Great Chefs at Angliss | Tony Twitchett of Taxi Dining Room

I’ve been very busy lately since I have family visiting me from overseas. Trying to juggle keeping them entertained with work is difficult and added to that, my boyf (Chris) has his aunt and uncle visiting as well!

It’s been a busy month and will continue to be a busy month when another group come to visit next Thursday but it’s always lovely to see my cousins after such a long time.

I recently had 5 days off work due to the Melbourne cup public holiday (actually I took Friday off). On Friday, Chris and I went with his mum, her friends and his aunt and uncle to William Angliss for lunch. My brother and his girlf were on another table (Sorry to crash your date hehe)

William Angliss is a school specialising in culinary and hospitality. For their final year student chefs, they have a special restaurant – Angliss restaurant where they host various events. Occasionally, they’ll have themed buffets cooked by the students and attended to by their hospitality students. Everything is presented like an actual restaurant; it even has a bar connected. Wasn’t a fan of the buffet last time we went, everything seemed a little overcooked.

On Friday, they had their last Great Chefs at Angliss Program. This program attracts many big names in the cooking world (all of whom have their own famous restaurant in Melbourne) and gets their top chefs to lead and teach the students how to cook their specialty dishes. Lunch has 3 courses with wines for each course and dinner is 4 courses with wines to accompany. I was so excited!

We booked for the Friday lunch session – the head chef was Tony Twitchett from the famous Taxi restaurant in Melbourne’s Federation Square and wines sponsored from Tahbilk winery.

We began with a fresh bun with butter, the bun was so well made and very fresh. The outside was a little crispy and the inside was super soft. I love fresh bread! 

This was then followed with our entrée, Smoked brook trout, horseradish cream, capers and salmon roe. Omgoodness, this was delicious! I’m usually not a fan of fish but I literally ate everything off the plate! It was that good. This course was paired with a Rosanne-Marsanne-Viognier, which is a white wine and our favourite wine for the afternoon.

The staffs there were so well trained, so soon as something is empty, they’ll take it away or fill it up for you. We also ordered a lemon lime bitters because Chris had to drive that day and wasn’t allowed to drink too much. The great thing about this place is that all drinks are included in the $50pp cost. So cheap!

The main was a crispy Szechuan duck, pumpkin daikon salad and 3 spice caramel sauce paired with a Grenache-Shiraz-Mourvedre red wine. The duck was melt-in-your-mouth delicious, it was really well cooked and the sauce was divine! The pumpkin salad added a good touch to it and helped to cleanse your palette so the sauce is not too overwhelming. Chris said this dish was very well put together.

We were all looking forward to the dessert wine – since the majority of our table likes our wines sweeter and usually dessert wines are sweeter but it let us down. The wine they paired with the dessert was a Tahbilk Chardonnay Pinot Noir which was nothing close to sweet. The dessert however, was not a letdown. We had a Myrtleford buttermilk, champagne rhubarb and strawberry foam. Presentation was beautiful and taste was just as beautiful!

Definitely will come back to Great Chefs at Angliss 2014, Chris and I already have two chefs in mind (Taxi chef – Tony Twitchett been one of them) so when the schedule comes out in February 2014, we’ll be rushing to book those two sessions.

Angliss Restaurant

550 Little Lonsdale Street
Melbourne VIC 3000 

Tony Twitchett’s restaurant:

Taxi Dining Room

Level 1, Transport Hotel, Federation Square/Flinders Walk,

Melbourne VIC 3000