Two Stews and a Cockatoo

Polly wants a five spiced duck with passion fruit jus!
Heydon Young had a brilliant french restaurant in Crowie for many years called La Goulue. Typically its hard to find an English translation. Academics say there are two very similar English meanings. The first is ‘the glutton’ and the second is ‘Andrew O’
Two Stews and a Cockatoo is a new place in Gordon where Heydon has finally returned to the pans.
It is absolutely fantastic. Quirky, fun, but mainly just great great food. We went with another couple and the concept just fits perfectly. All shared plates and all well explained by friendly intelligent staff.
Wine can be ordered by ‘flight’ meaning that when you have decided on say, a pinot noir, you get three generous tasting glasses from three different wineries, for example a. somewhere I have now forgotten but was called ‘Mud’, b. Victoria and c. Central Otago. There’s a coaster underneath the glasses explaining which wine is which. So you don’t get confused the glasses are even marked a b and c. I ordered a flight of Pinot Noir because it would have been criminal not to revisit Heydon Young’s duck and God only made Pinot Noir after a big night on the duck, or was it the other way around?
Other stuff included fried goat’s cheese, beetroot jam & char grilled ciabatta that just dropped jaws, smoked fresh salmon, pulled pork, a duck pork and pistachio terrine with pickled cherries, and roasted beetroot, orange, blue cheese & caramelised walnut salad with pomegranate dressing. My friend Maria would say ‘Good Lord’ and so would I.
The two owners are somehow called Stew, even though one is a woman. They buzz around making sure the place hums.
It is super value when you remember that this is high end food and produce cooked by a highly skilled classic chef. All up we got out of there for less than our target of $ 70 which is what we would have paid if we had gone to a parents function at Kirribilli RSL like we were supposed to. Instead of mankety tarts and party pies we ate extremely well, didn’t have to mingle, didn’t have to drive to Kirribilli in a downpour and find parking, and we didn’t have to salute the Queen at 9.30. We nearly did the salute anyway because we also had Champagne and a couple of glasses of Coopers and a couple of glasses of Burgundy as well as the pinot flight — we would have saluted Bronywn Bishop if she walked past, oh yeah — the Central Otago won hands down.
This place is just fantastic — go!