Melbourne restaurant critic John Lethlean writing in the August edition of G–rmet Traveller dissects the reincarnation of Shannon Bennett’s Vue de Monde – moved from ‘tup north in Carlton to Normamby Chambers in the city’s CBD. Lethlean writes:
“I’m happy to go on the record as never having been much of a fan of Bennett’s early-phase haute cuisine, and I said as much here more than three years ago. To me, way too much of it was technique to the fore, glamour ingredients for their own sake…But a lot can happen to a 24-year-old chef in five years.”
The critics, on the whole, applaud Bennett who opened his first joint because he couldn’t find a job. This is a restaurant where you can pay from $80 to around $200 for some 13 courses plus a degustion selection of wines starting at $55 a person. Not for the faint hearted or the picky eater. For two of us I reckon we’d be lucky to escape without spending $500 – enough money to buy emergency therapeutic food for 10,160 through Medicines Sans Frontiers. You can check out kids dying of starvation in Niger here.
