Your tasty guide to eating your way through the USA in Victoria
WHETHER you want brisket burgers or New York-style slices, living the American food dream at home is easy. Here’s how to eat like a Yank minus the 14-hour flight.
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WHETHER it’s barbecue, burgers or a boozy bottomless brunch, living the American (food) dream is easy.
Here’s a taste of Victoria’s best purveyors of American-style eating and
drinking.
BELLES HOT CHICKEN
Various locations & food van
Morgan McGlone’s Belles was Melbourne’s introduction to Nashville-style chicken, winging its way to Fitzroy’s Gertrude St in 2014. Choose your chook (wing, tenders or drumstick), its heat (Southern, medium, hot, really hot or a tear-jerking really f---in’ hot)
and a side. Belles’s paprika-cayenne hum now extends to Richmond and Collins St, with a food truck at Welcome to Thornbury but with plans to roam.
BIG BOY BBQ
Caulfield South & city
A pioneer of American barbecue in Australia, Lance Rosen’s outfit opened in 2011. It now takes in cooking classes, clothing, sauces and his award-winning Temples of BBQ book.
BIG PIG LITTLE PIG
35 Ebden St, Moorabbin
Some little piggies go to market but super-hungry ones go to this barn-like hangout with American-style barbecue at its core. During the week, blue-collar workers wolf meaty
eats such as brisket burgers from the diner window. On evenings and weekends, families move in for share platters of pulled pork, ribs and jerk chicken, with mac ’n’ cheese and slaw. Kick back with live music on Sundays, made easy with bourbon, whiskey, picklebacks and eight taps pouring independent brews.
470 Sydney Rd, Coburg
Pit-master Al Malel takes a more global approach to barbecue. His pulled pork comes with a sharp lime mojo for a Cuban bent, while beef ribs are served with South American chimichurri. But classics always rate, like sausage and grits (a soft, cheesy polenta mix), Black Angus Texas-style brisket that clocks about 14 hours in the smoker and banoffee pie.
BOWERY TO WILLIAMSBURG
16 Oliver Lane, city
That lunchtime queue in Oliver Lane is for this basement deli’s homage to the food scene of New York, and more broadly, America. Bestsellers include the super-sized reuben or turkey club on challah bread and juicy Southern-fried chicken on waffles to slather with spiced butter and maple syrup. Eggs are served all day, with poachies teamed with latkes (potato pancakes) and lox (brined salmon). Or celebrate American excess with a cheeseburger resplendent with maple bacon and house-smoked barbecue sauce.
BURN CITY SMOKERS
Western suburbs barbecue kings Burn City Smokers are taking over the Grand Hyatt’s Collins Kitchen for another winter. For lunch and dinner until the end of August, their smoker will heave with pork ribs and beef brisket for their cracking burger, as well as new menu items including a “Chiko roll”, jalapeño poppers and a smoked mushroom burger.
234A Russell St, city
Late-night hangout Heartbreaker might be inspired by LA’s dive bars, but its pizza joint Connie’s is all about the NY slice. The cheese and pepperoni styles rule, sold by the slice
or as an 18-inch pie to eat in or grab and go.
79 Bourke St, city
Smoked eggplant, pork ribs and shoulder, and other free-range meats from Gippsland get the low and slow treatment in the two-tonne custom-built smoker for up to 22 hours. Elegant Southern-style snacks such as devilled eggs and buttermilk biscuits bring the fancy, as does Hank’s gorgeous art-deco building crowned with rooftop bar Good Heavens.
FARGO & CO
216 Swan St, Richmond
Bottomless brunch is a New York institution, and its endless supply of prosecco and mimosas to the hungover and hungry has captured Melbourne’s attention, too. Indulge at Fargo and Co, a heritage bank turned posh pub where weekend bottomless brunch lands between high tea and nightclubbing, with DJs, free-flowing bubbles and waffles with crispy cornflake chicken and maple syrup.
GRAMERCY SOCIAL
162-164 Commercial Rd, Prahran
THIS all-hours casual diner under The Cullen hotel is inspired by the flavours of New York, with an extensive burger menu named after the city’s ’hoods. The Lower East Side is the burger version of a reuben, a beef patty layered with pastrami, house-made pickles, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and thousand island sauce, while the Soho teams brisket with buttermilk onion rings. Dessert? The banana split comes with peanut butter ice cream and bourbon syrup.
1/94 Buckingham St, Richmond
DO one thing and do it well, like at sandwich-only Hector’s where the combos are trusted and the ingredients top notch. Two sangas to rival any NY deli are the trout bagel, a staff fave of cold-smoked Petuna fish, beetroot cream cheese, caviar and red onion on a 5 & Dime poppy-seed bagel, and the Beef & Pickles, with pastrami and three types of pickles on light rye.
LE BON TON
51 Gipps St, Collingwood
IN a warm, welcoming grand old Collingwood pub, Le Bon Ton has the American South at its heart. The Texan chilli cheese fries are heaped with cheddar sauce, have just the right amount of kick and are incredibly more-ish. But the smokehouse brisket is the star of this show — succulent Angus beef smoked over iron bark and fruit woods with a delicious layer of charred fat, and house pickles on the side.
76 Glen Eira Rd, Ripponlea
Ph: 9042 5933
CAN’T get to New York’s famed Katz Deli? Head to Amanda Ruben’s cafe, Jewish deli and foodstore for a pastrami sandwich. Making pastrami here is a three-day situation, with Cape Grim brisket soaked, spiced, seasoned, steamed, smoked then sliced thickly, landing between rye with zingy house-made red kraut. Ruben’s golden chicken soup with a giant matzo ball is a winter fridge filler.
NATURAL HISTORY BAR & GRILL
401 Collins St, City
naturalhistorybarandgrill.com.au
TOUTED as the natural wine generation’s answer to Rockpool Bar & Grill, Natural History is a New York-style steak house but with added DJs, museum-channelling taxidermy dioramas and three-martini lunches. A kitchen headed by Morgan McGlone (Belles Hot Chicken) ticks off the classics (think oysters and caesar salad) in a bar menu, while in the main dining room, it’s an entree-then-main affair of iced shrimp cocktails to begin, dry-aged steaks to follow, then NY cheesecake.
PO BOY QUARTER
295 Smith St, Fitzroy
TRADITIONAL New Orleans cuisine made for modern Melbourne is the MO here. Louisiana classic sandwich — the po boy — is the signature, with its fried chicken and brisket varieties the most ordered, closely followed by the thick Southern spiced soup called gumbo, made with seafood or chicken and andouille sausage. The Gumbo Kitchen food van from which Po Boy Quarter was born is still available for events and private catering.
POKE ME
South Yarra & Hawthorn
POKÉ, the Hawaiian-Japanese dish usually herbing diced fish, has proved it’s more than just a summer fling. The health-conscious trend has lingered for several years, with poke pronounced poh-kay) found at some of the city’s hippest hangouts as well as having dedicated diners. One of the most popular is the ever-expanding Poke Me chain, where DIY bowls let the indecisive choose up to six toppings, with sauces and seasonings like charcoal salt. A pulled pork poke will warm in winter.
87 Arthurs Seat Rd, Red Hill
AMONG Mornington Peninsula’s vines and wines you’ll find American barbecue fuelled by local red gum. It lends smoky flavour to grass-fed beef, pork ribs and chook, served at communal tables in a converted mechanic’s workshop.
SAN ANTONE
Crown complex, Southbank
FIFTH-generation pit-master Kevin Bludso has plied his Texan barbecue to award-winning effect in Compton, LA, for a decade, and his Crown outpost is just as crowd-pleasing. It’s a sprawling, sports bar-style set-up. Viewing windows look over smokers stoked with logs of wood and charcoal to impart flavour for up to 14 hours to dry-rubbed, locally sourced pork and beef. Sticky smoked spare ribs and rib tips fly out, with paper towels aplenty to mop the mess. Share platters are a hit with groups. Bludso is due in Melbourne next month for masterclasses.
SPARROW’S PHILLY CHEESESTEAKS
Various locations and food van
PHILLY cheesesteak is Philadelphia’s culinary gift to the world — thin-sliced grilled steak and sauteed onions with cheese so melty it’s liquid in a long pillow-soft white bun. Philadelphia expat Geno Sparrow brought an authentic version to town in 2013 in the back of Fitzroy’s Catfish pub. There’s now also a kitchen in Hawthorn’s Nevermind Bar, a popular food truck and a stand-alone St Kilda diner that’s soon to be licensed. Go traditional or pimp your steak with hot peppers, mushrooms, kimchi or bacon.
THE HACK
1 Crockford St, Port Melbourne
TWO businesses have pooled their beer and barbecue wisdom to inject new life into a 1860s corner pub. The Hack is not only the first bricks-and-mortar digs for the Hack Brewing Co, it’s where Limp Brisket’s Kevin Dick serves his brand of American barbecue using local grass-fed, free-range meats cooked over red gum. The Classic bun is layered with 12-hour smoked brisket with a salt and pepper crust, or there are smoked hot wings to swipe through blue cheese sauce. Or tuck into a tray laden with beef ribs, smoked pork or pulled jackfruit with slaw, pickles and corn bread. Happy days.
TRUNK DINER
275 Exhibition St, city
BEER garden, bar and restaurant, Trunk is a multi-use space on the site of an old synagogue, but its American-style diner is where big appetites come to smash ribs, buffalo wings, jerk chicken burgers and corn dogs. Sweet tooth? Go the double-stack pancakes with bacon and maple butter or a skillet-baked pecan malt cookie.
USA FOODS
67-73 Cochranes Rd, Moorabbin
This family-owned supermarket on steroids stocks hundreds of US food and drink lines, with Dr Pepper soft drink, Cheetos Flamin’ Hot snacks and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups among the top sellers.
STILL HUNGRY?
■ Bluebonnet BBQ, New Brunswick East venue due late June. bluebonnetbbq.com.au
■ California Burgers, Windsor. californiaburgers.com.au
■ Dexter, Preston. dexter.melbourne
■ Meatmaiden, city. meatmaiden.com.au
■ Miss Katie’s Crab Shack, Fitzroy. misskatiescrabshack.com
■ Misty’s Diner, Reservoir. facebook.com/mistysdinerreservoir
■ Parlour Diner, Windsor. instagram.com/parlour_diner
■ The Hot Chicken Project, Geelong. thehotchickenproject.com.au
■ Up in Smoke, Footscray. upinsmoke.net.au
— with Dan Stock and Shelley Hadfield
EAT UP
Melbourne-born, US-based American barbecue expert Jess Pryles translates some menu terminology
Andouille: Smoked Cajun sausage with large and coarse chunks of fat. A staple of any good sausage gumbo (stew).
Bologna: Often incorrectly listed as “baloney”, this is the US version of devon. A “trashy” favourite is fried or grilled bologna sandwiches.
Boudin: Traditional Cajun pork sausage blended with rice with a soft interior.
Bark: The dark, almost black, exterior crust on smoked meats and barbecue. Bark is a sought-after finish, even though it may look burnt.
Brisket: From the pectoral area of the steer, this is a hardy cut rippled with tough collagen, which breaks down into soft gelatin with a long, slow cook.
For barbecue, source untrimmed whole point briskets. Trimmed and rolled brisket flats are too lean for the smoker.
Buffalo: Buffalo-style food will be served coated in a tangy, spicy sauce made from mixing hot sauce with butter. It’s the sauce used for buffalo chicken wings.
Chicken-fried: This cooking method and breading style means it’s deep fried in batter similar to Southern-fried chicken. You can even find chicken-fried bacon.
Hushpuppies: Small fried balls of dough, usually made with cornmeal. Hushpuppies have an element of sweetness, but often have added ingredients like jalapeños.
Links: Slang for sausages.
Pastrami: Usually made from the beef brisket flat, pastrami is corned beef that’s been smoked. It’s also often steamed for a more tender product. Found in Jewish deli sandwiches in New York.
Ribs: St Louis, spare and baby back all refer to pork ribs, just cut and butchered in different ways. Generally, spare or St Louis style are meatier than baby backs. If you’re talking beef, there are short or plate ribs. “American ribs” doesn’t actually refer to
a specific cut or style. Choose ribs with little visible bone so you get more meat.
Scratchings: Another name for pork rinds or crackling. Also known in the American Southwest as chicharrones.
Wood: Can include hickory, red gum and ironbark, referring to the wood used in a traditional wood-smoked barbecue to impart different flavours.
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