The best places to eat and drink in Melbourne and Victoria
A long, lazy lunch on the Peninsula or posh snacks and a glass of wine at a reimagined Northcote fine-diner, these are Dan Stock’s top picks for where to eat really well this weekend.
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Whether a long lazy lunch on the Mornington Peninsula, some posh snacks and a glass of wine at a reimagined Northcote fine-diner, or dinner cooked by “the world’s tiniest chef” here are Dan Stock’s top picks for where to eat and drink this weekend.
FOR A LONG LAZY LUNCH
From winemaker Sam Coverdale (Polperro/Even Keel) comes Many Little, a bistro/wine bar smack bang in the heart of Red Hill village.
A more relaxed, casual sibling to Polperro — which remains a top spot down here for vine dining — Many Little is a day-through-after dark offering that will soon start with eggs and coffee before seguing into entree-main lunch and dinner and three-cheese toasties late at the bar.
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The towering gums make the large courtyard area in the small shopping strip a perfectly lovely spot for a long lunch or early evening meal, though inside you’ll find a fetching dining room with lots of tan, wood and earthy hues juxtaposed with industrial chic metal-and-timber chairs. There’s a separate bar and wine-for-home bottle-o, with stools surrounding the former both inside and out on the deck.
The menu is a continent-jumping collection of bistro-ish hits that sound like the type of things you want to eat after a day at the beach — DIY tempura barramundi tacos; whole-roasted flat head with caper butter sauce; a daily changing pot pie; crab linguine — with a good showing of plates from the garden.
Go-to dish? The on-the-bone veal schnitzel. Along with a little pile of pickled red cabbage “sauerkraut” and a terrific pomegranate chutney, the beautifully blushing pink meat comes under a deep tan crumb crust that sings with a spritz of the charred lime alongside. It’s a winner.
The bar, of course, is a vertically integrated selection of Coverdale’s excellent wines along with judicious showing of other Victorians cast with a winemaker’s eye for interest, while a focus on gins and vermouth keeps tabs on Melbourne drink trends.
Many Little, 159 Shoreham Rd, Red Hill. manylittle.com.au
F OR SUPER SNACKS AND SIPS
Scott Pickett’s new double-headed Estelle has opened and the chef/restaurateur couldn’t be happier with the new, improved space that joins what was fine diner ESP with the bistro next door into one seamless space. There’s a wine bar/snack-vibe in what was Estelle and a more substantial, if still casual, offering in the main dining room that keeps the large open kitchen as a focal point.
Different menus run across the two spaces and while whole flounder with XO sauce and steamed-and-roasted eggplant with miso and quinoa are early hits from the kitchen headed by Valentin Barrere (ESP, Vue de monde, Marque), it’s the snacks that include a wagyu Bolognese and kimchi toastie and the poshest sardines on toast that have Friday night wines at the swanky new bar written all over it.
Estelle Bistro, at 243 High St, Northcote. theestelle.com.au
FOR BRILLIANT BALLARAT BITES
Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl — but unlike Barry Manilow’s dancer at the Copacabana, Lola Martinez kept the Goldfields’ miners entertained with her risqué spider dance and it’s this Gold Rush identity who is the namesake and muse of the restaurant at newly refurbed The Provincial Hotel in Ballarat.
There you’ll find owners Simon Coghlan and Drew Harry delivering the breakfast-through-after-dark dessert menus of chef Shaun Thompson.
Having worked alongside the likes of Peter Gilmore (Quay, Sydney), Neil Perry (Rockpool) and Peter Kuruvita (Flying Fish, Fiji), Shaun translates his high-end experience into an approachable Euro-ish bistro menu of local heroes that teams hits from the grill — three cuts of Sher wagyu, for instance — with more refined fare.
Pretty-as-a-picture snapper crudo is a hot-night delight, while a plate of Milhouse lamb deftly teamed with pea puree, whipped fetta and zucchini ribbons is delicious in its simplicity. Even the very wintry ox cheek with cauliflower and soubise walks out the door in summer, so irresistible is the call of Shaun’s cooking.
A forward-looking wine list filled with minimal intervention drops continues the flavour-first, local-loving philosophy, including a good line in Latta Wines from young gun winemaker Owen Latta.
And if you like the cut of Latta’s gib — wines that are unique and delicious, two words that don’t always sit together when talking natural/low-intervention winemaking — then why not go taste the range and chat with the winemaker at Eastern Peake winery, just 15 minutes up the road.
Lola at The Provincial, 121 Lydiard St North, Ballarat. theprovincialballarat.com.au
Eastern Peake, 67 Coghills Creek. easternpeake.com.au
FOR DINNER AS A SHOW
He’s billed as the “world’s tiniest chef” and he wants to cook dinner for you. Having wowed diners in London and Nashville, Dubai and Berlin, Le Petit Chef has popped up in Albert Park. Using 3D rendering and projection technology, an immersive dining experience is created where the tiny animated chef catches, prepares and cooks dinner on the table — before real-life Cardigan Place Cellars chef Kirra Parsons (ex Lume) does the same to delicious effect.
Interactive Dinner has brought the concept to Australia — more than 100,000 people took part in a Le Petit Chef dinner in China in 2017 alone — and has plans to expand the project here in future.
For now, the experience — which consists of three courses with matched wines — is limited to eight diners per 90-minute seating and runs until Feb 21.
Tickets ($190 a head) via cardiganplacecellars.org
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