Review: Collins Quarter in Melbourne CBD a modern pub with high-end fare
AS far as lunch dishes go, this dish from a smart CBD pub and bistro is damn near perfect. This, and more, is how chef Luke Headon is breathing new life into a Melbourne dining stalwart, writes Dan Stock.
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As far as lunch dishes go, it’s damn near perfect.
A generous fillet of King Dory — John’s more affordable cousin — is treated with a fisherman’s respect, its silvery skin covering fat flaky flesh that falls apart with the slightest touch of a tine. It sits on a slice of char-edged cabbage which brings crunch and smoke and complements its stalk languidly draped over the top.
Cucumber balls add the right amount of impressive, but not fussy, technique, as does a butter sauce enlivened by a few desert limes — puckering sweet-sharp citric bombs that raze and reset. It’s a spectacularly enjoyable plate that’s just $28, in the heart of CBD suitsville.
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In fact, looking around the well-dressed businesspeople who have networked over coffee and hooked up over drinks at Collins Quarter for the past decade, it seems many haven’t clocked the change in direction of this city stalwart’s kitchen, too busy with meeting Q4 catch-up KPIs and being important to notice there’s some seriously good cooking now going on.
That’s thanks to Luke Headon, who has returned to Oz after almost a decade in London. While many chefs come back and boast about big names on their CV, in reality many have spent little more than a couple weeks’ unpaid work experience — known as staging — in order to bolster their brag but have few tricks in their swag.
Not so Luke, who rose to head chef at the Michelin-starred Restaurant Story, and spent
a couple of years at Heston’s Fat Duck.
Here at Collins Quarter he’s putting that experience to work across his own menus that traverse breakfast through dinner, covering lunchtime sandwiches and night-time snacks as well.
It’s a handsome space, Tardis-like with multiple rooms, including an aperitvo bar and dining room, which, bar the high-backed green leather booths it pays to book, can feel like a thoroughfare with those passing through to drink in the covered courtyard out back. A day-through-night work and playground for the city’s suits, it reminds me of Syracuse up the other end of town in its heyday, with uniformed staff setting tables with hefty cutlery and linen napkins, a wine list that covers the one-glass-with-lunch and the bonus-time bottle of burgundy with equal ease, where staff are as familiar or as formal as each situation reads.
The offering is polished, thanks to restaurant manager Malcolm Singh, another whose CV is made up of impressive names, including Pei Modern, Mister Jennings, and Press Club. That means table service for afternoon drinks, wines poured at the table and an easy guidance into what’s good to drink, whether something from the dozen Vic-dominant beer taps or a $12 glass of barrel-aged Macedon Ranges pinot gris from Shadowfax to go with the pork, another knockout dish.
A rib eye of heritage Berkshire pig is served on the bone, slightly pink and with the perfect amount of char to give it smoky depth to counter the rich, fatty sweetness of this prime breed.
Pear in fresh and puree form adds crunchy/soft fruitiness, but it’s the kohlrabi served separately to the side, sliced, poached in buttery pear juice and formed into a petal that’s the inspired accompaniment.
Along with its leaves charred and tossed through powerful fruity vinegar, it’s fabulous cooking, and for $30, unbeatable value.
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I’m not into pointless pretty, but a plate that’s smart and pretty and pretty damn delicious? That’s all sorts of yes.
Smaller plates also impress, especially the simple pleasure of butter-and-thyme tossed mushrooms on toast served with fried enokis, artichoke and house-made ricotta ($15).
A couple of things need to go back into development: the house butter mixed with crème fraiche is too hard, too crumbly to of be much use on the warmed wholemeal bread; a side dish of brussels sprouts is a missed opportunity, needing longer in the steamer to cook through and in the oven to crisp up ($10); and a lunchtime waldorf salad is all a bit meh, its leaves overdressed, and at $18 comparatively expensive.
Especially when sitting next to a standout steak sandwich that’s brushed atop with butter, generous with tooth-tender meat and smeared with a clove-bright beetroot and onion relish.
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Served with a side of good thick-cut chips and that’s $13.50 I’d happily spend weekly.
Whether the super-savoury green tomato sauce that’s on dunking duties for a sausage roll of slow-cooked lamb, bacon and raisins ($8), or a mandarin marmalade that’s the zesty sunshine to a pungent taleggio cheese and confit duck toastie ($10), or a sweet slice of custard tart with milky bay leaf ice cream ($8), this is real food that’s a real find, hiding in plain sight.
As they say in the classics, beat the price rise and fill up now.
COLLINS QUARTER
86 Collins St, Melbourne
pH: 9650 8500
Hours: Mon-Fri. from 7.30am; Sat from 4pm
Go-to dish: King dory, cabbage, cucumber, desert lime
Score: 14.5/20
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