poplars restaurant reviewed in The Age Good Food Guide for a second year

FULL 2009 REVIEW:

Wild blackberries are picked in the Buckland Valley by an apprentice on his way to work, destined in Autumn to provide the striking purple colour and flavour of poplars signature Fruits of the Season soufflé, which only weeks earlier in summer was originally orange hued from locally harvested peaches. It is that kind of restaurant! French influenced with a gnarled grapevine and rustic bicycle gracing the entrance portal to a tasteful and relaxed dining room. On Friday nights a local pianist plays; it might be bit passé as a feature, but the music is a nice match to the attentive discreet service. The menu is more about comfortable consistency than cutting-edge cuisine, but platings are generous and pleasing to the eye and palate. French onion soup, chicken terrine, and pork and apple pithivier’s vie for attention on the entrée list. Fish of the day might be a succulent fillet of baked blue eye served on slow-braised peppers and snap peas with a champagne dressing. Other mains include glazed confit duck leg with pickled beans or perhaps brine-cured free-range chicken served with French-style lentils and smoked bacon. Whatever the season, the soufflé is definitely worth the 20-minute wait.

Good Food Guide 2008

FULL 2008 REVIEW:

Bright is famous for the autumnal turning of the elms, chestnuts, scarlet oak and poplars; while in France the poplar is also much loved for its linear strength in landscaping. No surprise, then, that tree-changing chef Patrick Heanue - a one-time Peter Rowland Catering executive - and partner Julia Wilson named their French bistro after this slender tree. They've been beavering away at this little pocket of Francophilia for a couple of years now. And while you are unlikely to be stunned by the menu of bistro favourites, the relaxed but smart dining room with its white-clothed tables, solid furniture and Art Deco-style pendant light clusters delivers a reassuring and reliable experience. Start with French onion soup, terrine or a charcuterie plate of local smallgoods, and move on to mains like coq au vin, duck confit and steak frites. For dessert there's a generously filled lemon tart and a creme brulee - of course - but really, the souffles are the thing. Depending on the season, flavour options will include orange and Grand Marnier; local berries; or chestnuts and praline. Especially decadent is a chocolate souffle, served with a liqueur chocolate ganache poured into the top.

The Age Good Food Guide 2008, page 216

The Wine Front - Independent wine journalism

Poplars is a restaurant that’s been in Bright for over 15 years, and while it’s seen some good days it’s never remotely reached the heights that it now does - thanks to new owners Patrick Heanue and Julia Wilson. This is now a casual, relaxed, cosy French-bistro style eatery that impresses me more every time I visit it - it’s actually my current haunt, and it accommodates BYO too ($5 corkage). The last time I visited I had a glorious pumpkin gnocchi followed by an equally glorious coq au vin followed by a creme brulee that had me scraping the last skerricks. The service, too, is spot on. That says it all but I’ll also add this: one of my dining partners, a self-confessed foodie, said that his steak was “the best steak I have ever had”. It did indeed look good, but I must add that by then he had had quite a few glasses of nebbiolo.

(I also once dined at Poplars with someone who is dramatically gluten intolerant (the finest speck of wheat added to the most delicate of sauces is enough to have her vomitting within 10 minutes), and the staff handled her requests with decisive confidence, always an excellent sign of a restaurant in complete control of what it’s doing, and offering.)

Poplars is my current haunt because it’s the complete package.
13 June 2006
Campbell Mattinson
www.winefront.com.au

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Patrick and Kel Boynton, makers of Feathertop wines, enjoy a drop after a successful Long Lunch at Boynton's Winery in May 2006, catered by Patrick, proprietor and head chef of poplars restaurant.