NewsBite

Advertisement

This add-on is like the designer dress you stumble upon in an op shop: an absolute steal

There’s nothing as enjoyable as a venue that knows exactly who it is and what it’s trying to do, and that’s Mauritian restaurant Manze, right now. Plus: its seafood platter is absolutely gorgeous.

Dani Valent
Dani Valent

Manze’s central communal table.
1 / 7Manze’s central communal table.Bonnie Savage
Go-to dish: Melon with chilli vinegar.
2 / 7Go-to dish: Melon with chilli vinegar.Bonnie Savage
Octopus and green tomato salad comes with watercress soup and rice.
3 / 7Octopus and green tomato salad comes with watercress soup and rice.Bonnie Savage
Rasmalais with strawberries.
4 / 7Rasmalais with strawberries.Bonnie Savage
Manze’s cosy dining room feels like an arty bowerbird lounge.
5 / 7Manze’s cosy dining room feels like an arty bowerbird lounge.Bonnie Savage
The seafood platter supplement (market fish, mussels, salmon caviar and lemon-pickle-spiked butter sauce).
6 / 7The seafood platter supplement (market fish, mussels, salmon caviar and lemon-pickle-spiked butter sauce).Bonnie Savage
Don’t miss the taro fritters with hot sauce (right).
7 / 7Don’t miss the taro fritters with hot sauce (right).Bonnie Savage

Good Food hat15.5/20

Mauritian$$

New restaurants can be fun and exciting, but if you really want to be carried along by a dining experience, find yourself an eatery that’s just turned three. The kinks have been ironed out and the owners have shrugged off the overreach and imposter syndrome of the early months.

Neighbourhood regulars have smoothed any rough edges, just as their derrieres have polished the chairs. Team members who didn’t quite belong have moved on and the remainder can easily help new recruits settle into a system and rhythm. Three is still young and energetic, but innovation springs from an assured base. There’s nothing as enjoyable as a restaurant that knows exactly who it is and what it’s trying to do, and that’s Manze now, sitting in the sweet spot.

What’s it like to dive into a meal here? Maybe you’re on one of 24 seats inside, where the cosy room feels like an arty bowerbird lounge. Pickle jars and wine bottles line the walls like cheery sentinels, local flowers and sturdy pot plants connect soil and table, a jumble of cookbooks seems to celebrate the international family of happy cooks – we’re part of something.

Advertisement
Octopus and green tomato salad comes with watercress soup and rice.
Octopus and green tomato salad comes with watercress soup and rice.Bonnie Savage

Perhaps there’s cruisy dub music playing as a nip of pineapple rhum lands before you, the same music sound-waving through an arched hatch to the small kitchen, where there’s a gentle sizzle of octopus over charcoal (you’ll get those tentacles later, with watercress soup and rice).

Or maybe you’re sitting at a pavement table, passersby perambulating. A cluey waiter suggests wine made by nuns in Lazio, Italy, which finds perfect – heavenly? – harmony with diced raw tuna and chilli-fermented pineapple piled on merveilles, dainty canape crackers that are usually plate-sized Mauritian beach snacks.

“The green melon starter is bracing and disarming; so sweet, so tart, so good.”

There’s an easy balance of comfort and surprise, the startling elements held safely by spirited hospitality.

Advertisement

Nagesh Seethiah runs his restaurant with co-owners Osman Faruqi, a culture journalist, and visual artist Jason Phu, but it’s Seethiah who’s here day to day. Mauritian-born and New Zealand-raised from the age of eight, he studied law and art history in Canberra, working in restaurants on the side. The venue springs from Seethiah’s art studies as much as his culinary ambition.

This is the restaurant as a morphing creole that’s more Mauritian than anything else, but also an extremely Melbourne expression of the local and seasonal, and a very Australian example of a multicultural kitchen with influences from Thailand, India and elsewhere.

The go-to dish of melon with chilli vinegar (left), and “unmissable” taro fritters with hot sauce.
The go-to dish of melon with chilli vinegar (left), and “unmissable” taro fritters with hot sauce.Bonnie Savage

Sous chefs Jeed Chu and Saavni Krishnan, The Age Good Food Guide’s Young Chef of the Year 2025, collaborate on the menu, and both women are encouraged to foster their own side projects.

The team has experimented with various menu structures but recently settled on a three- or four-course set menu ($65/$80), with a two-course option at lunch ($40). Offerings can be amplified with add-ons, like the unmissable taro fritter ($4.50 each), a key Mauritian street eat, and the only dish that’s always on. You can also try your luck with walk-in nibbles.

Advertisement

Mauritian food is one of the world’s great melanges with influences from India, Africa, China and Europe. That melding and merging is also expressed in language: manze is the Mauritian Creole word for “to eat” or “food”.

I’m still thinking about the green melon dressed with chilli vinegar to create a cleansing starter that’s also a statement of intent: bracing and disarming, so sweet, so tart, so good.

The optional seafood platter (market fish, mussels, salmon caviar and lemon-pickle-spiked butter sauce).
The optional seafood platter (market fish, mussels, salmon caviar and lemon-pickle-spiked butter sauce).Bonnie Savage

The seafood platter ($25 supplement) sounds bougie, but there’s an indie spin: whole Victorian flathead is splayed on the plate in a herby, lemon-pickle-spiked butter sauce strewn with mussels and salmon caviar. It’s like the designer dress you stumble upon in an op shop: absolutely gorgeous, an absolute steal.

You can always seduce me with salad, in this case a showcase of what’s just been picked at Dog Creek Growers, a city fringe farm. The choppy tangle of greens and sprouting garlic is rumbled with chilli-lemon dressing.

Advertisement
Rasmalais with strawberries.
Rasmalais with strawberries.Bonnie Savage

Dessert is a spin on rasmalai, a south Asian sweet of fresh cheese kneaded with sugar and cardamom, made here with ricotta because it’s more practical than curdling milk and wondering what to do with the whey. Rasmalai is usually formed into balls and cooked in syrup, but this cheese mix is steamed in little bundt moulds and served over sliced strawberries.

You get a sense of the conversations that must happen at Manze: the font of culture and tradition, the crafting anew, the confidence and freedom to test and flourish here and now.

The low-down

Vibe: Neighbourly, spirited, expressive

Go-to dish: Melon with chilli vinegar (as part of a set menu)

Drinks: Drinking here is fun. Rum is infused with fruit, ginger and syrup to make Mauritian-style rhum arrangé and low-intervention wine is sourced from Australia and further afield, mostly from female-led wineries

Cost: Set-menu lunch from $40 per person; dinner from $65 per person; excluding drinks

This review was originally published in Good Weekend magazine

Continue this series

Your December hit list: The hot, new and just-reviewed places to check out, right now
Up next
The Sari-Sari Sparkle (left), W.A.M martini and Tito Ray each come with a backstory.

It’s tropical drinks, below-zero martinis, and elite snacks at new Filipino bar Inuman

Your summer starts here. Climb the stairs to reach a rooftop bar that’s channelling island vibes coupled with big-city style.

Sandro at dusk.

With five new openings within 300 metres, one of our best Eat Streets is getting even better

Thornbury’s High Street is booming, with a new fire-fuelled Lebanese restaurant, elite ice-cream and more.

Previous
Mischa Tropp will open Kolkata Cricket Club at Crown’s former San Antone by Bludso’s BBQ site.

Chef Mischa Tropp puts Crown in the game with cricket-inspired Indian diner and sports bar

Expect traditional dishes from across India, plus “the best vegetable sandwich you’ve ever had” at this riverside restaurant and bar.

See all stories
Dani ValentDani Valent is a food writer and restaurant reviewer.

From our partners

Advertisement
Advertisement

Original URL: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/goodfood/melbourne-eating-out/this-add-on-is-like-the-designer-dress-you-stumble-upon-in-an-op-shop-an-absolute-steal-20241121-p5ksnd.html