Pilot is such an unusual place. The food is surprising, astonishing even, and pretty much very, very good. The wine list is exciting. Service is really good. It's expensive. It's kind of exclusive. But at the same time it is very relaxed and youthful. From the kitchen staff, who work largely in view at a long counter, to the customers, to the floor staff, the place feels of a theme. The staff are inked and bearded, distinguished by their grey t-shirts, which somehow fit the friendly, inviting tone they work hard to establish.
This is good because otherwise Pilot could feel too exclusive, essentially because the food is so damnably deliberate. We've used the word studious before in relation to this place, and it still feels like the right descriptor.
A couple of dishes tonight are nothing short of triumphant. The "lamb kebab" ($40), so sparingly described on the menu, comes as a huge hunk of lamb, excellently cooked, so luscious, rich and lip-smacking, melting fat, wobbly luxurious meat, a crisp top.
Alongside are three big layered flatbreads like big puffy roti. And a bowl of parsley salad to roll up in the flatbreads with the lamb. The parsley with lemon, chickpeas and barley, is a bright and sharp counter to the rich meat. We're really happy with this dish. It comes, though, after a lot of food, and we tragically eat only half the meat, thinking we can take the rest home and gloat over it later. Not so. It's not a thing, our wait guy tells us. The chef just simply won't have people taking things home. It's another surprising moment in our evening. Which, I have to say, is downright peculiar. What if I had to rush to a family emergency as the main was served? Unlikely, granted, but surely the chef would allow the lamb to leave the premises in those circumstances. I mean, isn't it technically mine, not his?
I should add that they have been overly generous tonight, handing us unrequested dishes for the vegetarian at our table, just, it seems, out of the goodness of their hearts. One of those is a stunning fish "curry", a fillet sitting in a warm, aromatic, beautifully balanced broth.
There is another stand-out dish tonight. The menu describes it, in typical spare style, as kale, egg + soubise ($18). This is a bowl of beautifully crisp little kale leaves, thankfully not overly salted. It is scattered generously with thin, fried slices of Jerusalem artichoke and underneath is a thick artichoke puree. This is a brilliant and underused vegetable, so distinctive and funky, and equally good as chips and puree in the way of starchy vegetables. It's also tiresome to prepare so you can feel gratitude for someone in the kitchen who has worked for this. The dish also has soubise, to add some depth and creaminess and on top is a poached egg, still a little runny inside and ostentatiously described as a hen's egg in case you might have doubted. Another dish with loads of purity and not too many ingredients.
The wine list is really good here, including by the glass. They have made an effort to hunt out the unusual and fashionable (which in Canberra means Ravensworth) and they describe and present it well. Wine is definitely a thing. It's also very cool that when our three glasses arrive they have such startling, jewelled colours, Deep gold for Brave New Wine's "Magical Animal" chardonnay (told you), a kind of pink magenta, or orange for my skin-contact sparkling from sangiovese grapes - served in a champagne coupe, how often do you see that! - and deep gold for the "orange" wine offered by the glass, from Ruggabellus in the Barossa. I'm not sure there's any effort at polish with this funky affair.
Attention is paid to other things also at Pilot, like the heavy ceramic tableware, which is whisked away and changed between each dish. The meal starts with Barry's bread - he's on staff, with smoked butter which at this stage is a bit like eating the air outside. Wood smoke is not a novelty just now.
And there are snacks - whitebait cracker ($8 each), and tartare on sourdough blini ($6 each). The tartare is a good meaty bite; the whitebait "cracker" less so in its undistinguished batter cup, although the grated lemon zest is good.
Cabbage e pepe ($22) is really good. The buckwheat pasta is bitey, gently crunchy and full of flavour, with a clinging cabbage sauce and loads of heat. This is a dish that celebrates pepper and how often does that happen?
The pork is less successful. The meat has been done beautifully, rolled, and with just the right gentle crisp skin. It's with a salsa verde made with the rustic dark greenness of stinging nettle, pickled walnuts, pine nuts and currants, perhaps fennel bulb - all of it fresh, sharp and acidic. A good thing but maybe not with pork.
The pistachio and "rice cream" dessert ($15) is also less successful for us. The ice cream is rich, dense, pure and good, but the rice cream is oddly bland and aromatic, perhaps with rose water or something of that kind. The wafer is tasteless. It is as though the overriding concern has been a determination not to be sweet at any cost.
So, this place is good. If you know your food, keep up with the fashions and don't mind splashing a bit on dinner, Pilot is for you.
Pilot
Address: 1 Wakefield Gardens, Ainslie
Phone: 6257 4334
Hours: Dinner: Wednesday to Saturday, 6pm-late; Lunch: Sun noon-3pm.
Owners: Dash Rumble and Ross McQuinn
Chef: Malcolm Hanslow
Noise: No problem
Wheelchair access: Yes
Vegetarian: Limited on the menu but they cater for anything
