wok you talking about?: SIFF- Becasse (Sydney CBD)

By St

Let's talk about lunch baby, let's talk about you and me. Actually, let's do lunch!

October is an exciting time for foodies because it marks the start of the Sydney International Food Festival (SIFF)! You might be scratching your head going, "really?", "have I been living under a rock?", but chances are that you have been to one of the many events rolled out such as the Night Noodle Markets at Hyde Park or a Sugar hit.

One event is "Let's do lunch", where some of top restaurants listed by the SMH, offer a lunch main and matching Brown Brothers wine, Coopers beer, San Pellegrino sparkling bottle or Acqua Panna still mineralwater for $35. I called in September to make a booking with Est. and it was already booked out. Next was Aria, and they only had Mondays left. It was third time lucky with Bécasse.

You might have seen Bécasse's head chef and owner, Justin North, on the most recent Masterchef season- Jonathon had to butcher a pig and cook North's suckling pig and cutlet in a cook-off. North, whose philosophy centres around selecting the freshest produce from farmers and growers daily and combining that with clever technique, won SMH Good Food Guide's "Chef of the year" award in 2009. His restaurant was the 2007 "Restaurant of the year" and runner-up in 2009. And for all the lads, at GQ's Men of the Year awards, Justin North was crowned "Chef of the year". Gosh, he is like the Johnny Depp of cooking.

Now back to food. Bécasse's "Let's do lunch" menu consisted of organic grass feed Gundooee Wagyu bresaola with smoked hazelnut and confit beetroot as an entree for an extra $15. Timmy and I decided to share this and he also had an oyster. It was different to other Wagyu I've had- I expected it to be more steak-like in taste but it was more salty like prosciutto. This shouldn't have come as a surprised if I knew what bresaola meant. Timmy loved his oyster, confirming that they do seek out the freshest at Bécasse.


Organic grass fed Wagyu bresaola $15

St Helens Pacific oysters $4

Before the food came out, along with with bread and butter, we were presented with Bécasse's own sweet biscotti with goat's cheese and black olive- c'est magnifique!

Bécasse biscotti

Onto the main focus of lunch- risotto of king prawn and prosciutto, with baby gem lettuce, leek and fine herbs. I never really thought risotto was all that. You hear more than often of people butchering their risotto attempts so I was never too keen. Fortunately Timmy was keen which was the deciding factor in choosing Bécasse over North's second restaurant, Etch. After eating this risotto, it is going to be difficult for other risottos to compete. Woah! They were not frugal with the prawns which was a delight because they were so plump and meaty. The risotto itself was like eating a warm, wholesome chicken and garden vegetable soup. Our plates were spotlessly clean afterwards.

King prawn and prosciutto risotto $35

Part of the deal, we had the Brown Brothers Pinot Grigio and Tempranillo.

Brown Brothers wines from King Valley

This was such a wonderful opportunity to experience one of the best, fine-dining restaurants Australia had to offer. The icing on the cake was that it was all paid for by my winnings from the Girra NRL tipping comp hehe. We also got to witness the wait staff iron the table sheets ohh la la.

We were too full to try Bécasse's cafe next door, Plan B, but I know I will be staking out there and Etch in the near future.

Wokking rating /5: