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?
Tea drinkers have been rather neglected in the recent coffee hoo-hah. But just because there are no $25,000 machines to brew tea, it doesn’t mean tea isn’t special, sustaining and worthy of its own cults, if not perhaps its own bicycle craze. Maison Ama Lurra (that’s Basque for House of Mother Earth) serves Mariage Freres teas in weighty cast iron pots; a complimentary candied nut, praline or other little treat beckons on the saucer. I love the slightly smoky Tsar Alexandre tea; drink it black or the Tsar rolls in his grave. There’s geek-worthy coffee too, including from the clever science-lab-esqe Bacchi stovetop espresso machine.
I’ve usually hustled along Riverside Quay on the way somewhere else, pitying buskers whose melodies are shredded by the wind. Ludlow Formation, a big new restaurant and bar on the ground level of an 1980s office block is a reason to consider stopping. Part of the same hospitality group as Bearbrass, Temperance Hotel and the tram restaurant, it’s a please-all-comers place. Morning coffee: yes. Business meeting: sure. Quick lunch: come in. Dinner alone or with a group: easy. Friday night drinks: HELL YEAH!
If anyone understands reinvention, it’s the residents of South Yarra, where if you’re not jogging the Tan, it’s either because sweat wrecks fresh Botox or because your hair is wrapped in foils. Owners Colonial Leisure shut down this iconic restaurant last year, curtailing a funk that set in after chef Paul Wilson moved on. They’ve since spent a truckload on a refurb and lured superstar chef Cheong Liew from semi-retirement and Adelaide.
For an ambitious restaurant to succeed in Castlemaine it needs to play to the town’s country core, plus the Northcote-of-the-north treechangers, and the gourmet grazers who know their heirloom tomatoes and microherbs. If ever there was a man to please these different, demanding clientele, it’s Hayden Winch, a local boy who managed Daylesford’s standard-setting Lake House before he worked in Asia and the Middle East managing large-scale hospitality ventures. A few years ago, his kids looked fit to burst out of their Hong Kong apartment so he brought the family home. A venture in Bendigo was short-lived; his six-month-old Public Inn looks the goods to stick around.
If you landed in Melbourne from space – Perth, say – you’d think that the locals only enjoyed coffee when crammed into a chamber the size of a cupboard. That’s because hip cafe usually means bijou bolthole where people drink caffe lattes with elbows in and knees together. There are few places where space is not at a premium, where dodgem prams is not compulsory parental sport and where it would be possible to swing a cat if the notion suddenly became irresistible.
Some restaurants fill your heart before you even look at a menu. Ciao Cielo is one of them. It’s a customer-focused neighbourhood restaurant suffused with a gorgeous glow. I love it. It’s cosy and welcoming and it’s aware of something crucial: Bay Street, Port Melbourne isn’t a place to expand culinary horizons. Rather, it’s a place where people want to be fed, cosseted and remembered. Kate Dickins does the remembering, running the 35-seat dining room with a happy lack of pretension. Her partner Bryan Nelson (A La Greque, Stokehouse, Walters Wine Bar) is the chef.
Meeting friends under the Flinders Street Station clocks is an easy way to partake of Melbourne tradition but it can get messy if you don’t enjoy the waft of teenage pheromones or having the word of Jesus rammed into your skull. Meeting at Young and Jacksons, the pub across the road, has the same whiff of history but it’s less randomly unpleasant than the railway corner. Y&Js is much better than it used to be: there’s very little old-man-marinated-in-beer about it. Rather, it’s a spacious, democratic institution that welcomes the masses for imbibing and munching.
Every time I eat in Docklands I think maybe this will be the restaurant that lets me love it. I went with high hopes to Woolshed, which recently launched its upstairs dining room with some fanfare, largely due to name chefs Donovan Cooke and Cath Kalka leading the cooking. The Woolshed’s name makes no secret of the huge building’s origins. The ground level bar, deck and function areas are handsome and flexible; I’d happily return for beers or a party. The casual dining area is next to an open kitchen that runs a classy pub menu of croquettes, salads, burgers and the like. Nearby is a sneaky stairway to the upstairs dining room, which works from a separate kitchen.
It’s only breakfast but when it’s good it’s a marvellous morning meditation, enabling the partaker to greet life with energy, optimism and cheer. Montague Park serves some of Melbourne’s most buoyant breakfasts (and lovely lunches) to lucky locals, most of them regulars who visit this long-established cafe daily. The bright corner spot isn’t big but comfortable indoor seating is augmented by a huge pavement apron where dogs wag tails and humans wag tongues.
When Bachar Haikal and his family opened Almazett Lebanese restaurant 32 years ago, customers freaked out when he drizzled olive oil on the hummus. ‘Ooh, greasy!’ went the cry. Falafel scared folks too. These days, the once-fearful are stuffing falafel and babaghanoush and tahini into their supermarket trolleys. So, now that Middle Eastern is mainstream, the Haikal family thought it time to challenge Melbourne again: this time they’re tackling breakfast, in concert with the Samaha family.