The 20 best dishes to eat in Victoria right now

THESE are our destination dishes. This is the food that defines dining in Victoria — 20 incredible dishes you can’t afford to miss.

Grossi Florentino’s playful dessert, Arancia Rossa. Picture: Jason Edwards

• Victoria’s hidden gems: CBD hot spots
• Melbourne’s best-kept secrets of the south, east
• North’s hidden gems offer feast of fun
• Surprising delights of the city’s West

THESE are our destination dishes.

Whether it’s kangaroo carpaccio or emu served in its egg, here are the 20 best things to eat around our great state.

1. Spanner crab risotto at Paringa Estate
$65 for two courses

The spectacular spanner crab risotto. Picture Andrew Tauber

Though generous of meat, it’s a plate of delicate refinement, with sweet crab and perfectly cooked rice.
A fish caramel surrounding the dish adds interest, while onion flowers atop add subtle seasoned bite.

It’s a dish as delicious as the award-winning wines from the vines outside the window.

44 Paringa Rd, Red Hill South

2 Blue grenadier at O. My

Four courses, $65

Worth the visit to Beaconsfield. Picture Andrew Tauber

It’s a little pasta course that punches above its weight at this outer suburban degustation-only restaurant that does the same.

A twirl of thin egg ribbons come with chunks of sweet-fleshed fish in a sauce of preserved lemon and cream.

Finished with sheep sorrel and pea flowers, it’s one of four (six or eight) courses that provide every good reason to visit the brothers Bertoncello out in Beaconsfield.

23 Woods St, Beaconsfield

3 Paris Brest at du Fermier

Part of $55 set menu

Dessert dish Paris Brest. Picture: Eugene Hyland

Creamed puffed but airily light, Paris Brest is one of the most popular desserts at Du Fermier. And should you be dining at this French farmhouse-style kitchen on a Sunday, there’s a good chance owner-chef Annie Smithers herself will divvy it up at your table.

42 High St, Trentham

4 Harrietville trout at Tani Eat Drink
Two courses $50

Perfect trout at Tani. Eat. Drink in Bright. Picture: Manuela Cifra

A perfect piece of local trout, treated with respect, shows chef Hamish Nugent’s deft touch, but it’s the coal-baked potato — buttery soft and stunning — that shows his mastery of comfort pairings. Crispy chicken skin — oh yes! — and a sauce of cultured cream complete a plate that’s pretty much perfect.

100 Gavan St, Bright

5 Whipped passionfruit curd at Montalto

Two courses, $60

Whipped passionfruit curd, toasted rice ice cream, green tea meringue. Picture: Andrew Tauber

The view across the sculptures through the vines at Montalto takes some beating, but the passionfruit curd, whipped cloud light and served with a soft green tea meringue and toasted rice ice cream does a pretty good job of it.

33 Red Hill-Shoreham Rd, Red Hill South

6 Arancia Rossa at Grossi Florentino

Three courses $140

Guy Grossi’s fun dessert. Picture: Jason Edwards

Guy Grossi is quietly modernising Grossi Florentino and this playful dessert, a carnival of Neapolitan colour, is a perfect blend of innovation and tradition.

Think blood orange sorbet, cocoa nibs and Campari.

80 Bourke St, city

7 Chicken breast with sour cream at The Town Mouse

$29

The Town Mouse the chicken breast with sour cream.

Chicken is never going to be the boring option at this bijou bistro.

This smart dish unites two succulent slices of chook draped in wilted chicory with a luscious soured cream sauce dotted with hazelnuts.

It’s balanced and downright tasty; exhibit A for simple ingredients beautifully executed.

312 Drummond St, Carlton

8 Potato, eel, brown onion at Gladioli
Five-course menu, $90

Gladioli’s otato, eel, brown onion in broth Picture Andrew Tauber

Don’t let the bland menu descriptor deceive you.

This intriguing looking dish, served in a shallow ceramic bowl, bursts with savoury flavour.

The potato is cooked in cultured cream, the eel is smoked and the broth — brown onion — soaks up crunchy quinoa.

14 High St, Inverleigh

9 Yuzu posset at Circa

$18

The yuzu posset.

This memorable dessert bounces off all parts of your palate like a pinball machine — lush posset and white chocolate bring the creamy, while the yuzu brings the citrus zing.

Crunchy meringue, tuile wafer and freeze-dried raspberries add textural pops; the whole bowl made pretty with flowers. Go get it.

2 Acland St, St Kilda

10 Ocean trout at Mister Jennings

$19

Ocean trout as beautiful as it is tasty. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

It’s almost too pretty to eat, but Ryan Flaherty’s cooking is too good to miss.

His cured ocean trout, luxuriously silken slices of excellent fish, comes with pressed cucumber batons that add fresh sweetness, saltbush for seasoned bite, and a daub of subtly spiced horseradish cream to tie the lot together.
It’s at once easy and elegant and absolutely on song.

Mighty mouthfuls on offer at Mister Jennings, but service and other aspects of this joint need to improve

142 Bridge Rd, Richmond

11 Lebanese-style snapper at Bacash
$42

DLebanese style snapper fillet at Bacash. Picture Andrew Tauber

Luscious and popping with exotic flavour — sumac braised silverbeet, pine nuts, currants and tahini — this is seafood chef Michael Bacash at the top of his game.

175 Domain Rd, South Yarra

12 Whipped emu egg at Attica

Tasting menu $250

Whipped emu egg served in its shell.

The autobiographical storytelling through food that catapulted Ben Shewry onto the world food stage has evolved into a broader celebration of Australian icons at Attica, and his use of part of our Coat of Arms is inspired.

Nestled in flax and served in its shell, emu egg whipped with native honey is transformed into a dessert of sweet elegance.

74 Glen Eira Rd, Ripponlea

13 Chemen-cured swordfish at Maha

$16

Chemen cured swordfish, kewpie mayo, preserved lemon and shallot. Picture: Eugene Hyland.

Slivers of swordfish are preserved in chemen, a heady spice mix including fenugreek, cumin and orange zest, before being freshened with preserved lemon and piped with kewpie mayo.

Another fine example of creative and modern Middle Eastern fare at one of Melbourne’s most value-for-money fine diners.

21 Bond St, city

A new look for Shane Delia’s Maha in Melbourne CBD delivers new life to old favourite

14 Duck smoked over melaleuca at Lume

Menu from $80

Simplicity at Lume in South Melbourne: Duck smoked over melaleuca. Picture Andrew Tauber

It might be one of the less mind-bending dishes you’ll be served at Lume, but it’s no less impressive for it.

A slice of pink-hued Great Ocean Duck meat — chewy of skin thanks to dry-ageing and with an elegant smoke tinge — is deeply satisfying.

A sheen of elderflower honey adds sticky sweetness, a perfect orb of fermented plum is a complement as simple as it is sublime.

226 Coventry St, South Melbourne

15 Chinese-style duck breast at Ezard

$52

Ezard’s Chinese duck breast with Asian herb salad. Picture Rebecca Michael

The centrepiece of Ezard’s eight- course tasting menu, this scintillating dish is superbly constructed and sparked with feral flavours thanks to a fermented black bean and
chilli dressing, along with smoked tofu.

An Asian herb salad adds welcome freshness.

187 Flinders Lane, city

16 Buffalo mozzarella, zucchini fritters, mint and pea salad at Coda

$24

A staple at Coda, the salad of mozzarella, peas, mint & zucchini fritters. Picture Rebecca Michael

This salad has been on Coda’s menu pretty much since it opened in 2009.

That’s Amore cheese is the star, ably supported by well-seasoned, golden mini zucchini fritters, supple slices of zucchini, peas and mint.

Fresh, light, simple as hell, outstanding.

Basement 141 Flinders Lane, city

17 Kangaroo carpaccio at Masons of Bendigo

$16.50

Masons of Bendigo’s mod take on a classic.

Turning ’roo into ruby-red carpaccio was an inspired idea. Better still is the way Masons chef Nick Anthony layers those lobes of meat with lovely native ingredients: macadamia, lemon myrtle, bush tomato mayonnaise and wattleseed crisps.

It’s a thoroughly modern update of a classic.

25 Queen St, Bendigo

18 Whiting at Anchovy

$15

Anchovy in Richmond’s whiting. Picture Andrew Tauber

Two plump whole fish, fried to a crisp, herald a different way of serving fish at Anchovy — and they are all the better for it.

Sweet flesh falls from the bone ready to dunk into a brilliant sweet-sharp coconut mignonette, while fried curry leaves add a touch of subcontinental spice. Gosh they’re good.

338 Bridge Rd, Richmond

19 Agnolotti of veal and amaretti at Lupino

$26

Veal agnolotti at Lupino. Picture: Josie Hayden

Lupino chef Marco Lori is a pasta master and at his most sublime with this silken sensation of pasta pockets filled with veal, then finished with the crunch of amaretti.

41 Lt Collins St, city

20 Potato at Fen

$21

Potato and buttermilk at Fen in Port Fairy.

A celebration of region and land defines Ryan Sessions’ menu at Fen, Port Fairy’s fab fine diner, but it’s the simple comfort of a single kipfler potato that shows his keen diner-first philosophy.
The spoon-soft flesh crumbles under prosciutto-fat crisps that provide ballast, a roe sauce adding pops of oily salt.

Along with freshly plucked sea succulents, salt and vinegared salt bush is a bracing antidote to the creamy carbs. What a dish.

22 Sackville St, Port Fairy

Don’t miss this week’s Sunday Herald Sun for the delicious. 100, when Victoria’s first — and only — ranked guide to the 100 best restaurants in the state will be revealed in a 20-page liftout.