Ramblr in South Yarra marks next step in Chapel Street’s food renaissance
IN a time when burgers still reign supreme, it’s great to see a young chef bucking the trend and coming up with a winner, writes Dan Stock.
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IN a time when chefs are increasingly outsourcing their knife skills to the mincer and beefing up the balance sheet with burgers (see Shannon Bennett with his Benny’s Burgers, Daniel Wilson with Huxtaburger and Neil Perry’s Burger Project) it’s refreshing, no it’s downright heartening, to see someone bucking the trend.
For the past two years Nick Stanton has been in charge of feeding the party people down at Leonard’s House of Love but now, along with Leonards’ partners Guy Bentley and John Harper, he’s getting back to cooking knife-and-fork focused fare.
Make no mistake, Leonard’s cheeseburgers and cola-basted rotisserie chooks are still some of the best around, and that same smart yet none too serious vibe pervades Ramblr, the trio’s new restaurant on Chapel St.
At the Woods of Windsor down the road a few years back Nick first made his mark cooking accessible Euro-inspired bistro fare, and after stints in the metaphorical US mid-West (Nieuw Amsterdam, Longhorn Saloon) is back cooking same here.
And he’s cooking up a storm.
Large dice of supple cured ocean trout are juxtaposed with the finest dice of pickled daikon, the vinegar sharpness complementing the creamy-fleshed fish. A sprinkle of finger lime pearls, a bed of soured cream complete an opener that’s elegant and completely delicious ($15).
Calamari “noodles”, tiny tender curls of cephalopod, are served atop a thin slice of kimchi cabbage with dancing heat, the unseen addition of smoked marrow adding decadent depth to the dish. It’s original, clever and will doubtless ever leave the menu ($14).
A love of bold flavours – this is a Boys’ Own restaurant, after all, built mostly by their own hands – is tempered with terrific technique; in lesser hands the pig’s head fritters would just be fleeting fatty pleasure followed by sinking guilt, but they are dark-tanned crunchy, densely meaty and the right side of rich. A dollop of bright parsley-laden sauce ravigote on top, a splodge of excellent barbecue sauce underneath, and you have a few rather brilliant bites that call for a Brooklyn lager alongside ($10).
That we were gently warned there were three pieces (for a table for two), with the offer of adding another, and prices with verballed specials, shows those kitchen smarts extend to casual service that’s patently proud of sharing the joy.
There’s much to love. Silken roasted garlic cream that adds seasoned pleasure to a tender, plump roast chicken bettered by a seductive jus gras? Love ($24). Fat mussels tossed through chilli-strewn pasta plaits under a blizzard of salty bottarga? Happiness ($20).
Thick tranches of brioche dry-fried crisp bookending more of that punchy kimchi slathered in melted cheese? That’s a plate of salty, spicy, fatty infatuation right there ($9) while raspberry ripple ice cream ($10) that’s crunchy and creamy and sweetly sharp? So much yes to end ($10).
A playlist that had me Shazamming the likes of Nigerian funkster William Onyeabor through Isaac Hayes, and a simple dining room that teams exposed beams with supremely comfortable wooden chairs and a few bits of green, adds to a stylish package that just needs an artwork or two on the walls to be complete.
And while the menu tends towards the monochromatic – lots of orange and brown, with not a lot of green – Nick’s take on a waldorf salad redresses it with a rainbow. The usual suspects – baby cos, candied walnuts and crunchy celery – come with a passionfruit dressing that’s an unexpected tropical burst of brilliance. Wow, it’s good ($11).
But then, a finale that sums up the offering: a blancmange using the triple cream French cheese delice de Bourgogne. That thick, faintly funky cream comes topped with a drizzle of balanced strawberry syrup and finished with a crack of pink pepper that grounds the lot. Cheese and dessert in one, it’s completely inspired ($12).
Wine dude about town Matt Skinner has helped create the succinct one-pager that cherry picks across the world with eclectic interest and good $50-something drinking, but that the staff could do with more training in.
But smart glassware, elegant cutlery, tan napkins all add up to a stylish package that cannot be beat at the price.
This strip of Chapel, up from cool Windsor, has long longed for a smart diner. And there is no smarter than Ramblr. With young Charlie Carrington’s wood-fired world travelling Atlas around the corner and Paul Wilson about to open at the market, this little pocket of Prahran is upping its food cred.
What could so easily have been a mess of misguidedly hip statements is, instead, the cleverly conceived, keenly priced antidote to any cynical cashing in on trends. What a pleasure.
Walk the talk
15/20
Ramblr
363 Chapel St, South Yarra
Ph:9827 0949
Hours: Tues-Thur 5.30pm-10.30pm; Fri-Sun noon-11pm
Go-to dish: Calamari noodles
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