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By Stephen Downes
The Age 2008
Dining spreads are bigger, better and fresher than ever
There's no doubting the indulgence of the grand dining spread that is the buffet. With so much food laid out for the taking, it’s time to abandon the guilt so often associated with dining out and simply dig in.
“People certainly enjoy the bountiful aspects of buffets,” says Tony Carter of hotel operator Accor Australia.
For breakfast, most hotels worldwide offer a spread. It’s a convenient way of getting guests to serve themselves over several hours.
But the number of hotels and restaurants that serve buffets for lunch and dinner is dwindling. The cost of quality produce has risen to the point that only venues that balance their costs carefully and host large numbers of guests can make profit from all-you-can-eat bonanzas.
A couple of decades ago, places could get away with serving up tepid food out of bains-marie but nowadays the dining public is far too sophisticated. So buffets have had to adjust or die.
Two of the Accor group’s hotels in Melbourne, Sofitel and the Novotel in St Kilda, display buffets. The Novotel has a seafood buffet on Friday and Saturday nights ($55 per person), while the Sofitel has a number of different buffet options. There’s a midweek lunch variety, various afternoon tea options (providing hot and cold savouries along with cakes, pastries, crepes and scones with jam and cream) and also a Sunday “Jazz Brunch”.
This is served from noon in Café la on the 35th floor and, according to Sofitel executive chef John Savage; it’s booked out several weeks in advance. For $70 you get unlimited sparkling wine, roving jazz bands and freshly prepared food ranging from roast meats, baked fish and wet dishes (think beef bourguignon, Thai coconut chicken, slow cooked lamb with saffron and cumin) to salads and cold seafood such as prawns and oysters. Desserts include cakes, pastries, mousses, jellies and fruit.
“People like the choice that buffets give them," Savage says. “It gives them the chance to experiment, to return to the buffet to try something else. “
Conservatory at Crown is one of the few non-hotel restaurants that successfully puts on buffets. Crown executive chef Todd Roydhouse believes that in addition to the increased standard of the food on offer and the vast choice, buffets are also popular because of their value for money.
For about $40 ($60 at night) buffet diners at Conservatory during the week get all the trappings of a restaurant experience – a cordial greeting upon arrival, nice glassware, comfortable chairs, impressive views, good wines and food prepared by skilled chefs – combined with an all-you-can-eat-and-more fanfare. Prices are slightly higher at weekends. Some of the food at the Conservatory buffet is prepared on the spot: for example, succulent rockling fillets are grilled over coals. It’s a trend that has emerged during the past few years: chefs behind counters in full view of the customers, preparing food fresh, often at the diner’s request.
“Buffets have evolved to become much more interactive,” Roydhouse says. “Live cooking stations make the whole experience more modern and help to increase the choice of dishes even further.”
The Accor group is looking at introducing an interactive buffet throughout its hotels. The concept is named Fire and Ice and would involve “show cooking” as Carter describes it.
“You bring the kitchen outside and inject some theatre into buffet dining,” he says. “Grills, woks and ovens for cooking up food fresh in front of customers, and combining a la carte with help yourself items to really reinvent the meaning of the term ‘buffet’. None of those soggy potato salads, coleslaws and sloppy wet dishes of the past.”
Perhaps the most vibrant illustration of how far we’ve come since the days of The Swagman and Sizzler-style buffet dining is at Melba Brasserie at The Langham Hotel. Specialist chefs strut their stuff behind Asian and Indian food stations, stir frying in woks and baking naans in tandoors; sushi is prepared to order; and help yourself items have been updated to include top quality antipasto gear along with seafood and the usual wet dishes and rotisserie. Prices for the buffet at the Melba range from $45 on a Monday lunch to $69.90 on a Saturday evening.
There are still a few ultra-cheap joints offering budget buffets but the days of deep fried and bain-marie mystery dishes are numbered.
TOP FIVE - AFTERNOON TEAS
The AgeSaturday 22 April 2006
4 - Conservatory, Crown Towers
The word "tiffin" is an Indian and British term meaning a light meal eaten during the day. It was used in British India and evolved from "tiffing" a slang word for consuming a little drink. At Crown's Conservatory Tiffin Afternoon Tea is served every Sunday. Here the western and eastern spread includes pastries, Asian delicasies, ice-cream and waffle stations. From 3.30pm - 5.30pm, $27 Tiffin.