Scott Pickett’s Estelle in Northcote now a neighbourhood restaurant
High end ambitions have made way for High St practicality and Estelle now has its Northcote neighbours firmly in its sights, writes Dan Stock.
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Another year, another Scott Pickett restaurant opening.
This time, it’s the nth incarnation of Estelle, Pickett’s first restaurant that opened in 2011 and introduced Northcote to multi-course small plate dining and which was, for a time, one of Melbourne’s bargain-priced gems. Ambitions grew too big for four small walls, and in 2015 Estelle split in two: a mod-bistro one side, and next door, a sleek, sexy and dramatic room where high-end dining played out to acclaim across $160-a-head menus at Estelle
by Scott Pickett.
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Three years later the Punt Rd commute between ESP and Matilda, the chef’s new fire-powered southside incursion on Domain Rd, claimed the former, which shuttered last August.
Today, the wall between the two Estelles has been knocked out, the aspirations dialled down, the goal to become a true neighbourhood restaurant where Northcote’s affluent empty-nesters and 30-something professionals alike drop into biweekly for a drink, for a bite, not only a special Saturday night.
To that end, the bistro side
of the equation has been transformed into a wine bar with high stools and low banquettes, with kale crisps and wagyu toasties and Earl Grey negronis being stirred behind the bar.
As with all of Pickett’s restaurants it’s a boldly beautiful space, whitewashed bricks highlighting the emerald velour-padded stools surrounding high tables alongside. It’s plate-glass window bright during the day, candlelit moody at night. It’s where you’d happily pop up from the Westgarth after a Tight Tuesday movie and debrief over an Old Spice — a terrific rum-based sour with a lick of smoke, $18. Or maybe the posh sardines on toast, the fish draped over a ruddy garlicky rouille ($5), or a one-two chicken sucker-punch: a glazed, de-boned wing topped with meaty shiitake and liver parfait piped on to kelp crackers hidden under a cloud of grated macadamia ($8).
While unlikely to get those in St Kilda to battle peak hour Punt Rd, the wagyu toastie is reason alone for locals to revisit, the crunchy fried bread sopping up the delicious bolognese oil.
A touch of kimchi heat and a blizzard of parmesan and you have a very, very good friend to a beer ($14).
The whole flounder, though, is cross-town for good. While also served in the bar area, you’ll likely prefer to take it at a table in the dining room that looks much the same as it did as ESP. Dark, moody and masculine, Pickett’s “dream kitchen” is still the centre of attention, the swirling Christopher Boots light fitting as dramatic as ever.
Here a five-course selection ($90) is served for those still happy to submit to chef’s whim, but otherwise it’s a tight half dozen entree, main selection that, with nothing more than $40, is priced to fill the large space.
And by 7pm this midweek night, it’s half full of Northcote rediscovering the charms of Pickett’s big-flavoured bistronomy that now comes with added high-end smarts.
For dishes such as the baby corn, cooked in its husk over coal, brushed with butter and served with a salty parmesan foam and grated Spanish black truffle, are ESP refugees ($24), while others, including the hand-rolled macaroni, hark to London’s The Square and have been
seen on various Pickett menus since ($29).
It’s not all greatest hits. Exceptional seared Paroo kangaroo that’s tender and mild has a light pepper crust that delivers a tickle of heat. The purple meat is sandwiched between blood plum puree underneath, thin fruit slivers atop. Charred endive alongside adds smoky coolness and crunch. It’s spot on ($23).
Eel in sauce and mousse form adds delicate smokiness to counter the pungent oiliness of skin-charred blue mackerel, the mousse piped into a pretty-as-a-picture pickled cucumber canoe that swims in the sauce ($26).
Bigger plates include a miso-roasted eggplant cleverly coated in puffed grains for crunch that’s a meat eater’s vegetarian dish ($26).
Manager Fabien Moalic will offer almost anything on the wine list by the glass (thanks Coravin), which is both a hospitable gesture and a means to make a dent on a cellar that no longer needs the three-figured depth it once did.
And that flounder? Spectacular. Perfectly cooked, it comes slathered in an XO sauce pilfered from an old Neil Perry notepad, with dried anchovy and shrimp adding funky notes to chopped mussels and fermented black beans and a first date-unfriendly amount of fried garlic and shallots ($34).
Along with those bold good looks another, less welcome, thing you can be assured of in a Scott Pickett restaurant — ear-bleedingly awful music. Tonight it’s Jamiroquai on repeat, all night.
But otherwise, Estelle mark 5 is a neighbour I’d be very happy with in my hood.
Estelle
243-5 High St, Northcote
Ph: 9489 4609
Open: lunch Fri-Sun; dinner nightly
Go-to dish: Whole flounder with XO
Score: 15/20
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