The Rothwell’sExperience
2 Mins read
There’s certainly more than a few Australians today who get a bit misty-eyed thinking about the heyday of the prawn cocktail and the steak Diane because they were there for it, living in that time and place. But what about the familiarity of dishes that didn’t get cooked in your house, or the other places your family went to eat? How do you explain their hold on the public imagination?
The Beef Wellington at Rothwell’s Bar & Grill in Brisbane
It’s a dish of British/French origin that has been around for at least a hundred years. Why exactly is it enjoying an unlikely renaissance right now at the hottest restaurant in the humid, subtropical climes of the Queensland capital?
For Ben Russell, there’s no mystery to its success: it’s about quality and it’s about deliciousness. A chef who has worked right across the spectrum of the familiar and the unfamiliar in his life in restaurant kitchens, Russell takes the view that the magic of dishes like Beef Wellington lies in taking combinations of ingredients and techniques that have stood the test of time, and honoring them with cooking that is all about quality produce and careful, honest preparation.
The Beef Wellington at Rothwell's Bar & Grill, Brisbane.
THE CHEF
BEN RUSSEL
After he left Melbourne, Russell bought a one-way ticket to Paris. He went south, immersing himself in the culture of southern France, and cooking on yachts on the Mediterranean.
Here he reacquainted himself with daylight, joined the dots with the produce he saw in the markets, and cured himself of the urge to push everything through a chinois.
On his menu at Rothwell’s there’s a French onion dip among the appetisers, and an entrée that brings together prawn, avocado, lettuce, and cocktail sauce. There’s Caesar salad blessedly free of grilled chicken. There’s Martinis and Bloody Marys at the bar, there’s a seafood platter to share, and there’s trifle and madelines for dessert. But it’s about timeless elegance and not a retro trip.
“It’s not about trickery here,” says Russell, “you know what you’re in for.” There’s no side-eye, no riff or remix – the bat is played straight, and the result is dishes that surprise and delight with their freshness and immediacy.
A beautifully lit room, with lots of marble, big chandeliers, dark-green leather booths
Rothwell’s Dining Room: a big-city restaurant replete with marble, chandeliers, dark green leather and jazz on the stereo.
The thing about classics is that they’re classics for a reason. “They may not always be prepared in the best possible way from the finest possible ingredients but it’s easy to understand their appeal,” write Simon Hopkinson and Lindsay Bareham in their book, The Prawn Cocktail Years. “If one bothers to prepare these and other dishes that predate the whim of fashion in food then it is a revelation how good they can be.”
A beautifully lit room, with lots of marble, big chandeliers, dark-green leather booths and well-chosen jazz, makes for a fitting backdrop. With Dan Clark, the operator behind 1889 Enoteca and one of Australia’s savviest wine importers, backing the place, the food is complemented by a list rich in treasures – 18-year-old Krug and JJ Prum riesling on by the glass, magnums and jeroboams of Gravner and Cornelissen, and a sea of Burgundy.
Then it goes into the Rational at 200 degrees till it hits an internal temperature of 35 degrees. Wrapped as it is in pastry, the meat comes up to a nice medium rare as it rests. The thickness of the pastry is the tricky part, Russell says: if it’s too thick, it won’t cook through before the beef is done.
“We carve it in half in the kitchen, and it goes out on a large oval plate looking very decadent with an antique silver jug of the sauce on the side – it smells rich and warm with the puff pastry and the mushrooms and the red wine sauce.”
“When you’re eating it, even though that layer of Dijon is just brushed on, it’s something that I think is a pleasant surprise. Fillet steak, mushrooms and pastry are not necessarily hero ingredients on their own but together they’re sensational. It’s an experience to savour. It’s a good time.”
To drink? Dan Clark imports some pretty radical wines but he says he likes to pour classics with classics.
“Top-end Yarra Valley and Margaret River cabernet work really well with the Wellington. Cullen, Moss Wood, Wantirna. Or brighter shiraz – Dune in McLaren Vale and Izway from the Barossa Valley do the job nicely as well.”
“To game it out even further, Russell suggests Martinis at the bar beforehand, then settling into a booth for some raw seafood and oysters or a crab salad, maybe the tagliatelle with sea urchin, then your Wellington and sides to share, maybe a tarte tatin or a crème brulée afterwards. “And then we have an Armagnac trolley, so if you want to get really comfortable, we’ve got bottles there dating back to the 1920s. And that’s your Rothwell’s experience.”
Which brings us, of course, to Ben Russell’s Beef Wellington. Here’s how he does it.
Step by step Rothwell’s Beef Wellington
First, the beef fillet. Russell goes grain-fed because he thinks it’s firmer and holds up a little better in the way it cooks in the Wellington, which essentially steams inside the pastry. He sears the beef in a hot pan, brushing it liberally with Dijon mustard.
Next comes the mushroom duxelles – rather than slicing and pan-frying the mushrooms in batches, Russell roasts them off whole in a pot to cook all the water out of them and to intensify their flavour, then blends them and presses them for a couple of hours to squeeze out any remaining moisture.
Then the crêpes: flour, eggs, milk and a little bit of beurre noisette. He lays a crêpe out on the bench, layers on about a centimetre of the mushrooms, then the beef fillet. It’s rolled, wrapped in clingfilm and goes into the fridge for a couple of hours to set before he wraps it in a layer of butter puff pastry, egg-washes it, and then adds another layer of lattice pastry, and more egg wash.
Then it goes into the Rational at 200 degrees till it hits an internal temperature of 35 degrees. Wrapped as it is in pastry, the meat comes up to a nice medium rare as it rests. The thickness of the pastry is the tricky part, Russell says: if it’s too thick, it won’t cook through before the beef is done.
MASTERCLASS
Low and Slow
Our ‘Low and Slow’ Masterclass live webinar in collaboration with Weber is kicking off this Tuesday at 4pm with the first theme, focused on making beef and lamb dishes the low and slow way.
In this webinar, Meat & Livestock Australia Executive chef Sam Burke and head butcher Doug Piper will be sharing how to prepare and cook Beef and Lamb cuts for foodservice professionals.
