Euro turned 15 in August and Gault has eight restaurants (it may be nine by the time you reach the end of this column). There are cookbooks and retail products. I gather he's on television too. But the idea of discovering something new plainly fires him up - and it shows in the food.
For starters, we couldn't go past half a dozen oysters, which arrived in suitably theatrical fashion, billowing smoke from a small bowl of dry ice. They were Clevedon but as fat as Bluffies, and tasting creamy yet mild - a pinch of the Hunter Valley salt that came with them proved just the ticket.
A sashimi of sweet pink-hued tuna used a dressing of yuzu and wasabi, with radish and sprinkles of crunchy buckwheat to add texture and interest. Meanwhile, a glass of cucumber gazpacho was delicate and rich, and its accompaniments introduced me to another menu element - activated nuts: these have been soaked in water and slowly dehydrated, beginning a germination process that purports to make them more readily digestible.
Our mains were slightly more problematic: pan-fried flounder, unexpectedly filleted, was hidden beneath a mountain of kale that had been flash-fried. This made it as crisp and fattily delicious as kettle fries, but there was just too much of it. The arrival of a kale-based Caesar-style side salad made me feel like Peter Rabbit; kale seems to be the year's fashion ingredient, but a better waitress would have warned us that we were overdoing it.
Further duplication came with dehydrated chickpeas, which appeared in that salad and in a dish of lamb belly, but the meat itself was decadently, silkily rich and, paired with an apple chutney and big chunks of cabbage steamed and then char-grilled, a perfect dish for a nasty weekend.
Words cannot do justice to desserts (for which pastry-chef Rob Hope-Ede should take a bow). Whipped yoghurt was compressed into a gelatinised block, and served with a grape sorbet - a seed-heavy granola added texture. I was not permitted to test the Professor's assertion that the chocolate fondant was the best thing she had ever eaten, but I can report that she asserted it with some vigour.
If our meal did not give me the full measure of the "modern" menu, that may have been down to a couple of bad choices. But anyone partial to dining out should look in on Euro regularly. The new menu is a good reason to make it soon.
Starters: $22-$26; Mains $34-$39.50; Salads $18-$26 (small) $36-$39 (large); Pizzas $24; Desserts $17
Verdict: New menu, but quality hasn't changed
