The Hardware Club in CBD serving most unique chicken dish in Melbourne
The Hardware Club is serving up one of the most unique chicken dishes you’ll find in Melbourne – an ancient Tuscan recipe that’s true beak-to-breast eating. So are you brave enough to look dinner in the eye?
Eating Out
Don't miss out on the headlines from Eating Out. Followed categories will be added to My News.
For those who don’t like to be watched while eating – best look away now.
One of the more unique dishes I’ve been served this year is not for the faint-hearted, but fortune favours the brave.
An old Tuscan recipe that looks completely at home here in 2019, the chicken neck sausage at The Hardware Club offers beak-to-breast eating that’s hard to beat.
A mix of livers and gizzards are chopped through chicken meat minced into a mousse, stuffed into a casing of neck skin that’s then fried golden and crisp.
The hen’s head, holding a sprig of rosemary in its beak like a dove’s olive branch, is the sausage-stuffed and roasted crowning glory of a plate that’s unadorned save some butter pickles ($28).
The sausage is mildly spiced and more-ish, the pickles alongside the thick, soft sausage discs offering a sweet-sharp counter. A lurid sunset pond of housemade Tabasco is on dunking duties, completing a dish that’s not only terrifically tasty but affords a moment of mindful consumption.
Some may think this is gruesome grub of the highest order but I reckon those of us who want to eat meat should be aware of what that entails – and that means being brave and looking dinner in the eye.
Childhood friends Nicola Dusi and Andrea Ceriani have taken over what was for decades Ciao Pizza Napoli and transformed it into The Hardware Club.
The duo took the keys to the space 18 months ago, but in a clever, if-it-aint-broke move, only reopened with their new look and menus last month after gauging how the Hardware Lane throngs used the restaurant that did a bustling lunchtime trade in pizza.
And so it still does. Showing the maturity born of running two successful pizzerias (+39 around the corner and in Docklands) Andrea now offers a separate lunch and dinner menu in the restaurant that takes its name from the original 1920s social club for those in the hardware game.
That means lunch makes the most of the gas-fired pizza oven that’s on show in the open kitchen and includes a pizza that’s been served here for 31 years – hot salami and capsicum with anchovies, olives and mushrooms ($25) – as well as a fetching margherita that’s finished with freshly torn mozzarella ($24).
A few pastas as well as a couple of bigger plates (chicken cotoletta; minute steak with salad) have the city clock-watchers back at their desks pronto.
More relaxed in pace, dinner takes things up a notch or three and while that sausage is the most boundary-pushing plate on Nicola’s menu, he’s not afraid to tweak tradition to turn dishes into something new.
A traditional Campanian starter of octopus eaten alongside mozzarella is here used as the basis for a pasta sauce, the octopus cooked “Luciana” – traditionally in sea water – and tossed through al dente paccheri tubes with smoked mozzarella adding a touch of creaminess.
“Salty bits” – breadcrumbs and prosciutto – add texture and seasoning at once. It’s another unique, excellent dish ($28), as is the osso bucco alla Milanese served in ravioli form.
Though the thick edges of the bonbon shaped pasta were slightly underdone and chalky, the combination of rich braised meat, saffron-tinged sauce and a topping of bright gremolata is a very happy transformation of a classic ($25).
While sunshine pretty, too much saffron with the burrata overwhelmed both the creamy curds that burst from the pouch and the few bits of fried zucchini and mint atop ($23), though no faulting the terrific soused sardines, served Venetian style skin-side fried and topped with pickled onion, raisins and pine nuts ($14.50). Roasted brussels sprouts that come on a cloud of whipped “tonnato” – tuna, capers, mayo – is the type of more-please cleverness that should make repeat visits exciting ($15).
The simple, comfortable dining room is handsomely decorated with a few colourful graphic prints, while the 16-seat bar on entry is perfect for a Select spritz, the Venetian bitter originally used as the basis for the now ubiquitous cocktail that’s dryer and more complex than Aperol ($15).
The short wine list leans big, heavy and red, with a couple of Italian heroes (Masi Amarone, Viberti Barolo) busting through the $100 barrier though the rest are mostly sub $50 a bottle. Four reds and whites are offered by the glass and include a savoury grillo, a Sardinian grape once used mainly for marsala but here turned into a food-friendly white ($11).
READ MORE:
MELBOURNE’S BEST ITALIAN RESTAURANTS
VICTORIA’S BEST RESTAURANT - AS VOTED BY YOU
WHERE TO TRY COLOMBIAN ‘BIG BREAKFAST’ IN MELBOURNE
To finish, you could just opt for a shot of housemade lemoncello ($9), or better still, enjoy it splashed over a velvety lemon custard-mousse topped with shortbread ($10).
Keenly priced, polished and poised, just a couple of weeks in and this next chapter of The Hardware Club is no headless chook. In fact, it’s anything but. I reckon they’ve nailed it.
THE HARDWARE CLUB
Upstairs, 43 Hardware Lane, city
Open: Daily from 11am
Go-to dish: Chicken neck sausage
SCORE: 14.5 / 20