Victor Liong’s Silk Spoon Opens This Week. Here’s the Full Menu, From Dumplings to Roti Pies

“I really wanted to explore a little bit further than East Asian cuisine,” Lee Ho Fook’s Victor Liong tells Broadsheet of the inspiration behind Silk Spoon, the top chef’s new casual canteen, opening on Bourke Street for lunch service this Friday September 20 and for dinner service later this month.

At Lee Ho Fook, Liong is known for Chinese Australian cuisine. At this more relaxed offering, he says it was a “no brainer” to look to the Silk Road for inspiration. “I’m folding in central Asian, northern Indian, some Middle Eastern flavours via the ancient Silk Road in terms of the spice trade.”

The Silk Spoon menu will change seasonally, but there are three signatures available during both lunch and dinner service.

“I like restaurants that have signature dishes that don’t change. I go to McDonald’s and if they changed the McNuggets, I’d be upset,” he says. “If I go to Flower Drum and the Peking duck’s different, I’d be upset, too.”

Liong talks us through two of the three signature dishes and shares the full Silk Spoon menu.

Curry Pot Pie $18

I really love the idea of serving something that is familiar in a kind of retro-but-stylish manner. We make a curry paste that starts off a little bit east Asian, in that kind of Hong Kong curry style, but then we fold in northern Indian spices. And it’s just braised chicken with root vegetables. So our mix this season is potatoes, carrots, some daikon and parsnips and then we cover it with a roti top, like a pastry top, and then we bake it.

Cumin Lamb $18

I really wanted to develop something that was accessible for everybody all the time. One of our other dishes is a slow-roasted lamb, and we’re serving it with flatbreads, whatever salad we have on hand and some pickles. It didn’t take that long to get the lamb cooking right, but I think it was more, “What are the complementary dishes?” The flatbread I’ve had for years, so it’s just nice to be able to cook in a slightly different lens. And the pickles we’re going to develop as the seasons go. The price point was really important for us, too – to try to get something that people would get two or three times a week.

Lunch
Salads $14
• Charred corn, kidney beans, roasted capsicum, sweet onion
• Heirloom carrots, cumin spice, baby spinach, pepitas and honey
• New season pumpkin, kale, walnuts, miso and sesame dressing
• Grower mushrooms, black vinegar, zucchini and chilli crisp
• Brassicas, broccoli, brussels sprouts, edamame, almonds and lemon
• Tomato, basil, red onion, fried shallots, soft milk curds, crispy wafers
• Chicken salad, baby spinach, Chinese mushrooms, ginger and sesame

Rice bowls $16
• Free range chicken: ginger poached chicken, soy egg, greens, spring onion
• Pork cutlet: crumbed pork, free range egg, black pepper sauce
• Chicken cutlet: crumbed chicken, free range egg, pickled slaw

Signatures $18
• Curry pot pie: mild spiced chicken, root vegetables, crisp pastry
• Spiced duck: slow cooked duck, chickpea salad, flatbread
• Cumin lamb: spiced lamb shoulder, kashgari spice

Dinner
Steamed dumplings
• Prawn dumplings $15
• Pork and prawn dumplings $13
• Jade vegetable dumplings $14
• Prawn wontons, black vinegar and chilli oil $18

Fried
• Vegetarian spring rolls $14
• Prawn toast $15
• Spicy beef puffs $14

Signatures $18
• Curry pot pie: mild spiced chicken, root vegetables, crisp pastry
• Spiced duck: slow cooked duck, chickpea salad, flatbread
• Cumin lamb: spiced lamb shoulder, kashgari spice