Restaurant review: Ôter

Don’t believe the hype. This modern Parisian bistro lacks joy, whimsy and identity. It leaves me cold.

Cheek by jowl: The kitchen’s in your face at Ôter. Picture: Jesse Marlow

Agrey, austere bunker. Seating around a kitchen that's just a little too close for comfort. Food that occasionally misses, occasionally hits hard, but mostly sits somewhere around "Well, that's kind of what you'd expect from professional young chefs, isn't it?" I don't particularly warm to Ôter, the much-hyped newcomer to Flinders Lane run by the team behind Coda, Tonka and Pei Modern.

I don't particularly dislike the place either, by the way. The staff are nice enough, the food fine-to-interesting, the (almost exclusively French) wine about as gouging as most places of repute these days ... That's to say, if you know what the restaurant pays for the bottle, it will possibly cure you of a thirst altogether.

When I left after the first visit with a hole in my emotional palate, people who'd already been asked if I was unwell. The snowball of Ôter hysteria had missed me. So I went back. That creaking sound you hear? Your correspondent, out on a limb.

Ôter is modelled on the contemporary Parisian bistro, a distinctly urban proposition, and certainly not some nostalgic slice of French escargot-munching life. Le Marais, not Macon.

But for all its youthful visage, I don't think Ôter's all that convivial.

The lack of emotional resonance is more about that difficult-to-quantify quality of "vibe"; punters seem serious, chefs and wait-staff do too, and there's precious little evidence of a sense of joy, whimsy or identity. It's a feeling; you may feel differently.

And eating at a table, or at the low dining bar with the kitchen in your face, are two very different experiences. The latter's a risky strategy; there's a place for the open kitchen but for me it lies more in the finishing-off, the artistry, the grand finale. I'm not that keen on seeing my beautiful, fresh fish taken from a plastic takeaway container, dried on a (clean) j-cloth and placed on the charcoal grill. Too much information. For me, dining is about mystery, effortlessness.

Chef Florent Gerardin, who cooked at Pei Modern, toys with French tradition here. Excellent, fleshy sliced beef tongue, smothered with a herby sauce gribiche alongside really good bread and butter, doesn't fall too far from the tree. Ditto a polarising (and, at $30, expensive) tranche of tete de veau, served warm, brains and all.

A special of pan-fried veal sweetbreads (pancreas) with pine mushroom and coarse-grit (in a good way) white polenta is a triumph of earthy simplicity. And tarragon risotto with yabbie meat is more notable for the fragrant rice than the critters, but lovely nonetheless.

Less exciting, less predictably French, is an austere nettle soup with pieces of smoked eel, which lacks generosity of flavour. Same for a quail dish with excellent, fleshy breast but dried-up little legs fried in kataifi pastry, served with smoked grapes and charred endive. Meh.

"Le boudin de Mr Ducasse" is a spiced blood pudding emancipated from its casing and served like a brownie, with caramelised apple puree and beetroot. "Le crab" takes crustacean, apple and macadamia cream and turns them into an expensive, unappetising mush. Fish "wing" with a delicious remoulade, ribbons of kohlrabi, pumpkin seeds and seaweed powder is determinedly on trend, and fine.

I could go on; the dessert tarts (pictured) are excellent, but they're pretty much the entire dessert offering. The wine guy knows his (French) stuff. But is it all enough?

I can take it or leave it.

Dessert tarts at Ôter. Picture: Jesse Marlow

AT A GLANCE

Address:

137 Flinders Lane, Melbourne

Contact:

oter.com.au

Hours:

Dinner Tue-Sat (to be extended)

Typical prices:

Entree $20; main $35; dessert $16

Summary:

A little over-hyped

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Master, Surry Hills

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