Review: From silly features to overwrought menu, Rokkbank + Co is a missed opportunity
This South Melbourne newcomer bills its menu as “the art of food”, but the overwrought dishes are more botched restoration than blockbuster — and served in a space that looks like a strip club’s VIP room, writes Dan Stock.
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No matter which way you look at it, it’s a pretty silly feature to have anywhere — let alone a restaurant.
It might possibly be something you come up with after the second bottle while doodling plans with your partner for your Grand Designs house — but quickly scrapped when sober with a “what were we thinking?” laugh.
Running the length of the dining room, the glass-ceilinged cellar you walk over at Rokkbank + Co will give both acrophobics and oenophiles a start.
Brightly lit and decorated with vines, it puts on show the wines that make up a hodgepodge of a list — mainly locals, a smattering of Italian and a few Frenchies — that, while sporting generous mark-ups, still provide much better value drinking than the eye-wateringly expensive by the glass selection: $15 for a glass of Quartier pinot gris that retails for $26 a bottle just one example.
In what was a Greek restaurant on Clarendon St, comfortable peacock blue velour banquettes teamed with velour clam chairs run either side of that catwalk cellar.
With gold tiles around the kitchen, mirrors on the roof, poles used as room dividers and even a black bouncer’s rope sectioning off upstairs, it feels a whole lot like the VIP room at a King St gentlemen’s club.
The menu and website are filled with the type of vacuous statements you’d expect to see on the coffee-for-comment Instagram of a yoga mat-carrying murfer (AKA mummy surfer, usually seen in Byron Bay).
To wit: “Uncover a true culinary experience crafted by connoisseurs for those who relish the art of food.”
But as far as art goes, the food this night was more botched restoration than NGV blockbuster.
Chef Brendan McQueen has worked for some of the biggest names in Melbourne dining over his three decades-long career, including Jacques Reymond and Teage Ezard and had a 10-year tenure leading the kitchen at North Fitzroy fine diner Matteo’s until early 2016.
He’s singing from a similar “contemporary Australia with an Asian twist” songsheet perfected there across seven entrees and mains here, and while there’s nothing wrong with trotting out the hits (see ticket sales for Elton’s farewell tour), you’d want those dishes to hit all the right notes.
The miso-baked cod, one of McQueen’s signatures, does not.
Overcooked to a wet tissue, the headline miso umami-ness was lost in the mushy fish swimming in an cloyingly rich butter sauce, its attendant carrot chunks as odd a pairing as the pea tendrils atop are dated ($38).
An earlier dish of scallops served in both seared and dim sum form is artfully cooked — the three pan-tanned scallops retaining a wobbly, translucent core; the dumpling soft and meaty and more-ish — but is hijacked by the nefarious addition of truffle oil in the parsnip puree ($20).
Not mentioning the overbearing, pushy showbiz mum of the kitchen pantry is a menu crime that, if I had my way, would be punishable by death by squid ink.
Fat fingers of full flavoured veal sausage ($18) come wrapped in bresaola for a heady meaty one-two hit, though the rest — walnuts and daikon, celery and squiggles of fried onion and a red wine miso sauce — makes for a plate busier than Bourke St, that the addition of some sort of soft cheese atop just begs the question, why?
To that list, I’d also an odd quinoa salad topped with soft boiled duck egg covered in a yuzu curd.
With slices of crunchy Chinese doughnut and hazelnuts scattered throughout, it’s more a breakfast refugee than an enjoyable vegetarian after dark dish, slivers of preserved lemon adding random jolts of air freshener to the plate ($17).
The “Chinese roasted” duck was much better, the generous breast meat pink, tender and tasty, its skin deeply golden, though not shatteringly crisp.
Served with a braise of edamame and chickpeas with slices of lap cheong adding sticky rich meatiness, there was no need for the small, sad wrinkled little peas that only detracted from an otherwise satisfyingly enjoyable plate ($38).
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To finish, a well-executed quince tarte tatin — soft, honey-sticky with flaky pastry — served with pistachio ice cream ($16) is the pick over a nonetheless tasty strawberry and cream trifle topped with strawberries and macarons and a misplaced ball of bland blueberry ice cream, served in a stemless wine glass ($17).
While the menu is overworked and overwrought, dishes could shine with a less-is-more approach. Service is “how’s everything with your meal” eager, but not particularly engaged with selling that spot-lit cellar below.
It all adds up to a missed opportunity to give Clarendon St a destination diner.
As far as 2019 Melbourne dining interest rates go, Rokkbank offers a negative yield.
ROKKBANK + CO
334 Clarendon St, South Melbourne
Score: 11/20
Open: Mon-Fri lunch and dinner; Sat dinner; Sun lunch
Go-to dish: Chinese roasted duck