The entrance was unassuming, just a shed - a roller door and small shop front, but there was a rabbit in the window, a sure sign it was the Underground Epicureans venue.
The shop assistant offered a friendly welcome and surreptitiously indicated a lace shrouded door muffling the tinkle of piano and the hum of a crowd.
The room behind the veil was an awesome space of great proportions. A warehouse were its bare bones, with sawtooth ceiling, corrugated iron walls, exposed pipes and a cement floor stained in its own history. The ugly duckling had been transformed with the magic of The Wedding Designers’ touch.
Their signature style had transformed the warehouse into a space of rustic charm fit for hidden speakeasy. Guests were welcomed at the bar with a 1920’s Bee’s Knees cocktail disguised in a jar or a teacup. The bar itself built from a collection of vintage dressers and cabinets. Two hatted and waistcoated bar tenders dubbed “Back as Bootleggers”, given the sad closure of their Bacchus workplace during the week, were serving up their handmade cocktails.
As the live jazz wafted, the crowd, dressed in the height of 1920s fashion, mingled and relaxed in the lounge area of brightly coloured velour settees with antique timber boxes decorated with brown moonshine bottles to rest your jar on.
Our chef, Tony Harrison from the Albion Hotel, had been given the challenge of preparing a beefsteak dinner. An event that traditionally involved eating as much meat and bread as you can using only your hands. We added a bit of Epicureans style, but cutlery was still optional.
Our pre dinner canape’s were three delightful mouthfuls just to get us started. Based on the classic 1920’s prawn cocktail, beef wellington and stuffed tomatoes each had a fabulous modern twist. The prawn cocktail was served on a spoon, the roast beef en croute was rare with a bite of horseradish cream and the tiny cherry tomatoes elegantly filled with smoked eggplant and hatted with their own stems.
In the era of prohibition, bars would serve a ‘free lunch counter’ offering salty and fatty foods to encourage people to drink more. Our own free lunch counter may have held the basic ingredients of the era but was a delicious board of one of Tony’s specialities - handmade charcuterie with pickled vegetables, baby peppers with hummus and melba toast. The thick slices of pressed pork edged with bacon could be loaded onto the toast with a slice of prosciutto and dollop of hummus with a pickle on the side.
The tables were set with The Wedding Designers collection of silver candelabra’s and antique plates, each of them different and many of them bringing memories of grandma’s crockery cupboards. The main course arrived on large silver platters. A trio of beef, the sirloin carved thickly and perfectly rare, so tender it melted in your mouth, the short rib a spicy contrast of dark beer and BBQ flavours. Tony’s research into the era inspired the perfect accompaniment, a Cobb salad. Rows of tomato, cucumber, egg, onion and avocado with a blue cheese and red wine dressing.
And then came the shin. Cooked for 15 hours on the bone. It came to the table standing 15cm high. Surrounded with pan jus, everyone pulled meat from the bone and soaked up the jus with soft white bread. Some even treated themselves to the marrow as well.
As is expected at a Beefsteak, we had eaten our fill but we were yet to enjoy Tony’s modern version of the upside down cake. Individual pear tarte tartin with cream anglaise. It was a pleasure to have the tastebuds sweetened after our meat courses. The tart was delicate and subtle, the caramelised top gave it a burst of sweetness and the vanilla in the anglaise was a divine combination.
The crowd lingered afterwards enjoying the atmosphere and the joys of the fashion, the food, the cocktails, the style and swagger of prohibition. What an era! What a night!
See photos
The shop assistant offered a friendly welcome and surreptitiously indicated a lace shrouded door muffling the tinkle of piano and the hum of a crowd.
The room behind the veil was an awesome space of great proportions. A warehouse were its bare bones, with sawtooth ceiling, corrugated iron walls, exposed pipes and a cement floor stained in its own history. The ugly duckling had been transformed with the magic of The Wedding Designers’ touch.
Their signature style had transformed the warehouse into a space of rustic charm fit for hidden speakeasy. Guests were welcomed at the bar with a 1920’s Bee’s Knees cocktail disguised in a jar or a teacup. The bar itself built from a collection of vintage dressers and cabinets. Two hatted and waistcoated bar tenders dubbed “Back as Bootleggers”, given the sad closure of their Bacchus workplace during the week, were serving up their handmade cocktails.
As the live jazz wafted, the crowd, dressed in the height of 1920s fashion, mingled and relaxed in the lounge area of brightly coloured velour settees with antique timber boxes decorated with brown moonshine bottles to rest your jar on.
Our chef, Tony Harrison from the Albion Hotel, had been given the challenge of preparing a beefsteak dinner. An event that traditionally involved eating as much meat and bread as you can using only your hands. We added a bit of Epicureans style, but cutlery was still optional.
Our pre dinner canape’s were three delightful mouthfuls just to get us started. Based on the classic 1920’s prawn cocktail, beef wellington and stuffed tomatoes each had a fabulous modern twist. The prawn cocktail was served on a spoon, the roast beef en croute was rare with a bite of horseradish cream and the tiny cherry tomatoes elegantly filled with smoked eggplant and hatted with their own stems.
In the era of prohibition, bars would serve a ‘free lunch counter’ offering salty and fatty foods to encourage people to drink more. Our own free lunch counter may have held the basic ingredients of the era but was a delicious board of one of Tony’s specialities - handmade charcuterie with pickled vegetables, baby peppers with hummus and melba toast. The thick slices of pressed pork edged with bacon could be loaded onto the toast with a slice of prosciutto and dollop of hummus with a pickle on the side.
The tables were set with The Wedding Designers collection of silver candelabra’s and antique plates, each of them different and many of them bringing memories of grandma’s crockery cupboards. The main course arrived on large silver platters. A trio of beef, the sirloin carved thickly and perfectly rare, so tender it melted in your mouth, the short rib a spicy contrast of dark beer and BBQ flavours. Tony’s research into the era inspired the perfect accompaniment, a Cobb salad. Rows of tomato, cucumber, egg, onion and avocado with a blue cheese and red wine dressing.
And then came the shin. Cooked for 15 hours on the bone. It came to the table standing 15cm high. Surrounded with pan jus, everyone pulled meat from the bone and soaked up the jus with soft white bread. Some even treated themselves to the marrow as well.
As is expected at a Beefsteak, we had eaten our fill but we were yet to enjoy Tony’s modern version of the upside down cake. Individual pear tarte tartin with cream anglaise. It was a pleasure to have the tastebuds sweetened after our meat courses. The tart was delicate and subtle, the caramelised top gave it a burst of sweetness and the vanilla in the anglaise was a divine combination.
The crowd lingered afterwards enjoying the atmosphere and the joys of the fashion, the food, the cocktails, the style and swagger of prohibition. What an era! What a night!
See photos
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