Sage Taste & Test, Spring 2014

This is my third trip to Sage Dining Room’s clever concept Taste and Test, where in exchange for a slightly cheaper five-course meal – and you’ve no idea what’s coming – you write out a score for each dish and a short ‘review’ of them right onto your paper tablecloth. The test lasts for four weeks, with the menu changing each week. If a dish gets an average score below 6.5-7 or so, it’s not going to make it onto the more permanent seasonal menu.

Here’s a quick look at the menu from 30 September to 2 October and my thoughts – but a quick summary? It’s really good.

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Sage Taste and Test Redux

I loved Sage Dining Rooms’ Taste and Test last year. It’s a clever concept: offer five experimental dishes at a reduced price and, over the course of a few weeks, get a sense of what the Canberra dining public’s taste really is to help form the menu. But the last Taste and Test was only held in September – is Sage lacking some confidence in its future menus? Does it need to check with the public before it brings out each new season’s menu?

The short answer? No, and no.

Taste and Test at Sage Dining Rooms

Clever, clever, clever is what runs through my mind during our two hour dinner at Sage Dining Rooms. Sage is one of the best restaurants in Canberra (I have been known to wax lyrical about it here, and here, and elsewhere!) and in August they announced a ‘taste and test’ month – essentially, for three nights a week over the month, the restaurant would become an experiment as they test dishes for their new menu, and the diners become reviewers. The price is marked down: five dishes for $60. I book us in immediately and look forward to it for weeks.