Perhaps it shouldn't be but it's always surprising to find a Braddon vibe in a restaurant in the 'burbs. For me Yarralumla has always been about a lovely simple French place that operated there perhaps 15 years ago.
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It was elegant, straightforward. It was also quite traditional in its food, and classic in its set-up. Which seemed to suit the moneyed suburb, where we kept being thrown out of rentals because the owners wanted to demolish and McMansion.
Lamshed's, though, is a different kettle of fish. It's down a corridor, out the back of the main shops, in a large room that doesn't immediately lend itself to intimacy. The ceilings are high and the space quite voluminous, but the designers have made the most of this space by exploiting the semi-industrial feel. The floor is concrete, the banquettes leather, candles in corners and in bottles on the bar. It's also very busy; clearly the people of the inner south are happy to find contemporary relaxed dining in their backyard.
The menu is really appealing, succinct and with lots of vegetable-based dishes, and non-standard-issue meat and fish - octopus, mackerel, cured kingfish, duck, lamb, oxtail, and appealing accompaniments, such as lentils and Jerusalem artichoke, that gnarly likeable vegetable that makes you work for its unique flavour. It's reasonably priced, with most dishes under $20, the lamb and oxtail at $24 and duck the most expensive at $29. But also, as it turns out, rather deepfried. We've run into this problem a bit lately with small-dish menus.
Gnocco fritto ($16) are fried by definition and can be quite irresistible if you subdue your disapproving brain. Here, they're quite heavy and the deep-fried pastry loses delicacy. The mortadella mousse is kind of piped on top and is salty. There's a slice of green olive. It doesn't work well for us; this kind of dish needs all the sophistication a kitchen can muster to pull off.
Sweet potato schnitzel with tzatziki ($15) is sweet potato sliced, crumbed and fried to a hard crust. It's salty and the treatment has semi-obliterated the taste and texture of the sweet potato. The tzatziki is a good fresh counterpoint. There's plenty of garlic and we taste fennel seed, which is good, but in all the treatment feels quite aggressive.
Eggplant tempura with white miso and sesame ($16) is more sympathetic in its treatment - thin slices of eggplant, battered and deepfried, although it's very salty, with sea salt flakes sprinkled liberally on the plate as well as the salty miso. By this stage we're feeling a bit over the fryer but you'd be justified in throwing it back at me and saying you only have yourselves to blame. We ordered fried dough, schnitzel and tempura, what were we expecting? Fair cop.
As it happens, we also ordered mackerel pate, dark rye and whitebait ($20). The rye bread is thick-cut, the mackeral pate is mild and simple and we really like it. The (deep-fried) little fish are piled generously on top of the pieces of rye, which are rather large. It all amounts to a substantial snack which takes some getting through. It could be dialed back a little, but it's a good concept and generous. Kind of homey. If you're the kind of person who prepares mackerel pate and whitebait on rye for dinner.
The oxtail ($24) is really good. The meat has been shredded and pressed into a long slice, crisp on the outside where it has presumable been fried off before slicing, the meat dark and luscious, carried presumably by some fat which gives it mouthfeel. There's a simple pile of fregola - those little pasta balls the size of pearl barley. Celeriac is thin sliced alongside and also, it seems, making up the mousse that accompanies. Another excellent ingredient. The meat jus is a bit salty and we eschew it. Other than that, this is our best dish by some distance.
The food is served on good-looking plates with a raku-look glaze. Lamshed undoubtedly goes to considerable effort to get atmospherics in order. We're served good charred bread with soft fresh butter to start and the wait staff is personable. We like the look of the wine list, too. It eschews the obvious, looks to Canberra and France, and has interesting choices by the glass at good prices ($12 to $15).
Panacotta ($16) is oddly set in the plate in a big puddle shape, with the unusual flavour of lemon verbena, and quince alongside spiced with one of those strange mid-East perfume flavours. The chocolate tart ($16) is simple, just strong and solid chocolate, in a pastry case that lacks finesse. The milk sorbet alongside has a tang, maybe of citrus.
In sum, Lamshed's has many good things going for it, not least the care and set-up. We like the shape and ingredient focus of the menu, but this kind of sophisticated simple pairing of less usual ingredients leaves a kitchen nowhere to hide, and they would probably benefit from taking stock of how it works on the plate and palate.
Lamshed's
Address: Unit 2/27 Bentham St, Yarralumla
Phone: 51009058
Hours: Tuesday, 4-10pm; Wednesday-Sunday, noon-10pm.
Owners: Matthew Aspland and Jeffrey Lamshed.
Chef: Jeffrey Lamshed
Wheelchair access: Yes
Vegetarian: Lots of good options
Noise: Quite noisy and busy but spacious
