Vietnamese food at New Quarter, Richmond among best in town

Food guru Dan Stock has dined at the best restaurants Victoria has to offer. This dish at a refurbished Richmond restaurant left him almost lost for words.

It’s a dish so unique, so innovative, so through-the-looking-glass clever and so damn delicious it stopped me in my tracks.

On one hand, it’s beef tartare. On the other, it’s a complete reimagining of one of Richmond’s defining dishes, transforming one of the world’s best soups, pho bo, into eat-with-a-fork fare.

A mound of finely diced ruby red beef is surrounded by condiments: diced beanshoots with chopped Thai basil and mint and red onion diced into tiny squares with a golden orb of yolk sitting atop.

But it’s the heady cinnamon-y, star anise-y jelly alongside that, once the lot is mixed together, turns this plate into the physical manifestation of pho one forkful at a time.

Beef tartare with pho jelly and anchovy tapioca crisps. Picture: Tony Gough.

Add the fact that it comes with the best salt and vinegar crisps I’ve ever eaten and you have a dish that’s an utter knockout ($20).

And it wasn’t the only thing that had me put my fork down and utter with wide-eyed wonder, wow, that’s excellent.

While I’m still some time from becoming a rosacea-nosed, gimlet-eyed, gout-riddled jaded critic, it’s been some time since I’ve eaten a meal so excitingly full of heart-beat-faster moments.

Things like the chicken croquettes, where shredded roasted meat is packed into a long fat finger, crumbed and fried to a crunch.

Banh mi finger with whipped chicken liver pate. Picture: Tony Gough.

Alongside, a jar of whipped Laughing Cow cheese topped with what looks like salmon roe but is instead the salty-sour-sweet nuoc mam dipping sauce in caviar form. Dip, scoop, slather, swoon ($16 for three).

Or banh mi fingers that taste just like the lunchtime staple but in two-bite form. And with the prettily piped parfait squishes messily either side, you’ll want to lick your fingers clean of all its chicken skin-crumbed, pickles and pate goodness ($8 each).

Three years since opening on Swan Street as a Richmond outpost of Prahran’s popular Hanoi Hannah, the Commune Group (Tokyo Tina, Firebird, Neptune) used last year’s lockdown to redefine the restaurant’s “modern Melbourne Vietnamese” brief.

Char-grilled chilli squid is also on the menu.

The restaurant is natural light bright by day and golden-hued glamorous by night, the soundtrack of funky hip hop as effortlessly cool as the staff who are also welcoming, knowledgeable and patently proud, as quick with a smile as another splash of Adelaide Hills gruner.

It’s a great wine list that’s on trend — some skin contact stuff and interesting varietals — yet accessible and exclusively made up of Vic and SA producers. But it’s Scott Lord (ex-Sunda Dining, Cumulus Inc) in the kitchen who has really brought the brief to delicious life. Exquisite knife work underscoring a sheath of squid keeps the flesh wonderfully tender after being cooked over coals, the burnt chilli sauce smothered atop keeping the dish lip-tinglingly present long after the last bite.

Wok tossed egg noodles with duck. Picture: Tony Gough

Crumbed chicken croquettes with nuoc mam caviar. Picture: Tony Gough

A vibrant salad of herbs, finely shaved pickled shallots and squares of crisp noodles is its fresh and bright plate mate ($22).

With roasted, shaved then fried meat wok tossed in its fat, the egg noodles is the type of doubling down on duck I can definitely endorse, a handful of spring onion and chives gallantly adding green freshness to this defiantly decadent dish ($24).

Maybe add a green papaya salad ($12) on the side if guilt’s getting the better of you, but definitely order the prawn and pork wontons if you don’t want FOMO to do so instead.

With silken pastry and a dense, meaty filling and finished with shaved lemongrass and chilli oil, the dumplings are memorable for the right reasons.

Prawn and pork wontons with a bun bo hue reduction. Picture: Tony Gough.

But it’s the syrupy thick reduction of the spicy beef and pork noodle soup, Bun bo Hue, they swim in that makes them unforgettable ($16 for four).

And then, to finish, the sprinkling of salt atop a perfectly wobbly Vietnamese coffee crème caramel is the type of deft dance that shows a confident kitchen in full flight ($14).

On the table opposite, a Vietnamese couple were treating their three-year-old grandson to lunch and I reckon that says everything needed to know about modern Richmond, in which New Quarter is so very at home.

It was, quite simply, an outstanding meal. Highly recommended.

The revamped New Quarter in Richmond.

NEW QUARTER

79 Swan St, Richmond

Open: Tues-Wed from 5pm; Thurs-Sat from noon

newquarter.hanoihannah.com.au