Short Bites: Dan Stock with Melbourne’s latest food news

A new Melbourne hotel doubling as an all-day diner and late night bar. And as one door reopens in Collingwood, another closes in CBD. Dan Stock with the latest food news.

W Melbourne wants to be somewhere people come to play as well as stay.

It’s one of the world’s most popular hotel brands, known the around the globe for great eats, beats and tasty treats and next week W Melbourne opens its doors to bring the same to our city.

From the all-day diner Lollo through to the late-night bar Curious, W Melbourne aims to be somewhere people come to play, not just to stay, says Lollo creative director Adam D’Sylva.

D’Sylva, in conjunction with the hotel’s executive chef Jihun Kim, has designed a menu that riffs off multicultural Melbourne, with days beginning with breakfast pizzas and Lollo Monsieurs that segue into duck lasagne and baked barramundi, red duck curry and baked mozzarella en croute for lunch and dinner.

“It’s an eclectic menu, what I do,” D’Sylva says.

“A bit of Italian, bit of Thai, bit of French. W is an eclectic hotel brand, so I jumped on board straight away.”

W Hotel executive chef Jihun Kiim and bar manager Zachary Morgan in the Curious Bar. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Kim, who arrived in Melbourne just before our first lockdown from opening W hotels in Dubai, says the menu at Curious is designed to reflect the bar’s namesake.

“We put a lot of effort into what we serve in the venue, familiar flavours but in different combinations,” he says, with such dishes as the Bolognese taco and tempura vegetable kakiage with black sesame hummus hits on a menu that caters for those in for a snack through to full dinner.

Swaddled under a cocoon-like ceiling made up of 229 beams, venue manager Zachary Morgan says the Melbourne-focused cocktail program is a highlight.

“It’s inspired by Melbourne pinnacle culture points of coffee, fashion and art,” he says, with five cocktails created under each, including a low abv and group cocktail version.

DJs will play most nights, with full table service and bookings available.

Around May Curious and Lollo will be joined by a high-end Japanese restaurant, Warabi, as well as a casual cafe-slash-wine bar called Culprit.

W Melbourne opens on February 4.

wmelbourne.com

OPENING DOOR IN COLLINGWOOD

Shane Delia is getting ready to welcome drinkers and diners back to Maha Bar in Collingwood next week.

Open just a few weeks before Melbourne’s first lockdown last March, the chef says the menu at the venue will be pretty much the same as where the team left it a year ago.

“We put months and months of development into it. We’ll add some new dishes, but mostly will be the same,” he said.

Shane Delia in his Maha Bar. Picture: Wayne Taylor

“It still smells new, it’s exciting to walk in there again.”

Initially offering dinner Tues-Sat, Delia says such dishes as the borek bun and Turkish delight dumplings will return, along with the signature selection of raki and araks.

Also from next week, Delia’s CBD mothership Maha will open for lunch and dinner daily, but the alfresco pop-up Layla out front will pack up in the coming weeks.

Maha Bar reopens February 2.

mahabar.com.au

CLOSING DOOR IN CBD

CBD’s small-but-mighty Bar Saracen will close permanently on Jan 30 after almost three years.

Owner Joseph Abboud (Rumi, Moor’s Head) announced the news via a statement and said the effect of the pandemic on trade in the CBD, including the loss of international guests, city workers and passing foot-traffic, had left the business in a precarious financial situation.

A Bar Saracen favourite; hummus with calamari. Picture: Nicki Connolly

“As with Rumi – now in its 15th year – Bar Saracen set out to offer an exciting, fresh, thoughtful and emotionally rewarding sense of a too-often misunderstood and pigeonholed cuisine: a pan-Middle Eastern dining experience underscored by the very best service,” he said.

Talented head chef Tom Sarafian will meanwhile reprise many Bar Saracen’s hits – including the signature prawn and crab hummus – from Feb 3 when he takes up a residency at Little Andorra wine bar in Carlton North, with long lunch Sarafian Sundays set to be a summer hit with “awesome music, wine and sunshine”.

littleandorra.com.au

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