Eater – Page 34 – Dani Valent

We’ve all got to eat so it might as well be good! I’ve been a restaurant critic for almost 20 years, and have been writing a weekly restaurant column in Melbourne’s Sunday Age since 2006.

My approach is to always take a restaurant on its own terms: there’s no point slamming a burger joint because it doesn’t have white tablecloths. I try to be constructive in my criticism and I’ve always got the diner in mind: there are many places you could choose to go. Why should it be here?

 

Prix Fixe

Fun. If I had one word to sum up Prix Fixe, it’s that giggly three-letter syllable that could do with more of an airing in restaurants. There’s a themed menu that changes each month and a commitment to quality without the seriousness that often goes with it. August is a whimsical Lion, Witch and Wardrobe affair, entered through a cupboard of furs, with a menu that tours jolly old England. The stepped dining room has a dramatic, stage-set feel, as though you’re part of a comedy of manners called ‘The Restaurant’. Round tables dot the room; they always make conversation fun.

Northern Git

It was the name that grabbed my attention first, ‘northern git’ being a charming sobriquet that can be hurled at an Englishman hailing from the grittier parts of Empire. But having learned that chef and owner Michael Slade was born in ‘alifax (“that’s with an ‘H’,” he explained), Yorkshire, and noting that this restaurant is in the upper reaches of High Street, Hipsterville, it all started to make sense. Northern Git is without airs and graces but with a strong sense of hospitality: you’ll be well fed and watered and feel relaxed the whole time.

Mister Jennings

Restaurants keep opening with a fervour and frequency that’s both exciting and concerning. They do not all thrive. That’s why it’s a thrill to come upon a place driven by passion and piercing vision of what it might mean to dine in Melbourne today: a place like Mister Jennings, owned by chef Ryan Flaherty (ex-The Estelle, El Bulli and Fat Duck) in his first solo venture.

Lucy Liu

A lot of dishes land on a lot of tables every day, provoking thoughts like ‘yum’ and ‘oh dear’ and ‘I wish I didn’t have to share’. It’s a rare dish that elicits a ‘wow, I have never seen that before’. That’s what happened when Lucy Liu’s blackened pork hock arrived. In my mind, the surging sizzle of the open kitchen ebbed to spacious silence. The chatter of adjoining tables became soundless gesticulation. The metallic halos of faces over phones turned to an air-brushed blur. And sharp and shouty among all this was a pig’s foot. Chef Michael Lambie deserves applause for that: it’s hard to come up with show-stoppers.

Ayatana

Given the number of chefs getting chichi with kimchi, faddy with pho and otherwise riffing on eastern cuisines, it’s only logical that more traditional Asian restaurants make some hipster cross-cultural moves too. Ayatana is a two-year-old Thai restaurant in hungry Windsor, next door to Mr Miyagi, a Japanese izakaya, and not far from mod-Viet Saigon Sally, both of which play fast, loose (and tasty) with venerable cuisines. Ayatana’s culture mashes are relatively gentle and restrained. Fish cake brioche sliders are built around classic firm seafood patties stacked with sweet mayo, iceberg and vinegary peanut dressing. The bun squished to nothing as I went but the dish was tasty to the last finger-licking morsel. Spicy pulled beef tacos were pretty good, though the tortillas themselves were nothing special, leading to a ‘why?’ moment as I licked gravy off my wrist.

Town Hall Hotel

As each new winter arrives, the youthful Australian truffle industry takes a few steps forward, and trained truffle dogs snuffle the earth around specially inoculated oak and hazelnut trees. The ethereal underground fungus is expensive – around $3000 a kilo – but you only need a few grams of these nobbly black nuggets to bring funky flavour and heady aroma to a meal. This fiercely seasonal ingredient is turning up on specials boards at Melbourne restaurants, especially those with ties to the truffle heartlands of France, Italy and Spain.

Hello Sailor

The words ‘porridge’ and ‘connoisseur’ are odd bedfellows but I do appreciate a well-made bowl of oats. On winter mornings when my fingers feel like brittle shards and I’m worried my eyelashes will snap when I blink, there is nothing like porridge to warm me from the inside. It must be creamy not gluey, hot but not volcanic, and any extra ingredients should work within a comforting and toasty palate. The porridge at Hello Sailor solves the oaty equation, served in a tactile oval bowl with finger-warming curves, stirred through with cinnamon, hazelnuts, berry compote and enough sweetness to make it syrupy but not cloying.

Combi

I’m sitting at a communal table at Combi. People are talking probiotics on my left, swapping notes on coconut detox to my right, and in front of me someone’s on the phone making an appointment for a therapeutic massage. I’m trying to fit in, drinking an almond milk latte, eating a ‘chia party’ and mumbling affirmations. I haven’t felt this modern for ages.

Tonka

I’m sure a lot of serious deskwork gets done in postcode 3000 but there’s plenty of serious lunching as well. Tonka, a sophisticated year-old modern Indian restaurant, is among the most pukka places to let the idea of a quick bite ebb into irrelevance as the tasty parade gets underway. Tonka’s name pays homage to Honkytonks, the naughty nightclub that hid in this grotty alley in the early to mid-noughties. The laneway is still louche but the interior is now light, lovely and civilised with MCG views, and the club’s crazy mixture of mirrors, absinthe and billowing dry ice consigned to folklore and flashbacks.

The Last Jar

Since visiting The Last Jar, I’ve wanted to go back every day, sometimes with a painful pining pang. I love this place. It’s an Irish pub but not a shamrock-infested sham. Rather, it’s authentic and welcoming, with the humble, sparse décor that adds up to a peculiarly Irish form of cosiness: there’s a dim front bar, a central parlour with fireplace and well-spaced small tables, and a homely rear dining room that feels like eating in mammy’s kitchen.

© Dani Valent 2024