Tatler+
The restaurant shows how to elevate the Australian barbecue with its premium steaks and creative side dishes
It’s hard to fault a good Australian barbecue, but the outback is capable of so much more than that. Think premium grades of Australian beef, dry-aged and cooked in a Josper charcoal oven to medium rare perfection—this is how Barossa does Australian fare, and “outback meets chic” is how the restaurant describes it.
The secret behind the juicy steaks here is the Maillard reaction, a chemical reaction that occurs when proteins and sugars meet heat. It’s what creates an appetising char on meats, and the key to developing more complex flavours and aromas. Barossa’s state-of-the-art Josper oven achieves the reaction flawlessly, delivering steaks, chicken, lamb and pork with a golden-brown crust on the outside that hides a luscious, still-tender centre.
Undoubtedly, the steaks from the restaurant’s Josper Grilled Beef selection are a highlight. It takes just one bite of the Dry Aged 50 Days Grain Fed Porterhouse to understand why the steak deserves its status as a signature dish. Simply put, it’s “very beefy”; not so simple is the dry-aging process behind its taste. The process uses the natural enzymes in meat to break down collagen, while simultaneously causing some water loss. The resulting steak is tender with a more concentrated, intense flavour.
Another must-try is the Australia Grass-Fed Tomahawk, also a signature dish. It’s the steak to choose when feeling indulgent. Much richer and more buttery in flavour, the tomahawk is a cut that naturally collects more intra-muscular fat, giving the trademark homogeneous white lines of a premium fattier cut. At 1.4kg, this is a treat that’s made to be shared.
