It’s perhaps one of the first sub-zero nights this Canberra autumn as my dining partner and I stroll down the deserted tail end of City Walk between Akuna and Binara Streets towards the Crowne Plaza. Binara One, our destination for the evening, is tucked away at the side of the main entrance to the hotel and has a direct entry. Wooden floors, grey and black hues on the soft benches and chairs, interspersed with some bright orange and green make for a warm and welcoming bar interior. It feels a world away from the hustle and bustle of the pubs and nightlife that dominate the inner city.
Binara One has been open since 2004 as the Crowne Plaza’s bar, mostly servicing hotel guests and the nearby inner-city working crowd. In the past few months, it has undergone somewhat of a reinvention, with a new interior and chef Mike Scheumann, president of the Chef’s association in Canberra, overseeing the new menu that he developed. Mike is an incredibly talented chef, with extensive cooking experience around the world at an array of high end venues, who has moved to Canberra to spend more time with his family. Working at both Crowne, and the National Convention Centre, he makes up what he lacks in time with innovation. The menu isn’t based on one cuisine, he says, but rather a range of dishes with a “wow factor”.
A quick glance at the menu and it looks like standard bar food; some burgers, steaks, salads, chips and sandwiches. But a quick read and you start to see some ingredients that might usually be out of place, such as soft shell crab.
We start with hot smoked salmon on corn fritters. Smoking is a unique feature of dishes at Binara One, which boasts its own smokehouse. This made for a light and tasty canape, with an unusual but welcome depth of flavour. I’m told that Binara One hosts a lot of functions and in addition to its bar food menu it also has a function menu for anything from an engagement party to a milestone birthday. It also takes bookings for groups of people wanting to have a casual pay-as-you-go drinks event.
Our second dish read on the menu as a tuna nicoise salad. What sprang to mind was the French classic salad, characterised by flaked, tinned tuna, green beans, tomato, red onion and hard boiled egg. What transpired was a gourmet take on the French staple, with perfectly seared sashimi-quality yellowfin tuna loin replacing the usual tinned tuna and the salad dressed with tarragon vinegar.
This was followed by Asian-inspired barbecue lamb skewers served on Thai mango, peppers and onion, with Asian bbq dipping sauce. The lamb was tender and juicy and accentuated nicely by the sweeter sauce.
However good the starters were, it was no indication of the mains we are subsequently served. The soft shell crab sandwich, with crispy soft shell crab in panin bread with tamarind source accompanied by a mango salad was a burst of freshness, and goes far outside the lines of what is usual for a seafood sandwich or burger.
The star of the show is the Tex Mex burger, which, in spite of its name, is a real contender for Canberra’s best burger. I find out that the meat is slow cooked for over 10 hours, and you can’t get such tender, flavoursome and melt in your mouth beef atop a burger anywhere else. Although it lacks the traditional size and texture of a pattie, the meat is so rich and tender in flavour that it more than compensates. The homemade barbecue sauce perfectly matches the tex mex spices.
It’s often been a gripe of mine that so many pubs and watering holes are devoid of simple, delicious food at decent prices. Nothing fancy, but not generic, overpriced and tasteless fare. And, let’s be honest, the effort involved in making an out-of-this world burger isn’t much more than what an eastery needs to do to make a standard one. Drinking venues that also provide food often miss the subtelties required for a successful dining venue. At Binara One, the food goes well beyond the usual of a standard bar, while maintaining the warm atmosphere and charm of a bar. And the wine list, to accompany the food, is a succint summary of excellent wines, including locals such as Mount Majura.
It is encouraging to see a bar with an interesting and thoughtful menu breathing life into a quiet area of town at night time. Whether it be for a long Friday lunch, a post-work drink with some tapas or to celebrate your next special occassion, the quality of the food and the versatility of the venue make Binara One a desirable option.
Photography by Chris Whitfield.
