Serai Melbourne: Ross Magnaye’s new Filipino restaurant riffs on fast food hits

A fast-food favourite has unassumingly inspired some of the snacks at the city’s new Filipino restaurant, with these sliders a must order.

Chefs and home cooks get inspo for new meals everywhere, even the Maccas drive-through. Have no shame Ross Magnaye, as your McScallop slider is a McHit.

Gloriously golden fried, smothered in crab fat sauce with sunny achara (unripe papaya pickle), in a toasted sweet pandesal bun – it’s that rebellious, middle finger to cheffy wankiness and humble cooking that gets me seriously excited about Serai.

The 50-seater opened three weeks ago in very Melbourne fashion, unassumingly down a grungy laneway off Little Bourke St, near where Magnaye and business partners Shane

Stafford and Ben Waters first met while running Rice Paper Scissors.

The gloriously, golden-fried McScallop. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Serai has the same swagger as that Southeast Asian eatery, set in a similar dimly-lit industrial space awash with maroon bench seats, a soundtrack as funky as those natural wines on pour and most, if not all, food cooked over heaving woodfire.

But unlike RPS, Serai has a firm Filipino and native Aussie bent.

Take the kangaroo kinilaw ($22), an outback ode to the Philippines poster dish tumbling smoked and seared roo in a zingy chilli, lime and fish sauce combo over wood-roasted bone marrow. It’s gooey and chewy, herbaceous fresh with an unbeatable spice kick that jolts your tastebuds to attention. Smear over grill-branded bread for best results.

The lamb rib abodo is the bomb. Picture: Wayne Taylor

That same chilli energy is seen in the two-bite selat lumpia ($16 for two) — it’s a spring roll, disguised as a tart, with a wafer-thin pastry base filled with bright pineapple chunks, burnt coconut cream and smoked caviar. The latter gets a little lost among the heat and noise, but still makes for a marvellous snack.

Magnaye’s fire-fuelled antics continue with the lamb rib adobo ($18) that does delicious things with its sticky-salty-peppery vibe and fall-off-the-bone tenderness, and the larger plate of lechon (sucking pig, $45) hatted with glasslike crackle, juicy flesh brimming with more heat surrounded by quenching smoky/sweet pineapple palapa.

The Lechon, pork belly. Picture: Wayne Taylor

What’s most impressive is Magnaye’s deliberate push for Philippines ingredients or techniques in almost every dish.

The calamari ($24) is fished from South Australian waters, flame-kissed on that grill and piled high on a pool of lip-tingling ’nduja made from sweet Filipino sausage (longanisa).

It’s the same with Ralph Libo-on’s cocktails and mocktails ripe with native fruits and shrubs from the island nation. Magnaye makes a mean calamansi-cello that’ll have you sensibly leaving the car at home and glugging Gatorade the next day.

Serai’s Golden Gaytime. Picture: Wayne Taylor

The taho tastes like a Maccas sundae. Picture: Wayne Taylor

The trio are also responsible for those trendy natural wines flanking the bar adjacent to the kitchen. While admittedly the lads are seasoned drinkers not winemakers, I tip my hat to the food-friendly choices, particularly Mildura’s Mandi friulano, that crisp Barossa Valley white blend by Sigurd and super juicy, red-fruited Delinquente montepulciano.

Desserts do not disappoint, either. You could end on the playful, splice-like pinoy-colada or the choc-coated gaytime (both $10), or come full circle by ending on the traditional taho ($12), which tastes like the Philippines’ answer to a Maccas sundae – rich with whispy tofu soft-serve, sticky muscovado syrup and bouncy tapioca beads. Delish.

Young chef Magnaye doesn’t miss a beat with honest, unpretentious cooking true to his roots, while introducing the city to a new world of flavours — without the wank.

Serai is a new Filipino restaurant in Melbourne. Picture: Wayne Taylor