Behind the Cooking of Our 'Four Elements'-Themed Dinner
We asked Project Forty Nine head chef Tim Newitt how he harnessed the elements to create a sensory wine-matched dinner.
In partnership with 
"When you're in the country you're in the elements a lot more than when you're in the city," says Beechworth-born Tim Newitt. "Especially when you're in a bushfire-prone region." Newitt, head chef at Collingwood restaurant Project Forty Nine, stepped away from the elements when he moved to Melbourne eight years ago, but he harnessed them again this week when he created a sensory 'four elements'-themed dinner in collaboration with Stoneleigh Wines.
The unique dinner was held at The Stoneleigh Project, a pop-up art and wine tasting installation currently located on Flinders Street in the CBD. Here, you're also surrounded by the elements. As you travel from room to room tasting Stoneleigh's wild fermented Wild Valley wines, a series of immersive artworks transport you to New Zealand's Malborough region — you'll walk through a riverbed and mirrored lightscape and pop bubbles that burst into 'smoke'. It was this installation and the wild fermented wines that inspired Newitt's sensory dinner.
Chris Middleton.
The first course focused on the water element. For Newitt, using kingfish for this was a no-brainer. "Kingfish is one of my favourite things to eat," says Newitt. "It works really well raw, and we're pairing it with sweet pickled fennel and caviar, which gives the dish a pop of sodium." Each course was also paired with a Stoneleigh Wild Valley wine. Newitt has been working closely with Project Forty Nine co-owner Rocco Esposito and venue manager Will Rushford — who are both experienced sommeliers — to ensure the food and wine complemented each other perfectly. For this course, the fattiness of the kingfish was balanced out by the citric and passionfruit-notes of Stoneleigh's Wild Valley sauvignon blanc.
Next, a bird's nest — complete with soil — represented earth. "We create the nest from finely sliced and fried leek, fill it with truffle foam and place a sous vide quail egg in the centre," says Newitt. "It looks just like a nest, with an egg and all." The next element, fire, was a bit trickier to transport to the small kitchen in the makeshift dining room. Newitt cooked Flinders Island lamb overnight the night before in a circulator in his restaurant, then torched the meat in the dining room just before serving to give it a pronounced smoky flavour. He also served it with volcanic salt. "It's a salt from Hawaii made using activated charcoal and coconut shells," says Newitt. "It looks exactly like pink or white salt flakes, but it's black."
Both the earth and fire course was paired with a pinot noir, but Newitt says each wine features a drastically different character. The first, Wild Valley pinot noir, has a pronounced red berry taste and earthy undertones, which played off the savoury flavours of the bird's nest. Stoneleigh's Rapaura pinot noir, matched with the fire course, is bolder, with blackberry and oak notes that stood up to the strong, charred flavours of the lamb.
Project Forty Nine.
For dessert, Newitt looked to air, pairing compressed fruit, meringue and river mint essence with Stoneleigh's poached pear-tinged Rapaura pinot gris. The river mint played so well into the elements, having just been picked locally by the restaurant's forager, or He Who Shall Not Be Named. "He supplies a few restaurants as a hobby and he's already really busy, so he doesn't like to be named," says Newitt, laughing.
For those of you who may have missed this unique tasting experience, you're still able to try the Wild Valley range — for free — at The Stoneleigh Project until Sunday, November 5 at 524 Flinders Street, Melbourne, weeknights 4-10pm and weekends 12-10pm. You can secure a spot here or just walk on in.
Top image: Chris Middleton
