Dan Stock’s best dishes for 2019
It was the year carbs made a comeback thanks to stunning breads and pizza, while our best chefs took plants to a new level. There was unforgettable seafood, knock-your-socks-off spice and reimagined Aussie classics. Here are Dan Stock’s favourite dishes of 2019.
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Could 2019 be the year carbs came in from the cold and regained their rightful place on our dinner tables?
Looking back at some of the most memorable bits and bites I’ve popped in my gob over the past year, it certainly seems so.
Whether the heady-rich pleasure of a Vegemite, camembert and truffle toasty paired with a NZ pinot at Carlton’s Lord Lygon, the salty-fluffy-charry flatbread with labne to open the account at supercool Old Palm Liquor or the dukkah-sprinkled flatbread that’s on dunking duties for a bonkers/brilliant hummus and XOdouble act at Shane Delia’s Maha East, cool carbs were
hot stuff.
Various versions of charry blistered bits of dough shone bright, from the seriously good flatbreadsat the Prince Dining Room (the fiocco salumi teamed with fresh mozzarella and basil leaves is a knockout) to the trio of cheeses topping a classic pepperonipie at Pepe’s Italian and the decidedly unauthentic but undeniably delicious naan pizzasout of the tandoor at Jessi Singh’s Daughter in Law.
And then, two words: ranch sauce. As if we weren’t already hooked on the massive American-style pies at new-wave old school Carlton pizza joint Leonardo’s — the Sichuan-tingly Chinese Bolognese is a must — but add a jug of ranch sauce on the side for dipping your crusts in? That’s all sorts of wipe-your-chin-dry joy right there.
It was also a year in which chefs dug plants.
Chef Mark Ebbels is making the most of the ¼-acre kitchen garden at his disposal at Tarrawarra, putting it to use in innovative dishes such as pumpkin with apple and macadamia feta topped with quince and salmon roe.
At Lesa, Dave Verheul’s terrine of beetroot teamed with salted elderberries and olives is refined, creative and unbelievably good — as is so much else on his tight, bang-for-buck four-course menu.
But in the depths of winter there was no better bowl to brighten a long night and warm a cold heart than Melbourne’s best onion soupat Brighton’s diminutive French diner, Curly Whiskers.
Many, many memorable things also came from the sea.
Nicky Riemer continues to give South Melbourne’s locals reason to never leave the hood with her brilliant bistro fare at Bellota — her sensational eel spaghettinitopped with chilli-spiked pangrattato is reason alone to visit — while at the pointier end of the spectrum, Vue de monde’s new chef Hugh Allen has put his stamp on the fine diner in the most impressive way.
From a selection of oysters shucked, served and slurped by the kitchen bench to Tasmanian uni with caviar and bunya bunya and marron in a heady native curry, his is a clear-eyed vision of contemporary Australia that’s thrilling.
Also exciting: the clever take on old-school prawn toast at Oakridge that sees crustacean swapped for croc, a punchy XO adding unmistakeable heat. Crocodile rock, indeed.
Scott Pickett’s XO game is also strong at his reborn Estelle, slathering expertly treated flounderin a spectacular sauce where dried anchovy and shrimp add funk to chopped mussels and fermented black beans and a first date-unfriendly amount of fried garlic and shallots.
But the skate with hazelnuts, grapes and jamonat Dessous, Flinders Lane’s new late-night subterranean wine-dine-good times hospo hot spot, is equally excellent.
Team with the poshest wedges in town — with ‘nduja sour cream and crunchy fried chicken skin — for fish and chips like you’ve never seen before but will want to again.
Another Aussie classic — the meat pie — has been brought into today with chef Ray Capaldi transforming his fine-dining experience and old-school reverence for technique and produce into genre-defining creations that include a gloriously cheesy cauliflower number and chunky beef that can’t be beat at Wonderpop.
In Thomastown, the best way to start the day is to say yes please to cheese. Just-made ricotta calda served so fresh it’s still warm is like eating a creamy cloud at the That’s Amore factory cafe — though the breakfast bagel with crumbed-fried caciaotta cheese and a fried egg is an oozy doozy that’ll see you through to night.
Speaking of which, at late-night fun diner Elektra chef Rueben Davis has put an after-dark twist on the classic beans-on-toast British breakfast of his youth, where broad beans and harissa-spiked mussels come snuggled under gossamer sheets of lardo. Swoon.
See also: the crab with sauteed milky egg whites at Albert Park’s super luxe Sun Kitchen, the heart-stopping decadence of pan-fried terrineat Citta and Helly Raichura’s terrific vegetarian take on a kebabat her secret mod Indian dining room, Enter Via Laundry.
Whether wrapped in spicy blood puddingand served with a sweet apple chutney at Footscray’s Vic Hotel, the gooey-yolked, smoked eelwonders at Anglesea’s Captain Moonlite, the decadent wagyuversion at Japanese BBQ restaurant Niku Ou or Rhys Bennett’s clever kedgereetake at North Melbourne’s Westwood — the world’s best bar snack, Scotch eggs, were everywhere. More please.
More? To that list I’ll add manti— Coskun Uysal’s delicate, dexterous dumplings — at the reigning delicious.100 No.1, Tulum, the plump Siberian pelemifilled with pork and beef and served with sour cream at Kyneton’s Royal George, and the suantang shuijiao(hot and sour soup dumplings) at Shaanxi-Style Restaurant in Box Hill.
While veganism dominated the headlines, my more mindful meat consumption was rewarded this year with a perfect dry-aged Strathbogie black angus scotchfillet at Mornington’s Counting House, the satisfyingly homely — and local — slow roasted lambat the Otways-celebrating Yield in Birregurra, and the Hardware Club’s chicken neck sausage, the best, and most delicious, use of the whole bird I’ve yet seen.
And though it remains the most perfect chicken liver parfait on the planet, the meat fruit at Dinner By Heston this year had a mushroom and trufflemakeover, and the vegetarian version was, thrillingly, as good as the real thing.
One of late spring’s best surprises was seeing peas turn up in dessert.
At Fitzroy’s tiny Gaea, chef Mo Zhou serves up sublime sweet-savouriness of peas and pine needles with fresh curd, while at risen-from-the-ashes Ten Minutes By Tractor, a similar riff sees buttermilk panna cotta brightened by a terrificpea sorbetand joined by a medley of fresh peas, roasted pine nuts and juicy cucumber finished with a pine needle snow.
MORE FROM DAN STOCK
But really, 2019 was all about bread. There’s the Baker Bleu queueand the fluffy white katsu sangas at Saint Dreux, but for mine, the best $4 I spent this year was on the cracking-crusted sourdough served oven-warm with a cheesy, peppery cacio e pepe at Etta.
It really is the best thing since sliced bread.