Cote Basque

25 Crossley St, CBD

Press PLAY to listen to Kara Monssen’s full review

Chef Andrew McConnell’s hottest new restaurant is not for the penny pinchers or impatient.

You will drop a bomb here, at least north of $300 between two, and struggle to find a 6pm dinner reservation before Christmas.

There was always going to be hype around Cote Basque.

This is restaurant group Trader House’s tenth venue, who also saw cataclysmic success with its sibling Gimlet; which was the only Australian restaurant to rank on the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2022.

So is it worth it? Oh absolutely.

Just remember Cote Basque is not, and will never be, Gimlet. If anything, the Crossley St restaurant is the complete opposite: deliberately restrained.

Unlike other expensive restaurants around town, McConnell marvels in his own brand of quiet luxury. It’s where the food, wine, design and experience do the talking.

Cote Basque is a European grill restaurant owned by McConnell, his wife Jo McGann, with head chef Allan Doert Eccles (formerly Cutler) leading the kitchen.

For those needing a refresher, it opened in famous Italian laneway restaurant Becco last month. The dining room is handsome with polished cherrywood finishes and terrazzo green floor. Becco’s famed tiered dining room remains, putting diners in full view of either Crossley St laneway or the open kitchen.

Trader House’s empire spans Cutler, Cumulus, Supernormal and Builder’s Arms Hotel, yet days before the Crossley St venue opened, they also netted St Kilda’s Stokehouse, which is slated to open in the coming weeks.

While we patiently wait for that restaurant to open, Cote Basque possibly provides a taste of what’s to come with a bounty of seafood on the menu.

The anchovy matrimony, a conscious coupling of marinated and salted white anchovies, rests on a finger of toasted sourdough and half-inch thick butter. It’s the perfect opener. There’s also a whole squid, cooked over the grill and finished in its own ink with chickpeas, which add welcome creaminess.

And while seafood is the star, please don’t forget the steak.

The most affordable, a $66 flatiron cut from the Blackmore family’s pasture-fed Rohne beef, is bounding with character, thanks to an exceptional medium rare cook, served alongside blistered red peppers and a punchy Dijon from France. How it should be.

The cocktails and wine are exceptional, with everything from an affordable red ($16 nerello mascalese from Italy) to a $10,500 bottle of Domaine Romanee Contee from Burgundy on show. Cote Basque may not be Gimlet, but it’s perhaps the most McConnell restaurant we’ve seen and worth every bit of hype.

Images: Supplied