Moke in Flinders serves up the best of Mornington Peninsula
Innovation meets effortless charm at this small but perfectly formed restaurant in the Mornington Peninsula. Here’s why your tastebuds need to visit Moke.
Eating Out
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Waste. It might not be as glamorous as grand cru or as hip as hemp, but when it comes to dining out it’s a word we’re going to be hearing a lot more this year.
The logical extension of the paddock-to-plate, nose-to-tail, low-food-miles movement that’s been gaining momentum over the past few years, savvy chefs — and, more importantly, switched on operators — are increasingly looking at waste, and specifically, how to minimise it in the kitchen.
Everything that ends up in the bin comes with a cost and it’s a price diners are becoming less comfortable with paying, whether for reasons of head, heart or simply hip pocket.
While it comes with undeniable forward-looking cool cachet, minimising waste in 2020 has less to do with being woke and more to do with being — and staying — in business.
It’s an ethos in almost complete opposition to the old guard gastronomy of uniform perfection dictated by the rules of Escoffier and policed by Michelin.
It might seem, then, a touch surprising that Australia’s last entrant in the biennial Bocuse D’Or — the world’s most prestigious cooking competition named after the godfather of nouvelle cuisine, Paul Bocuse — should see the waste-free light shine so bright.
But, as anyone moving out of the family home knows all too well, paying the bills brings a clarity of focus and minimising a kitchen’s footprint has as much to do with menu planning as it does a whole-of-ingredient approach to cooking.
And at Moke, Michael Cole’s weekly — often daily — changing set menu means he can order down to the last potato and (hopefully) end up with an empty fridge on Sundays.
As well as representing Australia in Lyon last year (where he and sous chef Laura Skvor acquitted themselves admirably, placing 14th out of 24 countries competing) Cole was running the kitchen at the Flinders Hotel for the past few years.
He’s struck out on his own just up the road, taking over the old Flinders bakehouse site and transforming it into a gorgeously simple country/beach chic dining room, where spacious tables of recycled timber are set with linen napkins, faux vintage cutlery and elegant stemware, the peacock blue velour on the chairs complemented by luxuriously comfortable olive green banquettes.
Creative dried flower arrangements play off the hanging baskets of living greenery and judicious splashes of dark wallpapered blooms.
While Cole’s in the kitchen — jumping out from behind the pass with the odd course or two — wife Alex runs the floor with effortless charm, the duo a formidable double act delivering an experience that is approachable and exciting, considered and innovative and generous. And delicious. Especially so.
A few bites are super-quick to hit the table and elegantly take the edge off pre-lunch hunger: a large cheesy lavosh covered in shaved Main Ridge goat’s cheese; cigars of kohlrabi that team its crunch with the sweetness of apple and just a hint of bitter witlof; and a chicken skin cracker topped with daubs of thickened goat’s milk and avocado.
Then, an onslaught of plates commandeer the table.
There’s warm, dense Flinders sourdough to dip in grassy Cape Schanck olive oil but better still save it to wipe the bowl clean of every last bit of the wonderfully airy “whipped egg” that sits alongside a nicely seasoned, caper-y beef tartare. Light, fluffy and ethereally cloudlike, this gloriously golden pond tastes like the custardy scrambled eggs I’d imagine they serve in heaven, if that was my wont.
A perfect piece of John Dory, cooked with the restraint born of a thousand fillets that went before it, is served simply with a sharp lemon-butter sauce, all the better to let the sweet, just-set fish shine. Seafood by the beach rarely looked so good.
But then there’s the squid “carbonara” — an unlikely, yet sublime, combination that sees fine slivers of squid sub in for the pasta, a sauce of lardo and scarlet prawns adding sea, sweet and salt to a good crack of pepper and a fresh yolk atop. With whispers of salted squash and a sprinkling of chive blossoms, it’s utterly, outrageously, good.
Serving slow-cooked lamb neck as a “main” course in January would be weird if it weren’t 17C outside with Alex fielding requests to light the open fire, and if this dish is any indication — gnarly roasted bits and generously tender meat topped with salsa verde and dukkah, the roasted jus mixed through whipped ricotta — winter’s going to look mighty fine in Cole’s hands down here.
A potato salad of tiny tater tots grown to spec, crunchy green beans with slices of hard goat’s cheese, and a couple of fried cauliflower florets and beetroot crisps complement alongside and complete a meal that teams country charm with top technique.
At $75 a head, Moke is fantastic value. The small wine list is an equally keen celebration of lesser-known Mornington labels (Circe from Shoreham; Brothers McLean from Somers) around the $12 glass/$60 bottle price point augmented by a cellar of judiciously chosen interest from around the corner and globe. Put together by the Red Hill Wine Collective, it’s a very clever selection.
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Clever, too, is seguing into dessert by way of a lovely creamy mango sorbet topped with fresh fruit flesh and finger lime, before a dome of whisper-light meringue that comes on a strawberry cookie and piped full of lemon curd. While it could’ve done with more puckering zing for mine, it’s nonetheless a delightfully light finale.
Coffee (from Mansfield Coffee Merchants) to finish is spot on, Alex’s time spent on the machine at Georgie Bass down the road coming to the fore.
Small but perfectly formed and offering interest and elegance on the peninsula rarely seen outside of (and often not even in) a winery, Moke is as enjoyable as they come.
Don’t waste another moment.
MOKE
60 Cook St, Flinders
Open: Wednesday dinner, Thursday to Saturday lunch and dinner, and Sunday lunch
Must-eat dish: Squid carbonara
SCORE: 15.5 / 20