Restaurant review: Natural Nine well worth the gamble

Closer to home Crown Melbourne boasts Guillaume Brahimi's Bistro Guillaume, a Nobu and a Rockpool Bar and Grill. It was also home to the ill-fated Dinner by Heston, linked to uber chef Heston Blumenthal, which was closed down in February after allegations of large-scale staff underpayments.

Crown Sydney, due to open late this year is boasting it will have 14 restaurants and bars. Heading that line-up will be Clare Smyth, the first and only female chef to run a restaurant with three Michelin-stars in Britain who has worked under Ducasse in Monaco and Ramsay.

Even closer to home we have Natural Nine in the Canberra Casino. Perhaps I'm being a little harsh in suggesting that end of town is a little dingy. There's no grand entrance to the casino itself, tucked around in an alleyway that looks as though it's the kind of place public servants come out to smoke in at break time.

Indeed the casino itself is lacking in a bit of glamour. It's not the kind of place where you'd see Daniel Craig walk in and order a martini, dressed in a tuxedo, surrounded by women dressed in figure hugging designer dresses, kissing his dice before he rolled them on the table.

But tucked in the back corner, walking past the Chandelier Bar (and it is a serious chandelier), Natural Nine lifts the tone of the whole place. And that's before we're even looking at the menu. On the lower level there's a long stretch of banquette seating, with marbled tables and Chinese lanterns in black and red and silver. There's a private dining room and an upper level that overlooks the grassy area behind the convention centre. You can almost forget what's happening out on the main floor.

It's a menu that lends itself to sharing, like all the best Chinese restaurants. We start with some steamed edamame with smoked tea salt ($7) to nibble on while we look over the rest of the menu and the extensive drinks list. There's not a lot by the glass, but it's a varied menu, from sparklings and proper champagnes (maybe I will come back for that $380 Dom Perignon if my number comes up on the roulette wheel later), whites and reds, some Chinese baijiu, beers, cocktails and mocktails and a neat little selection of tea. There's a good mix of Canberra district wines as well and we settle on a Nick O'Leary Riesling to start with.

Our starter plates include magic chilli squid with tom yum mayo ($12), a single barbecue pork belly bao ($8) and some chicken and shiitake dumplings ($12 for five pieces).

The squid is a treat, tender pieces with just enough bite, crumbed a little and served with large crispy pieces of chilli which have all of the flavour and only a little of the heat. The tom yum mayo is so delicious I'm trying to think how I could make it at home, salty and sour but creamy with a hint of lemongrass and lime. I'm imagining all the sandwiches it would be perfect on.

The bao is a little short of filling, and we've made the error of only ordering one between us, but the bun is soft and there's enough of a bite even when we split it to pick up the richness of the pork belly within.

The dumplings are plump and there's a deepness to the flavour from the shiitake, the little bit of sauce which is trapped in the folds of the dumplings is a nice sweet contrast.

Our bigger plates are harder to narrow down, everything sounds delicious. We need eight people at the table rather than two so we could order more and just get a mouthful of each. We go with the paperbark steamed market fish with lemon nori and sugar snaps ($33), the soy braised pork belly with wilted greens ($31) and duck and broccoli fried rice with chicken floss ($23).

The fish is cooked perfectly, white and flaky, there's a touch of sourness from the nori and the smoky flavour of the paperbark is just noticeable.

The rice is the one dish we get wrong. The waitress did intimate that it was a rice dish to some extent but we were imagining actual pieces of duck and some greens instead of a dish that was mainly rice. Nevertheless it was full of flavour and leftovers were tremendous the next day. (Natural Nine also does takeaway if you're interested.)

The pork was the dish of the night. Usually when you think pork belly you're thinking of crispy crackling, but this braised dish was something completely different. Unctuous is supposedly a bad food descriptor, but that's what it was, tender, fatty, full of flavor, salty, sitting in a broth which we both spooned out once we split up the generous serve of meat.

Dessert we're drawn to the coconut and lavendar semifreddo with macadamia praline and passionfruit ($14) and the white chocolate chilli pudding with vanilla ice cream and milk crumb ($14).

The semifreddo is pretty on the plate but a little disappointing. It's a touch icy, with no real hint of lavender, a few drops of passionfruit coulis, done.

The pudding however is a surprise, kind of creme brulee-ish with a caramelised topping, the filling is rich and packs a neat little chilli kick which is soothed by the smooth vanilla ice cream, the crumb a great textural addition.

You might never think of going to the casino for dinner - it is an over 18s venue as well - but I suggest you do. It's well worth the gamble.

Address: Canberra Casino, 1 Binara Street, City

Phone: 62577074

Hours: Seven days, noon til 3pm, 5.30-10pm. There's also pop yum cha from noon til 3pm and pre theatre banquets (minimum two people) where you're in and out in an hour.

Owners: Canberra Casino

Chef: Brad Newman

Vegetarian: Plenty of good options

Wheelchair access: Yes

Noise: No problem