Yarraville’s Navi finishes 18th in Delicious 100 list
A unique facade and menu well-seeded with native Australian ingredients have landed Yarraville restaurant Navi among the top 20 of the Delicious 100 list, with its owner and head chef revealing the reason behind its intriguing name.
North West
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Yarraville’s Navi restaurant could be the perfect combination of fine dining and foraging.
The contemporary restaurant has just taken out 18th place in Victoria’s Delicious 100 list of top eateries, and owner Julian Hills said his attention to detail has been key to his success.
“I serve a lot of the food, there’s a lot of interaction with me for the whole night,” he said.
“It’s small and intimate, every little detail of the plate is me, I made everything.”
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Since opening in July last year, the restaurant has continued to innovate by constantly changing their menu and using plenty of native Australian ingredients.
Part of its charm is the building’s exterior, which looks like an old shop with apartments built above it.
“I wanted it to be a little bit of a surprise, so from the outside it doesn’t even look like there’s a restaurant there,” Mr Hills said.
The chef said the name Navi meant local in Cherokee and was a homage to his ancestry.
“Everyone loves their local and supports their local, it comes from Dad’s side of the family, he has distant Cherokee heritage so the name works quite well,” Mr Hills said.
The restaurant, which is decorated with Australian colours, offers a set five-course menu or eight-course menu depending on the day of the week.
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Mr Hills, who has been cooking for more than 20 years, said his favourite dish was currently a mandarin sorbet sitting on a crumble, with mandarin butterscotch and olive oil custard underneath.
He said he and his team were “so excited” when they found out they had made the top 20 for the second year in a row.
“There’s just the three chefs at Navi and we were all very happy, now we’re planning what we need to do to be better for next year,” Mr Hills said.