The tastiest guide to where to eat this weekend in Melbourne and Victoria
IT’S almost the weekend, and you’re hungry. But where to go? From budget to blowout and some fine beers as well, here’s Dan Stock’s top picks in and around Melbourne.
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LOOKING for somewhere new to dine this weekend?
Cheap Docklands pints, a rooftop city party place, a kid-friendly winery and a brave top-end offering are among Herald Sun food expert Dan Stock’s picks for the best of Melbourne’s weekend eating.
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Rooftop party palace
Sing for your supper
There’s so much to like about Heroes, the new party palace from the Fancy Hank’s crew.
Making an entrance via elevator — especially when it’s hidden at the back of a gelato shop — is one.
The massive rooftop terrace, is another, where a good-looking range of beers are served by pint and bottle, and cool cocktails are shaken with class. Chef Alicia Cheong has fired up the barbie on which she’s turning out South East Asian street food where skewers feature heavily. Tender chewy chicken bits come under a sweet-leaning satay; lamb comes with a hit of tingling, Sichuan heat, while the adventurous will be rewarded with surprisingly delicious duck hearts brushed with teriyaki to wrap in garlic chives.
Smoked brisket from Hank’s turns up in a cracking dish of salty, smoky, Sichuan numbness that’s the best friend to a beer, while brilliant sweet-spicy “Achar” pickled carrot and pineapple counters the richness of thinly sliced smoked tongue drizzled in chilli oil. Add in karaoke rooms and you have the perfect party palace. We can all be heroes.
Heroes, 188 Bourke St, Melbourne.
Open from noon Fri-Sun, from 4pm Tues-Thurs.
Kid-friendly long-lunch winery
Top drops
There’s no shortage of famous wineries on the Mornington Peninsula that are top of mind when it comes to planning a day of class in the glass.
But with more than 200 vineyards and 50 wineries, the peninsula is more than just those big-hitting headliners. Barmah Park in Moorooduc, once known for its good breakfasts, has new owners, a new look and a new chef, Leo Howard, in the kitchen who’s been charged with upping the food offering.
Along with a glass of the bright, juicy estate pinot, the tasting plate makes a great lunch and might feature pulled pork and red cabbage parcels to roasted pumpkin wedges sprinkled with dukkah and served with fried haloumi squares drizzled with honey.
Mains are generous and include a standout risotto strewn with crab, topped with Yarra Valley caviar and crowned with confit duck egg. It’s inventive, impressive and completely delicious.
There’s an ease to the well-executed menu, the chef showing maturity with admirable restraint. It’s smart stuff that’s not trying to be too clever — a classic treacle tart with sharp crème fraiche is the perfect case in point that’s — served by young friendly staff.
With a kids’ play area and expansive veranda with plump-cushioned seating is perfect to capture the first sun and bud bursts of spring, but long leather couches in front of the roaring wood heater are on snuggle duty, too. A top spot for a long lazy lunch.
Barmah Park, 945 Moorooduc Hwy, Moorooduc. Open breakfast-lunch daily; dinner Fri-Sat. barmahparkwines.com.au
For something different
Go down the rabbit hole
A meal at Lume is many things — enlightening and exciting and expensive, sometimes infuriating, often challenging but it is never, ever, boring.
Going down the rabbit hole at Shaun Quade’s fantastical fine diner is a journey into the unknown, but fortune favours the brave.
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For here, within an understatedly stylish converted South Melbourne terrace, you’ll be served a procession of plates that aren’t what they seem, from ingredients you’ve likely never eaten before. Emu ham and kiwano, fermented corn honey and eel butter just some of the ingredients that might turn up across 14 courses, while such sleights of hand as the sea corn taco and “Darwinian Egg” — a chicken and yolk combo — are as delicious as they are clever.
Chef-co-owner Quade has just called time on his reign at the three-year-old restaurant, serving up his last tasting menu on New Year’s Eve. He’ll then move to LA to open a similarly boundary-pushing experiential fine diner, and hand the reins here to young gun chef John Rivera in the new year.
That means there’s still time to try the 150-step Pearl on the Ocean Floor dish that made the MasterChef contestants cry.
Lume, 226 Coventry St, South Melbourne.
Pub grub & cheap Docklands pints
Cheers for beers
Eight months in the building and many more in the making, after contract brewing the successful Once Bitter around town — which is now known as the Urban Ale — Urban Alley is the new destination for beer fans down at the rejuvenating Melbourne Star end of Docklands.
The handsome 550-capacity brew pub has opened its doors where four core beers on tap — ale, lager, dark and APA — will be joined by a changing line up of small-batch beers.
For the first range of seasonal beers, head brewer Shaya Rubinstein has created a Polish Samurai — a modern take on an old Polish style of beer called grodziskie — and an American Wrye raspberry beer made from 200kg of fresh berries.
A kitchen serving traditional pub grub — burgers and pizza and plate-sized parmas — keeps hungers at bay, while $10 happy hour pints (5pm-7pm) make the already good beers taste even better.
Urban Alley Brewery, 12 Star Circus, Docklands. Open daily from 11am.
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