The Cellar Door, Eastland, Ringwood: Weekend Review

REVIEW: Eastland’s new food precinct has another eatery worth crossing town for and, with seriously good food, that’s The Cellar Door.

The Cellar Door, Eastland. Picture- Nicole Cleary

EASTLAND is awesome. Never thought I’d write those words but funny things can happen when you throw half a billion dollars at an ageing shopping centre.

Ringwood’s retail behemoth has had a mod makeover fit for 21st century consumption and its new-look “Town Square” is anchored by the sort of quality eateries we’ve come
to expect in the inner ’burbs (Huxtaburger, Pacos Tacos, Jimmy Grants).

But Eastland’s new food precinct has another eatery worth crossing town for and that’s The Cellar Door.

Don’t let the innocuous sounding name deter you. This is a one-stop shop for “superior Yarra Valley’’ produce and The Cellar Door delivers the goods — great food, wine and beer — on multiple fronts: in a public bar, a dining room, a provedore and a rooftop arbour.

The Cellar Door at Eastland. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Dale White and Bec Gallagher are the brains behind it. This quietly dynamic duo established The Public Brewery in Croydon a few years back — another eco-friendly, artisan hub showcasing the best of the region — and they like to think of their new Eastland project as “us with a suit on”.

That’s pushing it. On a warm summer’s night, The Cellar’s various zones are packed with locals in tees, chinos and sneakers. And while the congenial bar up top has stunning views across to the city, the real culinary action is downstairs in The Dining Room.

FOOD

Start your visit with a paddle. A charcuterie paddle, that is.

“It’s a Cellar Door signature,’’ executive chef Zoe Birch tells me. And rightly so.

Charcuterie paddle. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Birch (ex-Healesville Hotel) has her team working round the clock making terrines and curing meats and these are handsomely displayed with other house-made goodies.

Best on show is the tete fromagee ($12) where cornichons, capers and teeny jubes of apple support — wait for it — cuts of pork head. Cheek by jowl by tongue ... all this is cured, cooked and set according to French tradition. They are then sliced into fine, fat-frilled leaves that convey the loveliest porky flavour you can imagine. One of my dishes of the year.

It’s not all meat. Clams steamed open in golden ale — so they take on a hoppy flavour — wallow in a fragrant broth with barbecued corn ($14). Baked eggplant, burghul and Healesville chermoula ($10) is surmounted with The Cellar Door’s light-as-air yoghurt — made fresh each evening. And soft stumps of ricotta gnocchi ($26, below), bronze on one side, cavort among broad beans and fig bits.

Birch gets a lot of her ingredients from The Cellar Door’s rooftop herb and vegie patch. Elsewhere, she relies on Yarra Valley cherries (poached for a pork shoulder dish), zucchini flowers out of Wandin (for stuffing with smoked mozzarella) and Dobson’s potatoes from Alexandra — rough cut, triple cooked and served with pleasingly sweet ketchup.

Cheeses are all valley heroes, naturally, and will soon be doing the rounds here on a trolley. But don’t overlook “something a little sweet’’.

My choice would be “eat and mess” ($15) — a blissful union of meringue, local berries and goat cheese cake — or deeply tanned beer doughnuts ($8), lathered with Heathmont honey.

DRINKS

Rippling green vines are a short hop from Eastland, so The Cellar Door makes sure valley vignerons are well represented. A Rob Dolan sparkling from Warrandyte is good value at $9 a glass. Plugged into The Public Brewery, The Cellar Door showcases its own craft beers,
but there’s room for other locals. Not to mention apple and pear ciders, Yarra Valley Tea
and damn fine Silva coffee … with St David Dairy milk.

SERVICE

Barely three months old, The Cellar Door feels solid.

Service at The Cellar Door feels solid. Picture: Nicole Cleary

Connections between kitchen and front of house are well soldered in The Dining Room and our staffers (in spotted blue shirts and black aprons) rarely missed a beat. Really good to see bottles presented at the table when you order wine by the glass. Others spaces here are more casual but well run.

X-FACTOR

Steel rails and timber tables, white tiles and trellised plants ... this could be Shoreditch or Brooklyn. Then again, no. Take a closer look at The Cellar Door, especially The Dining Room, and there are pleasing details — ceramic dishes, glassware, jars of preserves — that forge unique connections with Melbourne’s east.

BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

Sensibly priced. Nearly all the charcuterie paddles are $12, while generously sized mains rarely top $30. Breakfast dishes are competitive. Yarra Valley Dairy cheese on toast with ham and fried egg is yours for $12.

VERDICT

The Cellar Door would stand tall in any neighbourhood. It’s cleverly designed, shrewdly
run and serving some seriously good food. Lucky Ringwood.