Reinvigorated and reimagined with style, the King Valley’s own Mountain View Hotel serves up a refreshing new take on fine European culinary arts. Richard Cornish explores a refreshing autumn menu designed by German chef Ben Bergmann and presented with true silver service.
It’s heading towards winter in the upper King Valley and the last light of the day plays on the hills, turning them mauve and gold. Further up the valley a chill fog starts to roll down from the mountains. The vineyards have turned yellow and the tang of chimney smoke occasionally punches the air. Inside the Mountain View Hotel the fire crackles gently. This old pub is the social hub of Whitfield, a small country town with a couple of churches, school, general store and a café in the heart of the wine-making region of the upper King Valley, some 50 kilometres south of Wangaratta.
It has made a name for itself through the fresh German beer on tap and lunch and dinner daily in the bar and outside garden courtyard, serving generous ‘country’ portions of perhaps a wagyu burger, pork schnitzel or the famous 1kg roast pork knuckle. The lounge has been beautifully renovated and the ebullient Chef Ben Bergmann has been joined by a new front-of-house team trained in European fine dining. Those wanting to make a night or weekend of it there are comfortable rooms on-site. The Mountain View Hotel now attracts many visitors from outside the valley who have got wind of the changes in the hotel’s dining lounge.
‘We have people flying in for meals in helicopters,’ says Ben. ‘They fly in from all over the country and land in the carpark. We also have gastro-travellers, food tourists who dine in the best restaurants in the region. So they go to Provenance in Beechworth, Tani in Bright – and they come and dine with us.’
The action takes place in a warm, comfortable room with walls covered in cherry-coloured monochrome print wallpaper of blossoms and branches in silhouette. The windows look out over the garden, the river flats of the King Valley and the foothills of Mt Buffalo beyond. At the centre of the room is the sommelier’s station. Mario Mori, a young Italian from near Verona, who spent time working with Melbourne’s Grossi family at Florentino, presides over a beautiful series of mismatched rustic tables topped with polished bottles of wines, champagnes and spirits.
Here Sommelier Mori opens, tastes and decants wines and prepares glasses by delicately coating the inside of each glass with a fine film of the wine he is about to pour. An effusive oenophile, he exudes an infectious passion for each wine, presenting its personality and qualities like someone introducing a dear old friend.
In true fine dining style the tables are covered in linen and set with fine glassware. The Maître ‘d is Sonja Maidel, from the far south of Germany. Having worked in Michelin-starred restaurants across Europe she understands and executes understated but beautifully elegant silver service, deftly placing the napkin next to the plate, handling it using two forks cradled artfully in one hand. The Mountain View Hotel flies in the face of on-trend modern restaurants where there is a pulled-pork-slider race to the bottom to see who can charge the most for what is ostensibly fast food. Ben’s team show that great food and perfect service can be fresh and cool without abandoning class and charm.
The meal may start with a little amuse-bouche, perhaps pickled fresh mussels served on a bed of round river rocks. The first course could be a plate of food formed into very cute and beautiful shapes, dots and colours. What appears to be a cumquat is actually a sphere of duck liver paté that has been sprayed with a delicious orange-coloured reduction of carrot and orange. There is cumquat, but a dehydrated slice, a perfect, cleansing foil to the rich paté and little mushroom-like stem of foie gras topped with port wine jelly. This is served with toasted brioche and accompanied by a sweet and punchy slow-cooked onion and balsamic vinegar jam. Another popular entrée is the truly beautiful dish of smoked trout panna cotta with saffron jelly sitting by a chequerboard of confit desirée and sweet potatoes with house made rice crackers finished with the salty tang of salmon trout caviar.
There in the background of that entrée are the flavours of honey, dill and mustard, three notes that highlight Ben’s German background. It shows up again with the pumpernickel crumbs in which the ratatouille croquette has been covered. ‘I don’t want to be pigeon-holed,’ Ben says. ‘I take my influences from places such as Asia. You’ll have noticed the seaweed and wasabi used in that last entrée?’
Ben embraces modern technique but turns his back on trends. ‘You won’t find liquid nitrogen here,’ he says with a laugh. Proving his point is a stunning dish with a meaty piece of grilled coral cod resting on a disk of dark quinoa. As it is placed on the table a beaker-like bottle of carrot broth and smoke are poured over the dish. A quenelle of mousse on top resists the urge to melt. It is made with milk into which hay and mustard are infused, a technique that speaks volumes of Ben’s skill. Having won a coveted Michelin star in his home country the flavours he captures transport one to those high quality modern-meets-tradition restaurants. The flavours of dry grass and sweet mustard trigger memories of late summer pastures and the woodsmoke of BBQs and dinner with European neighbours. Such evocative cooking is expected in the modern dining rooms of Northern Spain and the French countryside, where fine dining meets bucolic location. These dishes show Ben has nailed it.
‘There is a lot of French method but also I am taking my cues from right here,’ he says. ‘I cook what I feel like and I love the King Valley and really enjoy cooking the produce from the local farmers.’ He uses Harrietville trout and gets his pork and lamb from neighbouring farmers.
Maître ‘d Sonja lays down a stainless steel steak knife. The next dish is based on nuggety cutlets of seared lamb, the flesh salt-cooked sous vide to render it soft and tender, still bearing delicious veins of marbled fat. This is served with the ratatouille croquette, slowed cooked lamb, rosemary curd and garlic polenta. Mario pours a Pizzini 2005 Rubacuori Sangiovese into the glass. The sommelier is ecstatic: ‘Such beautiful soft tannins,’ he says.
It was a Pizzini Nebbiolo that drew Ben to the King Valley. ‘When I tasted that wine,’ the chef says, ‘I knew I wanted to meet the winemaker.’ Now he works with the Pizzini family, who own the Mountain View Hotel. That said Ben runs the hotel autonomously as general manager of the hotel, dining lounge and the adjacent accommodation complex.
The second main served is a single large grilled gnoccho on which is perched a sliver of seasoned, grilled pumpkin.
There is the healthy crunch of kale, a slice of tender juicy rabbit loin and a generous brick of rabbit sausage.
From the other side of the room comes the faint sound of trundling wheels: Sonja is bringing the cheese trolley.
‘You can’t buy cheese trolleys in Australia,’ says Ben. ‘We had this one specially made.’
On the marble slab is a selection of Milawa Cheese Factory’s best cheeses, aged to perfection and served with appropriately scant accoutrements. This is a seriously European style of dining.
After a suitable interval dessert is served, somewhat theatrically. Ben enters the dining room armed with a blow torch which he applies to the disk of toffee resting on crème brûlée atop a luxurious rich brownie. As the toffee melts to cover the crème brûlée it completes a seductive display. The other dessert served delivers fresh and vibrant locally grown berries in a clean and refreshing consommé, some silky smooth yoghurt ice cream and a lovely light jelly made with Pizzini Rosetta, a sangiovese rosé. The entire dining experience is a perfect reward for those who wander this far up the King Valley.
Opening hours
Dining Lounge, Wed-Sat for dinner from 6pm,
Sunday lunch noon-3pm;
Pub meals in the bar and garden courtyard,
7 days, lunch and dinner
Mansfield-Whitfield Road,
Whitfield (King Valley), Victoria
Tel 03 5729 8270
mvhotel.com.au
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