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You could eat any dish at Carnation Canteen and understand the sensibilities that drive this tiny corner restaurant. The calamari speaks of careful sourcing, the salad glimmers with a glee for the seasons, the fish is an advocate for lemon, olive oil, salt and fire.

But why don’t we chat about meatballs? They’re served – or might be, the menu changes weekly – as a trio with sugo. Two are poached, plump and soft, and one is fried, its surface darker and caramelised.

The reason? Owner and chef Audrey Shaw couldn’t pick a winner. Both ways of cooking meatballs approach perfection, the bet-each-way dish suggestive of cookery’s everlasting quest and, in particular, Shaw’s relationship with ingredients and methods.

Shaw is actually an architect who found placemaking via construction too slow. The immediacy and hedonism of cooking reeled her in. She became a hungry student of the restaurant world and gravitated towards extraordinary mentors.

Her architect boss Kerstin Thompson had already taught her rigour and discipline (and working on city restaurant projects Aru and Sunda didn’t hurt). A chef friend who worked at London’s Michelin-starred Ellory (now closed) welcomed her for an informal, year-long apprenticeship, then introduced her to The River Cafe for a life-changing stint of produce-driven cooking.

Back in Melbourne, restaurateur Con Christopoulos (The European, Siglo) led her through his kitchens, introducing them as puzzles to be solved daily. Jean-Paul Prunetti from France-Soir shared wisdom on balancing the energy of kitchen and dining room. Shaw also cooked at Red Hill’s Tedesca Osteria in the flour-dusted aureole of the masterful, sensitive Brigitte Hafner. Carlton butcher Marcello Donati was – and is – always happy to debate meatballs.

The building that houses Carnation Canteen was once a corner store named Les’s Mini World. According to the painted signage in an archival photo, it sold “soublakia” and “steak sand”, but it had been uninhabited for decades.

Shaw and her lawyer husband bought the building and roped in their own family and friends, taking two years to turn the dilapidated shop into an intimate parlour. It’s lovely, light, almost ethereal. Every sliver and sight line has been considered: the patina of plaster, the marble bar with its view of the kitchen, the mix of chairs and stools, the angled front door.

The building is a beacon, glowing in a residential street like a lighthouse of good hope.

Carnation opened in May and was greeted with immediate and enthusiastic fondness which somewhat overwhelmed the modesty and clarity of the offering. Even so, the chaos of the early months was happy and disarming. The building is a beacon, glowing in a residential street like a lighthouse of good hope.

I walked in and smelt daffodils, heard the clink of martini glasses – and marvelled at the sound, which seemed ice-cold and clean. The room felt golden, pregnant with promise – and yet the experience lurched a little.

The booking had been lost, but a table was found. Our coats were taken and carefully stuffed on top of wine boxes. The scrawled menu was barely legible, but deciphering it was so rewarding: chorizo, anchovies, herbs – give me everything.

Five wines we tried to order were unavailable, a hospitality disaster made warm and comical through empathetic and sparkling service by sommelier Alice Crisp, who kept pouring appropriate, storied wines by the glass.

The food was impeccable, though – as if the ingredients had twirled through the kitchen on light feet to be touched with a little salt, heat and acid before dancing on into the dining room.

Anchovies ($20) were served Spanish, matrimonio style – a marriage of white and dark fish tickled with lemon zest.

There was calamari ($30), pert and bouncy with a herb or three. Spanish chickpeas ($16) were tumbled from the tin and dressed with pine nuts.

Whole King George whiting ($34) was adorned with lemon cheek and a benediction of olive oil; you can cook fish at home, of course, but would you find such a nice one, fillet it so deftly and grill it so the skin had that dry, sticky bite?

Far Breton ($16), a custardy cake, was boozy with soused prunes. Even the bill, served with a shard of bespoke Hunted + Gathered chocolate holding it down, felt like the embodiment of care and restraint.

Carnation is a love letter to all those restaurants run by women who turn cooking, a daily act of household nurturing, into a sublime expression of love for community.

Carnation Canteen isn’t perfect – and what a nonsense idea anyway – but I suspect and hope it will be here for a long while, crafting perfect moments for Melbourne.

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine