Acre Farm and Eatery serves farm-style food on roof of Burwood Brickworks shopping centre
A gloriously-good lamb crackle, juicy tomatoes and creamy stracciatella mozzarella and a baked focaccia you’ll smell before it hits the table — family feasting rules the roost at this urban farm that’s plonked on the roof of a shopping centre in Melbourne’s east.
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If you’re after a futuristic dining experience, stand outside Burwood East’s new shopping centre on Middleborough Rd and look up.
Plonked on the roof of Burwood Brickworks you’ll find Acre Farm and Eatery, an urban farm, restaurant and cafe that’s unlike anything before in Melbourne.
Vegetables, fruit and herbs are grown at the 2500sq m site and used in Acre’s Glasshouse cafe and its Farmhouse restaurant, while Acre aims to be eco-friendly by using minimal plastic in its kitchens as well as takeaway coffee cups made from food scraps.
Within the next year, practises such as these may earn Burwood Brickworks the World’s Most Sustainable Building title under Living Building Challenge — a global certification that rates building projects on how well occupants use energy, waste and water.
Owners Luke Heard and John Tully are big on sustainability and launched the multifaceted venue in December after the success of Acre Camperdown in Sydney’s inner west, which opened in 2016.
Acre is already packing them in and is proving a magnet at weekends for families, with most of the Farmhouse restaurant’s 180 seats taken this Saturday lunch.
Tomatoes, leafy greens, herbs, zucchinis and pumpkins grown onsite are currently being used on the restaurant and cafe menus, with local farms also supplying produce.
The stracciatella mozzarella topped with smoked tomato compote ($16) uses Woori Yallock and Acre-grown tomatoes.
The sweet and smoky tomato cuts through That’s Amore’s creamy stracciatella mozzarella, all in a pool of basil and chive olive oil made even more delicious when piled onto warm slices of homemade focaccia.
Acre’s plastic-free ethos prevents executive chef Brad Simpson (formerly of Brighton’s Pantry, The Smith in Prahran and Lamaro’s in South Melbourne) from using sous vide to cook his one-in lamb shoulder. But he still achieves a tender, juicy result through a slow oven roast, later turning up the heat to create a gloriously crisp crackle worth bragging about.
At $49, it’s expensive but justified when sharing between two given its size; the meat served with a velvety almond puree, pickled zucchini ribbons and mint sauce.
The steamed Portarlington mussels ($27) are also very good — plump from the garlicky, white wine and vegetable broth it swims in — and adorned with fried saltbush foraged by Simpson and grill-branded focaccia slices for daubing.
Acre’s wine list is exclusively Victorian and there are three craft beers on tap and more in cans.
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Proud Mary coffee and fruit-based cocktails and mocktails round out the drinks.
Acre’s service was underwhelming, perhaps explained by a team of new and inexperienced waiters and a busy lunch service.
At least we’re in a nice-looking space, with Acre’s pared-back interior oozing farmhouse chic, with timber tables and limestone flooring all bathed in plenty of light thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows.
Acre tackles farm-to-plate dining head on, while trying to be self-sufficient, sustainable and offer a top product.
Once it finds its feet, it should inspire other restaurants to do the same, not only to get bums on seats but for the future of the planet.