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How generous is a cabbage? At Ballard’s, a vegan restaurant on Thornbury’s hip shopping strip, it’s very giving indeed.

Red cabbages are braised for six hours in a stock that’s rich in tamari and herbs. These soft, slumped vegetables become magnificent carriers of flavour, both bitter and sweet, earthy but sunny too. Great slabs of cabbage are charred to serve with lentils, confit tomatoes, carrot puree and sesame dressing, building into a complete dish that works as a meal or a side to share.

Did you think that’s all from the cabbage? No. Over hours of cooking, the braising broth becomes a magic liquor, complex as beef stock, a house potion used to flavour other dishes.

The mushroom is one. Lion’s mane mushrooms are a white, firm fungus about the size of a softball. They are braised in cabbage stock for hours and charred to serve with a green peppercorn gravy made by reducing the stock to a gelatinous stickiness. It’s quite amazing, with varied stripes of fat and lean that recall Scotch fillet, so like a steak that alarmed vegans have sent it back.

That’s as close as Ballard’s gets to faux meat, though. The main idea is to celebrate plants and use clever menu design to keep prices reasonable.

Texture is to the fore in garlic focaccia brushed with fennel seed caramel, and a cassava dish that pairs crisp fried yam with tomato-juicy green olive peperonata.

The menu shifts frequently, but there is always some kind of gnocchi. I was fortunate to encounter potato dumplings shaped like chunky saucers, perfect for carrying chilli oil and smoky “cheese” sauce.

This place should be treasured. It’s the independents that give Melbourne colour.

Ballard’s is five years old but the cocktail program has recently had a nice kick along; wines from small producers are keenly priced.

This place – and others doing the hard yards as solo operators – should be treasured. It’s the independents that give Melbourne colour.

The experience here is anything but bland: the music refuses to be background, lighting is deliberately dim, the decor could be described as eclectic post-punk clutter, service can be a little arch, and the restaurant’s social media swerves from sardonic to hilarious to abrasive. Just look at the memorably unrememberable website address if you want to tap into the anarchic vibe.

Owner Tamlyn Martinovich-Faulkner is allergic to same-same dining: what’s the point of having a sea of safe restaurants with interchangeable interiors? Instead, let’s express ourselves.

Martinovich-Faulkner is a self-taught cook who loves the creativity of vegan menus. How do you solve the puzzle of deliciousness when you don’t have butter, cream and chicken fat in your bag of tricks? You experiment, maybe use fennel to thicken sauces and eggplant to make them creamy and – above all – you tap into the marvellous munificence of cabbages.