Epoque - Restaurang och vinbar i Göteborg — Restaurant in Göteborgs Stad

Had the six course dinner menu. For the price point this is incredibly solid food at an incredibly solid price. Service was warm, fast, and attentive. The snacks came out incredibly quickly, and each serving was paced well so I wasn’t ever waiting too long on a particular course. The entire experience was 2 hours. Food itself was incredible, a great combination of flavors, textures, and presentation. There was definitely a theme of chanterelles throughout, as well as a general focus on earthy and seasonal flavors.

The snacks at the beginning included a tartlet which was quite savory and immediately got my mouth watering. The roe and cheese was also very good, they balanced each other quite well with the funkiness and dryness of the cheese with the savory and juicy pop of the roe. The crisp puff pastry was a great base. Finally, the mousse on crostini with a cornichon was the highlight of the snacks, with its simplicity, yet intense savoriness, and the cutting through of the mousse with the juicy sweet acidity of the pickle. Amazing! The micro greens on top gave it a nice flourish.

Next up was the beetroot. By god I love beets. This one was amazing. The brown butter foam was the star though — it tied everything together and gave a super nice nutty undertone to the entire dish. It was nuttiness and earthiness and intense umami all together, with bursts of flavor with the pickled onion to offset the intense sweet/savoriness of the star. The dried flowers also gave a great herbaceous foil to the entire dish, and the rye crumbs added a textural element while complimenting the earthiness.

The beef tartare continued on the earthy notes with a study of mushrooms. Champignons, chanterelles, porcini cream, and truffle all played into each other to deliver a wonderful mushroomy base which complimented the tender, juicy, melt-in-your-mouth beef.

The hake was cooked beautifully! Just at the moment where it’s flakey yet has the glistening juicy interior. The tomatoes, artichoke cream, almonds, and sauce all helped to add punches of sweet, savory, bright flavors to compliment the fish. There was less of a focus here on earthy flavors, and more on fresh summer vegetables, with the wax beans, tomatoes, etc. this was a great segue into the mains with fresh seasonal ingredients and strong bursts of flavor.

The grilled duck breast was clearly the star. It was one of the simpler dishes, but each element was done absolutely perfectly. The cook on the duck could not have been better, and the sauce and garnishes were all seasoned just right. Chanterelles once again made their appearance, but it was clear that the duck was the star. Honestly, just order it and try it for yourself.

The dessert itself was fairly simple. No fancy oils, but it had a great set of foundational flavors with the lemon yogurt and white chocolate merengue. The raspberry sorbet itself was super creamy and light, almost felt like ice cream in the mouth. Really good, ate it up super quickly. The merengue also wasn’t very sticky, it was perfectly airy and crunchy and dissolved before it got in the way of the other flavors/textures.

All in all a great experience. Just a tiny step away in my opinion from Michelin star level cooking across all axes, and at a lower...

At the intersection of two busy streets is Epoque. Inside is calm and casual, and there is patio seating. The food was brought timely.

The beef tartare as a starter was flavorful, and the contrast between the lemon mayo and grilled beans and Jerusalem artichoke was satisfying, but the dish lacked something to be perfection.

The main: beef cheek in green pepper sauce was unfortunately not what I had hoped. While the sauce was certainly the selling point, I found it too overwhelming to appreciate the meat and sweetness of the shallots. The potato purée and vegetables offered some relief to the strength of the sauce. The dish was certainly not bad, and the quality of the ingredients wonderful, but as a whole, I felt there was a balance sorely missed.

Overall, Epoque is worth a try, but there are other restaurants in the area...

This is an odd one. On one side, it’s ok good. But on the other it lack finesse and equilibrium to a degree rarely seen. I had scallops with sobrasada and garlic, a bold choice. It turned out that the seafood taste was killed by the sausage’s strong taste. And I didn’t mention the Parmesan that came on top of it. That’s not a combination that works. Two overwhelming tastes have no chance to redeem the dish. As a mail course, I had a more traditional fish and seafood “gryta”. And on top of it came lobster bisque. The end result? It destroyed it all again, covering all of the fish delicacy. The only redeeming factor was the well advised wine But that doesn’t change the fact that to make good food, you need more than just bold choices. Overall, a...