4

Above, from left:

hand-cut tartare

of Littlewood

lamb with

anchovy sauce

and horseradish;

Analiese Gregory.

58 GOURMET TRAVELLER

PHOTOGRAPHY ADAM GIBSON

With a new chef at the helm,

Hobart’s inest diner is having its

moment, writesPAT NOURSE.

F

ranklin encapsulates

much that’s likeable about

Hobart. It’s a celebration

of local culture and

nature held against a backdrop

of industrial surfaces worn to

smooth warmth by time and

use. It’s the finest diner in the

Tasmanian capital, but you’re as

likely to be seated next to a bunch

of wind-burnt wanderers zipped

and toggled tight in The North

Face as you are a couple in their

Friday-night finery. And perhaps

this is fitting. The arrival of a new

chef, Analiese Gregory, opens a

new chapter for the restaurant.

David Moyle, Franklin’s first

chef, said his job involved as much

time driving around to track down

Perfectly

Franklin

produce as it did working in the

kitchen. When Gregory was Peter

Gilmore’s second-in-command in

the kitchen at Quay, their meat

supplier would drop things over

personally in his Porsche if they

needed them in a hurry. If the pace

in Tasmania is slower, it doesn’t

seem to trouble Gregory. She has

said that her time cooking at Bras

in Aubrac affected her profoundly,

and while Hobart might not be

quite so ruggedly windswept as the

Massif Central, it’s proving fertile

ground nonetheless.

I enjoyed Bar Brosé, Gregory’s

last stop in Sydney, but felt like

I was waiting for a penny that never

dropped. She has been at Franklin

since last August, and it’s clear she’s

in her element. Maybe that should

be elements, plural. She plucks

abalone from the icy waters of the

D’Entrecasteaux Channel, dives for

urchins off Fossil Cove, presses

local market gardeners for skirret

and medlars, and has mastered the

moods of the Scotch oven.

She uses it to coax elegant

texture from zucchini, which she

sets on whipped ricotta and satsivi,

a Georgian walnut sauce, and

showers with lovage and basil.

Garfish emerges from the oven

split down the middle, rearing out

of a sea of oyster butter scattered

with chive flowers. The flavour of

the fish gets lost, but it’s cooked

with enviable precision.

The scope and style of the

room are immediately arresting,

but it’s little details – the heated

floor, the kangaroo hides thrown

over some of the chairs, the copper

dispenser for the paper towels in

the toilets and perfectly placed

flashes of INXS and the Divinyls

(circa “Boys in Town”) on the

soundtrack – that seal the deal.

Service is in sync with the

kitchen, the waiters clearly very

much on board with Team Gregory.

Manager Forbes Appleby is a gentle

presence on the floor, but his wine

list is written with bold strokes. If

wine that is local or priced under

$70 a bottle is what you want, you’ll

be better served by other cellars in

Hobart; if your tastes lean natural

you’re in for a treat. In any case, the

likes of Owen Latta’s “Precarious”

oxidised sauvignon blanc blend