Merricote at Northcote, Vic

AS WELL as fine, subtle cooking, a brilliantly conceived drinks list and excellent hospitality, Merricote resonates with thoughtfulness.

taste merricote

AS WELL as fine, subtle cooking, a brilliantly conceived drinks list and excellent hospitality, Merricote resonates with thoughtfulness.

Simply put, this new, modest shopfront brasserie in Northcote, near Merri station, wants to do the best by its customers. The drinks list offers not only exemplary flexibility, but great value.

Service space has been sacrificed to keep tables well separated. And contemporary offerings bristle with freshness and restrained originality.

FOOD

THE culinary style here is modern European. Pungent and potentially aggressive flavours of Australia and South-East Asia are absent, while France has prominence. Noilly Prat is matched with John Dory, the potato side dish is "boulangere", and house-made duck rillettes and a chicken "barigoule" are listed.

But Merricote also flags a high awareness of the times we eat in dishes are largely low in fat and high in sophistication. I can't remember such fresh food being slid before me. Not a wilt in any of the leaves, shoots and vegetables, and meats and fish were aggressively recent.

The list begins with four "charcuterie" offerings, including the rillettes ($7), which were exemplary. A generous serving arrived in a ceramic container with excellent sour gherkins and thin, small rounds of hot buttered toast. The meat-to-fat ratio was high, which I prefer, and the dish could have done as a starter for two.

Following the pig products are four "snacks" slow-cooked tomato on toast, for instance, or cauliflower fritters with cinnamon yoghurt.

Four entrees and the same number of mains and sides complete the savouries.

"Barigoule" usually refers to a cooked artichoke dish, but Merricote's chicken version ($17) amounts to a salad of frizzy lettuce, small, thin carrot diamonds and sections of lightly pickled artichoke over four half-centimetre-thick discs of a cold pressed chicken of delicate taste. A ribbon of crisped speck topped the lot.

Textural contrasts a component of the best cooking are important here, a kingfish salad ($17) being topped by a scattering of brittle black rice on greens. Beneath them were wedges of exquisitely fresh fish marinated in mirin and ponzu sauce, small bits and pieces of grapefruit and fennel, bits of black olive and the aniseed pungency of fennel.

Rump steak is always a bit of a trade-off taste to texture. But a sensibly smallish chock of Hopkins River's version of it ($29), seared then baked to rare-medium, had massive and sublime flavour. It was also chewy. Its accompanying potato puree reminded me of Joel Robuchon's world-famous version of 20-odd years ago, and the bordelaise sauce was a ripper. Underdone green beans were bundled up in bacon.

Slowly cooked in a vacuum pack, a big pork fillet ($29) was marvellously tender but fairly lightly flavoured. Barely cloaked in a rosemary and pinenut crust, the fillet bits balanced on snowpea shreds and halves of steamed potatoes.

One of three true desserts, a whole poached pear ($14) was at first invisible in a stemmed glass and a fog of smoke. When an inverted glass trapping the smoke was lifted off, all was revealed. But the smoke lingered. I couldn't see the point of it, but you might. And the pear rested on a pretty hard and indelicate panna cotta.

STAFF

CLEARLY experienced in the business of being hospitable, Merricote's serving staff struck an ideal balance between familiarity and distance. And they did all the other things perfectly, too.

DRINK

AT LAST a few thought-through drinks lists are turning up. As well as many bottles in the low-to-mid $30s, Merricote offers five whites, a rose and five reds by glass ($7-$9) and 375ml carafes. Woodlands cabernet franc merlot, for instance, is $8/$18. And I counted 13 beers, most of them from either top-quality or micro brewers.

X-FACTOR

SPACE between restaurant tables is a sign of civilisation. Merricote has demolished a bar to give diners more room. I loved the heavy-duty fabric napkins, solid hardwood tables and U-backed bistro chairs. Decor is uncluttered, plain and easy to spend time in.

VALUE

EXCELLENT value in both food and drink. But remember that Merricote's food is delicate, low in fill factor and different from the bristling flavours most of us are used to.

HOW IT RATED: Merricote (81 High St, Northcote; ph 9939 4762)

Food: 15/20

Staff: 10/10

Drink: 4/5

X-factor: 4/5

Value: 8/10

THE SCORE OUT OF 50: 41