Review by Stephen Downes

Herald Sun Melbourne 18th July 2006

Imagine a panorama to die for - the little town of Healesville say, nestled amid steep and densely forested hills. Now build a restaurant from which you can see this view at close quarters. Then angle smoke mirrors behinds its bench seating in such a way that even diners facing away from the view can enjoy it.

That's what Mt Rael Retreat has done, and it has created a brasserie with just about the lot. Here's a restaurant that offers huge helpings of well cooked, country style bistro tucker, excellent service, a busy, spick-and-span atmosphere and a glorious vista from an elevated site.

Bearing in mind the obvious skill of Mt Rael's kitchen, however, I felt its offerings might have been a little more complex and original. But I did note its attitude towards regional produce such as Heleasville Pork, Yarra Valley Dairy chevre and Buxton Trout.

And in the different if not original department, perhaps I should have tried the braised lamb necks with buttered parsnips and ";dry" gremolata, one of five main courses. (There are five starters, too.)

The restaurant faces roughly south-east, its glass frontage perhaps 20m or so wide. On strip flooring of pale timber, tables fairly tightly spaced behind the windows and, for two, are a little small. There are draped in white fabric, and there is a little more for your mouth. You use classically shaped alloy cutlery and fine glassware.

Non-glazed walls are a bright off-white, and, if you're not seated on the benches facing the view, you'll be on comfortable dining chairs fully upholstered in a lichen-coloured velour.

I would have liked more pillowy ox tail "pithivier" ($14.90) - more meat contents to the demi-tasse-saucer-sized flaky pastry pie on a bed of salad greens. Flecked with tiny carrot cubes and cooked to softness, the stew was fine, an accompanying chutney of discrete green grapes excellent.

Posed on a rectangular framework of toasted sourdough batons, a generous slab of chiken liver and wild mushroom parfait ($15.90) was redolent of its main ingredients and had fine flavour. Topped with cress and another chutney, it was surrounded by a ring of small and sweet mustard-fruit cubes.

More evidence of Mt Rael's hearty, rural, but classy approach arrived with our mains. Half a huge confit duck ($29.90) - you might get a fraction of this amount in many city brasseries - had perfect character and flavour. A splayed half of witlof (chicory, endive) on a pastry rectangle, big cubes of "roasted" pear, walnut halves from Waterwood Farm and a sticky, translucent sauce of good complexity accompanied.

Another sticky sauce (a shiraz "jus") - this time with less flavour - arrived with an enormous aged ribeye ($29.90), a beef chop with marvelous texture and taste. If you want to measure great value for money, order this offering. Two small "herbed" Yorkshire puds nested on stewed onion strings to partner the steak. Rocket leaves garnished.