with gooey melted chocolate inside, and firm on the outside casing. The ice-cream went surprisingly well with the ultra-sweet fondant. Without the violet, I think I would have enjoyed it much much more.
Coconut and white chocolate pannacotta, mango and black olive caramel
Complimentary white chocolate coated strawberry ice-cream balls
These arrived with the bill - small balls of strawberry ice-cream coated in white chocolate. A nice way to end the evening!
Service: as expected from a top restaurant such as Maze. The waitress we had made sure we knew how the ordering operated and gave us suggestions (although we didn't really follow them).
Price: not as expensive as some of the other top restaurants, but the serving sizes aren't huge so you would be looking at ordering multiple courses. The smaller 'entree' style dishes are between $12 and $18,, the larger 'main' style dishes were mostly $22-$26.
Overall Impression: 9.5/10
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