Navi in Yarraville is Melbourne’s newest destination restaurant

NO longer just where fab pho and other cheap eats can be found, the west is now also home to Yarraville’s Navi, Melbourne’s newest destination diner, writes Dan Stock.

IN news that will either have you raising your tinnie of Hop Nation IPA in cheers or crying into your $7 bowl of pho, the west has officially gentrified.

For with Navi the area gets its first “serious” restaurant, and it’s landed with a booked-out-for-weeks bang.

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While other first-time owner-operators have moved west to make the most of the burgeoning bourgeois — Seddon’s Copper Pot, West Footscray’s Harley & Rose et al — they have focused on the drop-in-for-a-bite side of the ledger.

It was thus only a matter of time before Yarraville’s seven-figure auction results and Footscray’s influx of young professionals created an audience for a $120-a-head eight-course tasting menu restaurant. And looking around the room this Friday night their delight at having this newcomer in the hood is palpable.

Moodily spot-lit tables in the intimate dining room are spacious and elegant. Pictures Ed Sloane.

Chef/owner Julian Hills’ fingerprints are all over his first venue. Literally. The one-time fine arts graduate returned to the pottery wheel of his RMIT degree and made the 200-odd plates and other artful tableware that furnish the diminutive 20-odd seater that’s hidden in a quiet residential pocket with the docks humming in the background.

It’s a subtly handsome room of charcoal and slate that teams bar seating around the quietly efficient open kitchen with spacious dark-stained tables for two spot-lit for intimacy. There’s elegant tulip-shaped stemware for a splash of Tassie sparkling to begin, a dinner party friendly soundtrack that veers from Led Zep to Lenny Kravitz and throws in some OutKast and Red Hot Chili Peppers for good measure, and a small team in the kitchen and on the floor that all share plate-ferrying duties.

Snacks to start include wallaby wrapped in chewy egg yolk, and a delightful tart filled with macadamia cream.

From an opening gambit of a chewy macaron that counters its black garlic sweetness with pops of trout roe, a tiny tart filled with macadamia cream and bush tomato, and wallaby wrapped in a chewy cigar of yolk, Hill’s intent here is clear: this is celebration of contemporary Australia.

There’s marron and Murray cod, strawberry gum and quandong all used in approachable fashion and though technique is evident at every turn, dishes are restrained, elegant and cleverly portioned for a nicely paced three-hour procession.

That Murray cod turns up as a tartare where the finest dice of fish is seasoned with a judicious few pops of finger lime hidden within. A buttermilk dressing spiked with horseradish adds sharp heat, while salt-crunchy fish “bacon” and puffed quinoa contribute crunch. It’s a knockout.

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Chef/owner Julian Hills made all the ceramics used in the restaurant, such as this plate used for the sweetbreads and shiitake dish.

The marron poached in butter until delicately translucent comes with a clever caramel that doubles down on the buttery sweetness, tiny onion flowers balancing the richness with bite, while the addition of mussels adds a lovely briny-creamy depth to the bitterness of chopped brassicas underneath a piece of John Dory marred by being slightly overcooked.

Decadent sweetbreads with shiitake many ways is a clever combo of earthy meatiness that’s countered by the equally smart base of pumpkin seed puree that grounds the lot with nutty texture.

It’s paired with a berry-fresh pinotage from Queensland’s Granite Belt, one of the many spot-on wines sommelier Cristina Flora (ex Press Club) pairs across the course of the meal ($80). A plate of preserved autumn veg comes with warm sake that heightens the umami of pickled pine mushrooms and fermented pumpkin, while a truffle ice cream with charred pears comes alive with sip of Hop Nation stout aged in pinot barrels — and vice versa.

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With a sip of Hop Nation stout aged in pinot barrels, the chargrilled pears with black truffle ice cream comes alive.

Creating food with an affinity for wine is likely now in Hills’ DNA, as for the six years prior to Navi he helmed the kitchen at Red Hills’ Paringa Estate, but it’s the Macedon Ranges that provides both the spicy pinot and the duck that accompanies the standout dish this night.

A superbly cooked piece of breast — chewy skinned and ruby soft and with good aged gaminess — is draped over a salted plum compote, a savoury custard made from a stock of the bones accompanies separately.

It’s just one of the many subtle Asian influences across the menu that cleverly places Navi in the now.

Seats by the open kitchen provide a ringside seat to the action.

A “cleanser” of milk sorbet infused with strawberry gum with macadamia is as Aussie as a bushwalk, while the “cheese course” — Berry’s Creek blue cheesecake on a hazelnut crumb with tamarillo jelly top — is a brilliant take on the old-school bakery staple, the jelly slice.

Navi has the same thrill of discovery that Amaru — Clinton McIver’s acclaimed fine diner in Armadale — had upon opening a few years back and, like Amaru, will likely to continue to evolve and grow. But that’s not to say it’s not already great.

Meaning “local” in the language of Hills’ Cherokee father — Navi is not only a certain win for the west, but it’s also Melbourne’s newest destination diner.

Navi

83B Gamon St, Yarraville

restaurantnavi.com.au

Ph: 9939 9774

Open: Dinner Wed-Sat

Score: 16/20