Restaurant review: Lollo at W Hotel Melbourne

The bustling dining room and rich duck lasagne at Lollo — W Hotel Melbourne’s signature restaurant — is perhaps the best sign yet that the long CBD lunch is back.

The duck lasagne is a signature dish. Picture: Jason Edwards

Whatever. Whenever.

As far as mottos go, it’s a doozy.

And after the year we’ve had, it’s a sentiment well-earned and while this year will doubtless throw up its own challenges – see snap lockdowns and border closures and self-isolating for a week after a weekend in Byron – all of a sudden a city staycation is looking like the safest bet for some time out for some time to come.

What the pandemic didn’t put paid to was a raft of funky new hotels to do so in.

There’s the 255-room Next Hotel that’s part of the grand 80 Collins redevelopment, the opening-this-week Ovolo in South Yarra, a Hilton on Lt Queen St and the Lancemore on Crossley St, but it’s the W Hotel and its motto for the times that has made a pretty-in-pink splash.

W Hotels are renowned for the world over for polish and panache that attracts pretty people who come for stylish beats and sumptuous eats and cocktails that are shaken and stirred long after dark, here at the decadently designed bar, Curious.

Octopus Charred Cosberg. Picture: Jason Edwards

But we’re here for lunch at the signature restaurant Lollo and so, too, it seems is half of the city’s returning office workers. It’s Thursday, and it’s an almost full house.

Is it always this busy? I asked the manager. “No,” she giggled, eyes darting around the room with half-concealed panic.

“Dinner is always full, but lunches are usually quiet.”

Perhaps slightly premature to herald the return of the long CBD lunch, but nonetheless it’s a heartening sign of life returning and goes some way in explaining today’s hiccuppy service that’s sweetly natured but somewhat overwhelmed.

It’s a large, airy, handsome room that’s cleverly demarcated into different dining zones. There’s bar seating that curves the length of the large open kitchen that’s a bustling hive of activity, spacious high-backed booths that afford intimate privacy, and socially distanced duos by the windows overlooking Flinders Lane.

The chargrilled octopus offers punchy South East Asian flavours. Picture: Jason Edwards

It’s stylish without being particularly memorable and you’d probably pick it as a hotel restaurant even if you hadn’t asked the front desk for directions to its via-the-lift location.

While day-to-day execution is left to executive chef Jihun Ki, Adam D’Sylva (Coda/Tonka) is billed as Lollo’s creative culinary director and while I wouldn’t go so far as to call him the “city’s most innovative chef” as per the press release, he has created a menu that’s pretty spot-on Melbourne, with SE Asian influences sitting comfortably alongside Italian hits with a twist.

Lasagne was the undeniable crisis dish of lockdown 2020, with chefs including Attica’s Ben Shewry and MoVida’s Frank Camorra and dozens of other eateries putting their twist on the classic comfort food, and if the thought of ordering it today doesn’t give you PTSD then D’Sylva’s duck lasagne here is an early signature dish.

Baked to order in a large cast-iron pan served straight from the oven, it’s more like lasagne in rotolo form, the pasta scrolls filled with expectedly rich Bolognese with a bright bubbling sugo surrounding, the dish for two or more finished with torn fresh mozzarella and a few basil leaves ($52).

Mozzarella En Croute. Picture: Jason Edwards

Also excellent: a clever take on a ceasar salad that douses crunchy-wilted grill-warmed cosberg lettuce quarters in a thick and properly peppery “cacio e pepe” sauce ($18).

It’s a 90s classic remixed for today, a bit like the Café del Mar-style soundtrack that’s piped through the restaurant and hotel.

From the chilli-spice-rice side of the ledger, there’s a red version of the yellow duck curry familiar to anyone who’s dined at Coda over the years ($45), Mooloolaba prawns hot from the grill and drizzled in green mango and soy ($12 each) and an enjoyable octopus salad, where satisfyingly textural chargrilled tentacles come tossed through green mango slivers with peanuts, shallots, dried anchovies and Thai basil ($26).

I reckon vegetarians are short-changed by the heirloom tomato tatin – its workaday pastry case not worthy of the Tatin sisters’ name – though they’ll get little change from $40 for it ($36). Much better to go for the ball of buffalo mozzarella wrapped in pastry and baked golden, the crunchy-creamy orb surrounded by salsa verde with some peppery rocket on the side ($26).

Lollo at W Hotel. Picture: Jason Edwards

The cellar is Big Hotel extensive, but surprisingly not Big Hotel expensive, with mark-ups across the local-leaning list fair. There’s a nice selection of alternative reds and whites and good drinking by the glass and while you can drop $600 on a bottle of Cristal, so, too, are there many bottles sub $50.

The cornflake bombe Alaska sounded better on paper than it was on the plate, with shards of meringue subbing in for torched Italian and the few toffee cornflakes underneath not really worthy of menu billing ($24), but coffee to end was excellent ($4.20).

Fun and funky offering whatever, whenever, W knows its ABCs and brings undeniable buzz back to the CBD.

LOLLO AT W HOTEL

408 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Open: Tues-Sat lunch and dinner

wmelbourne.com