Yay, Franklin! While Franklin has always been on my Hobart list, my excitement grew recently after discovering that a chef I am aware of (but didn’t actively stalk at the time) moved here and started working at the restaurant. I would have loved to come here at night for their full dining experience, but because I had far too many places to go and not enough time, I ended up shuffling this one to lunch simply because it was open for lunch while my other restaurants were dinner only. That bumped Templo right off this visit, but maybe next time….

To start with, a house soda. It tasted kind of elderflowery to me, which was very cool. Not too fizzy, not too sweet, and very drinkable.

Delicious bread and butter. I love how the butter was scraped on the side! I still find that Sepia’s perfectly round butter was really weird to see (even though I said it was cool, because it was also cool); I like messy thing sometimes better than neat.

What’s even cooler? This was the shot down the bar towards the entrance – what you see in the background there is actually Pigeon Whole Bakers! How awesome!

Oyster

To start with, three oysters. Usually I get two for myself, but this is Tasmania, land of the best fresh produce you could ever get, so I treated myself to one more. When they were served, the waitress said that the oysters were from Flirty Bay, however, Flirty sounds a LOT like Floaty, especially if you moosh the vowels a little bit. So I literally had no idea what she said. I wasn’t sure about asking again because I didn’t want to come across as hard of hearing lol.

These were probably the best oysters I’ve ever eaten. Yeah, better than the Wapengo ones from Embla. Before, my Tassie oysters of recent memory all came from “my local fish shop” and weren’t that nice at all, to the point where I would avoid buying Tassie oysters, but the real deal is actually nigh unbeatable! I think also, SA oysters taste better than TAS oysters when in Perth simply because it’s closer so there’s less time lost in shipping?

House pancetta and cicely mustard

I had to try the house pancetta, mainly because I love cured meats and I also wanted to see how this compared with Embla’s jambon. Sorry, the jambon still wins. But look at that fat! So good! I almost didn’t want to add the mustard, but, the mustard did make it taste even better.

And guess who is here!!! A super sneaky shot of Analiese Gregory!!!! I was pretty sure it was her, but I didn’t want to seem like a creepy fangirl, so I kept my distance. Also, because I wasn’t absolutely sure, just mostly sure, I would have felt awkward if it wasn’t actually her. I managed to confirm by overhearing the waitress as someone else came into the restaurant looking for her.

Chicken liver parfait, pickled cherries and yeast crisps

Alright, now the real deal of the restaurant. Chicken liver parfait. Yes. Look at that. Isn’t it so picture perfect? And I love those wafer thin parfait receptacles! This was my first time eating pickled cherries and they were nice, and offset the richness of the parfait really well! Also, I deliberately held back on eating my bread too quickly to be able to mop up leftover parfait :)

Raw littlewood lamb with anchovy and horseradish

Raw lamb with anchovies and horseradish. I feel like I’ve eaten so many new things while here! My first time eating lamb tartare, and it was absolutely delicious! I loved the presentation of this one too!

Crispy potato with brown butter and salted caramel

However, it was dessert that really took the cake. It was described as crispy potato with brown butter and salted caramel. Oh my goodness. The waiter recommended it and said that if I couldn’t eat it, he would. Too bad, I wanted to try this anyway since this is the first time I’ve seen potato in a dessert dish. Oooooh yeah. Those potato slices were so thin and crispy and the natural savouriness of it worked!

The brown butter was soooooo good and it was just the right texture too, but the real winner, the thing that made this dish so godly, was that salted caramel. You think other salted caramels are good? Wait till you try this one. It’s like, if Werther’s Original was taken to the highest level possible by the most talented chefs in the world, this is what you get. Something you can’t stop eating because when mixed with the potato and butter cream, was just. Amazing. Wow. Oh yeah. Come here for this. Lots of this. Yesssss.

And some pictures of the restaurant because I like their decor and setup. I would have loved to come here for dinner simply because they make use of their oven and that’s when all their meats come out (according to their website, their oven can actually fit a whole cow in there!).

Yep, I definitely like this place!