Monsieur Truffe and friends

Monsieur Truffe: 351 Lygon St, Brunswick East; (03) 9380 4915
Kumo: 152 Lygon St, Brunswick East; (03) 9388 1505
The Resurrection: 135 Lygon St, Brunswick East (no phone)

What's happening in Brunswick East? Everything, seems to be the answer.

This isn't the first time this blog, and many others, have talked about the changes to the northern end of Lygon St. In the five or more years I've lived in this part of the world, a string of cafe, bar and restaurant owners have made this part of town their own, joining several pioneers and stayers in the industry already here. Either all those people are very savvy in their business models, or East Brunswickians are generous with their custom. Very few of the places whose birth I've witnessed have closed and some of them, even years after opening, can be tough to get into at times.

It appears the second half of 2011 will see a whole new wave of big names making Lygon St their home. In the space of 24 hours I came across three new 'name' venues opening along one stretch.

First up is Kumo, an izakaya and sake bar. These Japanese style 'pubs' are pretty hot right now - Maedaya in Richmond and Izakaya Den in the city have garnered plenty of press attention. It's a smart move opening up on the stretch of Lygon already home to Rumi and Bar Idda - this part of Brunswick doesn't do a lot of 'cool Asian'. There's Thaila Thai, sure, and neighbourhood spots such as Satay Anika and Kake di Hatti. For Japanese, there's Matsumoto down the street and Iku Yakitori on Sydney Rd.

But Kumo is run by a 'Japanophile', Andre Bishop, who studied sake in the land of the rising sun. It's early days: Three Thousand mag reports they opened on 5 August, and their website is still 'coming soon'. From the exterior though it sure looks the part, having completely rejuvenated a corner spot that used to be a kids' toy store.

Better known in Melbourne hospitality circles is Jerome Borazio, he of Jerome's Bar, the Laneway Festival and Ponyfish. He's opened a new bar - also with a soft launch on 5 August - across the road and down a bit from Kumo, busting in on The Alderman and Atticus Finch territory. You can find more details on Facebook.

The third is the triumvirate is Monsieur Truffe, which has its existing home on Smith St, Collingwood (another stretch of real estate making like a Monopoly set with restaurants popping up like hotels). Thibault Fregoni has opened an atelier, wherein he will make artisan chocolate from cocoa beans, a first for Melbourne. On sale are a variety of high-end chocolate products (truffles, button, 'thins'), along with a small cafe menu including Noisette bread and croque monsieur. The small menu is at odds with the size of the cafe - this place is huge! Warehouse sized, it features two large communal tables, several smaller tables with banquette seating, and some bar stools from which you can look at the chocolate making machinery.

Their mocha is an intense, deep, dark chocolate and caffeine fix that will have you humming until well into the afternoon.

Meet you by the stuffed giraffe; Carlton Hotel and Cookie

Carlton Hotel: 193 Bourke St, Melbourne; 03 9663 3216
Cookie: 1st Floor, Curtin House, 252 Swanston St, Melbourne; 03 9663 7660

If you're after eating venues in the city that deliver flare with a capital 'wow', the Carlton Hotel on Bourke St and Cookie on Swanston St are two of your best bets.

Back in the day, the Carlton was a seedy drinking hole (Sydneysiders, think Century Tavern, but scarier; Novocastrians, think anywhere in Newcastle West!). As a backpacker years ago, I once booked a room there and when we arrived at about 8am, mid-week, straight off the overnight train from Sydney, there was already an old bloke at the bar downing pots. The Century Tavern's fate was to become hip and the antithesis of a sticky-carpet bar; the Carlton got a completely different makeover, turning it into a bordello (in a classy way) of sprayed-on velvet, gaudy pillars and taxidermy. That's right, taxidermy. An ostrich greets you at the door, a giraffe minds the step to the balcony and a rhino points the way to the facilities.

If money's tight, the Carlton is a good place to head on a Monday or Tuesday night. On Monday the whole dining room menu is half price; Tuesday is schnitzel night (three variations, each $12). Just as the decor is not your average style for the Bourke St precinct, these are not standard pub schnitzels. There are three options: chicken with sweet potato and a cos and dill salad; veal with chips (crinkle cut, no less) and beetroot salad; and eggplant and haloumi with tomato jam and asparagus (below). Who needs meat?
The everyday menu is divided into Bar Snacks and Dining Room. Some of the same main ingredients feature on both in different sizes and/or interpretations.

An ideal accompaniment to a citrusy beer is a plate of four chickpea and capsicum patties with lemon bean salad and harissa yoghurt. The small patties are moist and satisfyingly dense. The yoghurt carries only a whiff of harissa, while unfortunately the beans got more than their necessary share of oil, which left quite a residue on the plate.

A cool salad of braised calamari comes with a dizzy combination of artichoke hearts, fennel and watercress. Perfect while you sup a glass of crisp white (and just $7 on a Monday).

Similarly refreshing - and visually stunning - is Cookie's salmon, prawn and pomelo salad with ginger and lemongrass. (What's a pomelo? Glad you asked - it's a large citrus fruit, also known as Chinese grapefruit, though it is sweeter than a generic grapefruit. Pomelos also make up the second half of the cross-breed tangelos, with tangerines contributing the 'tang'.)

Cookie spruiks itself as no less than disco, eating house and beer hall. There's certainly plenty of German/Austrian decoration around the bar, always a bit of a mindtrip when you sit down to their mainly Thai menu in the restaurant (as are the odd Mediterranean touches therein, such as bruschetta and penne). There are juliet balconies for those lucky enough to get there early on a warm night, and in the bar, gorgeous fabric squares adorn the tables (ditto the crockery - see below). To call the drinks list 'long' is as redundant as mentioning that Curtin House is kinda cool - wines by the glass, wines by the bottle, cocktails and beers all run to several pages each.

Their green curry is a fine example of chef Karen Batson's self-taught flair for Asian food. It's listed on the menu as coming with taro and mushroom dumplings, which seemed a bit back to front. Enoki mushrooms swam through the smooth, warm coconut broth, while felafel-like taro dumplings bobbed to the surface.

On our visit, the service was a little back to front as well. The dishes arrived quicker than one would like when not ordering from a buffet, whereas the second part of 'rice for two' arrived after we'd both finished our curries (and was left, or rather dumped, on the table regardless). Our wines, however, arrived care of a waiter enthusiastic about our choices. The two approaches sum up both venues: cool, but always exciting.

Seasons broadened by the bean; Gerald's Bar

386 Rathdowne St, Carlton North

It was fitting perhaps that the year's first sighting of 'fresh' broad beans on sale came from a blogger by the name of Fatty McBeanpole. Certainly more fitting than the availability of a spring speciality in the deep of a Melbourne winter.

The broad bean season is tantalisingly short. For just three good months can devotees take them home, to first break the beans out from their implausibly fluffy cocoons, then squeeze the inner bean free after blanching. The end product - a bright green, fat crescent of legume - teams to great effect with lemon, artichoke, paprika, chicken, white wine or stock and in risottos.

On the first evening in months that lacked the bite of southerly air and instead encouraged hope for warmer gusts from the north, the Bean of Wonder showed up atop a hunk of braised pork with apples at the super-groovy Gerald's Bar.

The bar itself is long, curved and supported by a weave of wooden slats. Tables and chairs sit under lace-curtained windows; a meat-slicer is overseen by a huge David Bailey portrait at the far end. Vinyl remixes spin smoothly and quietly. A shelf running the length of the bar stocks a formidable range of spirits; vodka and gin are kept chilled in an ice bucket for expert handling with mixers and in cocktails. The first sparkling and first three reds and whites ordered for the evening become that day's by the glass, a policy that can be a blessing for patrons feeling short on decision-making power. Gerald's has a superb wine list, with potential by-the-glass prices ranging from around $8-$40. There's an international range of beer as well.

The day's menu is scrawled on butcher's paper then clipped to a ladder on wheels that you might expect to see in a library, so that it can be wheeled to customers' vantage points along the bar. While Gerald's is definitely a drinker's bar, this succinct menu offers perfect accompaniments. Half a dozen small plates come at $10 each: maybe Polish sausage, wagyu prosciutto or a welsh rarebit - an appropriately hunky piece of sourdough, with rich cheese, just a touch of English mustard and a good dose of pepper. The pork main meal, at $15, is superb value. A hefty, thick piece of meat has been braised, retaining tenderness and texture, and served in a sauce of its own juices with an understated apple sauce.

It's an incredibly comfortable place, one where you want to settle in for a couple of wines, switch to cocktails and maybe finish with a brandy, having also worked your way through the menu. Sure Carlton is our own little Italy, but this bar mixes the best of Melbourne and Europe as naturally as the seasons change.

Bar Lourinha

37 Lt Collins St, Melbourne; 03 9663 7890

Bar Lourinha isn't a big space, yet for its narrowness it can squeeze in a lot of lively patrons on a Thursday night. The kitchen takes up almost as space as the dining/drinking area. It's a valid split, since this bar takes its unmistakably Spanish- and Portuguese-influenced food very seriously. What open space there is has been designed and decorated effectivelyto ensure a convivial drinking setting, with low lounges in the front window and bar and bench seating.

The menu here is not tapas - serving sizes go beyond what one would cover the top of a glass with. In fact, both pricing and serving size sit somewhere between snack and main meal. Most dishes are $12-17, (the specials were a little pricier), and while our chosen two looked a little on the small side I left full enough to last through 'Hamlet' without craving a snack.

Octopus stifado takes its inspiration from the other side of the Mediterranean, a Greek cooking method involving slow stweing in a tomato sauce, usually with garlic and cinnamon. The sweet spice in this case, however, was allspice berry: tiny caviar-like spheres. A much stronger flavour came from the thyme that had rested with the tomato and adorned the dish. This wasn't baby octopus , but instead the 'big' variety, as the waitress put it. Despite imagining a serving plate the length of our shared bench table, our allotted portions of the eight-legged creature fitted into a modest bowl. Octopus is a bit challenging: it not only easily turns tough if not handled correctly, but the suckers and head cavity present quite different textures. Here they had managed it quite well - the suckers had that lovely, slightly resistant feel of squid, whereas the head was closer to the texture of a long-stewed meat like rabbit. The stew was well-balanced too between tomato sweetness and inevitable saltiness from the aquatic animal.

The second dish was the housemade chorizo, with red wine and nicola potatoes. As you'll see from the pic, 'potatoes' was a little generous! The chorizo was softer and moister than what one normally picks up from the deli. Underneath its taut skin the meat fell away in little pieces like a meatball might. It had the unmistakable cured flavour of the Spanish sausage, however, and plenty of garlic had stuck through the curing process.

The bread that accompanied the meal came in a smoothly turned wooden bowl, and could only be described as a hunk: a big wodge of sourdough for us to tear and share between us. It served well for mopping up the oily, salty cooking juice that accompanied the chorizo.

Markov Place

350 Drummond St, Carlton; 03 9347 7113

A laneway entrance; leather banquette seating interspersed with tall tables and bar stools; giant-size posters spruiking revolutions; Melbourne's funkiest light fittings (large, rectangular shades pasted with newspaper cuttings); and extremely fine food and wine service. Carlton's Markov Place has got it going on.

The bar/restaurant is a cross between a gallery and a cellar: it's only one room, so the whole atmosphere, in part set by the poster'art around the walls, is appreciable in the way of a suburban artspace. The tall ceilings and stone floor, as well as the fact that it's downstairs from the adjoining (recommended) cleanskin shop that faces onto Drummond St, gives its patrons the feeling of being underground.

Amongst all that atmosphere is the chance to sample a succinct, thoughtful menu and a very sophisticated drinks list. The menu extends from sides such as fries and aioli for $8, through to snacks around the $15 mark and mains in the mid-$20s. Late on a Friday, our order, to share, served our post-pub pre-gig hunger well: aforementioned stringy fries with a serviceable aioli; pan-fried scallops with chorizo, lemon thyme and chilli, served on sourdough bread; and autumn mushroom bruschetta with manchego.

The scallop and chorizo dish was every bit as good as its description sounded. The bread - soft and pliant in the extreme, with a knife-challenging crust - could only have been made that morning. It soaked up the oil running from the sliced chorizo and bulked up each bite of scallop, an annoyingly bite-sized type of seafood (in that it tends to disappear all too quickly!)

The mushroom bruschetta was a triumph - a mound of seasonal fungi spilling off yet more sourdough (we'd had two complimentary slices with oil as well), out of which also tumbled some spinach. Slippery jack, shiitake, swiss brown and pine mushrooms had all soaked up a generous amount of oil and butter and the variety lent a wonderful delicacy to the flavour, set off by the creamy Spanish cheese.

Along with the food menu came a list of today's drink specials. Conveniently divided into 'before', 'during' and 'after', they offered an intriguing diversion from the usual. Cocktails are all too often out of reach of the frugal consumer, but many of these drink specials were well under $10. While a mojito with vanilla and aniseed was hard to turn down, a mix of cachaça, ginger, lime and chilli won the day. Each ingredient was immediately distinguishable in every mouthful, yet at the same time it delivered one, united flavour.

Particular notice needs to be made of the service at Markov Place. The waitstaff were knowledgeable, friendly and interested. They were keen to talk about the specials and offer recommendations. Not long after we'd been served a waiter came over to let us know the kitchen was closing in five minutes and ask if we wanted any more food or desserts - it wasn't pushy, only helpful. A curious inquiry as to the range of mushrooms had the waiter, unprecedently, offering of his free will to check the list with the kitchen. They were receptive to feedback and generally looked happy to be there; as were we.

www.markov.com.au

The Press Club

72 Flinders St, CBD; 03 9677 9677

George Calombaris has had nothing but praise and accolades since opening The Press Club in 2006. The menu is modern Greek, taking traditional ingredients and flavours of his home country but serving them in an updated style that is unique, even in this most Hellenic of cities. Where innovation is the key word in the kitchen, flexibility takes charge on the menu and in the overall setup. The venue includes a restaurant, private function room and bar. In the restaurant, diners have the choice of a la carte, kerasma - a Greek style of sharing menu - or degustation. Before being faced with that range of options, however, there is also the choice to turn right rather than left after stepping into the foyer of the former Herald building, and instead select the smaller, cheaper Bar.

The bar menu is as user-friendly as the restaurant's is expansive. The 20 or so dishes are grouped as one of three types of mezedes (which are suggested as accompaniments to wine, beer or ouzo) larger dishes or glyka (desserts). A refined list of wines by the glass is included on the bar menu, although behind the counter an enormous range of beers, spirits, ouzo and wines (including several Greek varieties) awaits. We drank a crisp, appley Chapel Hill 'Il Vescovo' Pinot Grigio at $9 a glass.

Of the 11 larger dishes on offer, I think all three of us could happily have ordered any one. Tempting as it was to sample Calombaris' take on some Greek favourites, neither the open souvlaki of the day, nor the calamari got an invite to our table. We were determined, however, that the Greek 'Parma' should get a run.Tender thigh meat, in lightly-seasoned crumb, was topped with zucchini and eggplant. Kefalograviera cheese is melted on top, giving the dish a robust saltiness, which allowed the schnitzel to be more delicately flavoured than in a more pub-style parma. It comes with fresh lemon potato.

A salad of cucumber and braised lamb perches on a bed of (lightly) minted yoghurt.The lamb neck was charred on the outside but pink and moist inside. It is perhaps one of the more traditionally Greek dishes on the menu: the triumverate of Greek flavours enhanced simply through freshness, rather than added flair.

The dark horse of the night was the pumpkin and almond bougatsa, with Byzantine grape dressing.Bougatsa is normally a sweet dish of custard served in filo pastry. Here, the custard was replaced with mashed pumpkin in a bechamel sauce, dotted with slivers of almond and a smattering of fennel. A sprinkling of icing sugar nodded to the dish's more traditional incarnation.

The bar menu is an excellent way to introduce yourself to the fine dining of The Press Club, whether you're yet to sample the main restaurant because you're short on money, or time (it's currently booked out 2 weeks in advance, up to a month on weekends). It is a bar, however: a little crowded, with lots of suits sampling the multinational drinks menu and a plasma TV in one corner. Some exact calculations have been done to match the accessible dish prices with their size: they are not stingy, but the focus is very much on quality rather than quantity, which I think is a reasonable decision when it allows you to sample The Age's Chef of the Year for as little as $15 a dish.

www.thepressclub.com.au

Sippers

164 Rathdowne St, Carlton; 9348 2808 now closed

Sippers specialises in stocking wines and beers from smaller producers, as well as sourcing the ingredients for their extensive tapas menu from local suppliers. It's a very commendable aim (though for the drinks 'small' doesn't necessarily equate to 'local'). The downstairs bar space features lots of dark wood panelling, red velvet couches, gilt mirrors and barrels with stools. Footpath and upstairs dining are also available.

The Sippers menu is divided into tapas and tascas. The latter actually means 'bar' in Spanish, but as Sippers explain on their website, their tascas are their smaller portions (though prices are fairly similar), so perhaps they mean them as bar snacks. In any case, tapas actually derives from the Spanish for 'lid', and there are few venues outside Spain (indeed, outside Andalucia) that actually serve genuine tapas, rather than just small portions of 'themed' food.

There are some great beers on offer - St Arnou on tap, Hargreaves Hill, Red Hill and a raspberry ale. I tried a Yarra Valley Gewurztraminer, which was a little on the straightforward, fruity side. Excited by the food menu, we picked our top four plates, but decided to stagger the order, to save over-ordering. First up was calamari and octopus in besan flour and tomato jam (not sure why they use the Indian name for chickpea flour, rather than the Spanish, gabanzo).
The octopus was particularly tasty and had retained good texture and the calamari was giving rather than chewy. I thought the chutneyish tomato jam was the wrong flavour match for seafood.
Just as well the food tasted good, since we had waited an hour for it to come out. We were regretting our decision to stagger, and were quite bemused that tapas - ie small, lightly cooked portions - could possibly take that long to prepare.
The second dish we'd ordered was pork sausage with chimichurra (a South American sauce of oil, parsley, garlic and lemon). Points for innovation with this dish: I love a make-your-own restaurant dish. In this case one puts some chimichurra in the hollowed-out breadroll, sprinkles some parmesan around, then wedges the sausage on top. The pork sausages were dense and meaty and while parmesan may seem an odd addition the whole combination worked very well.
During our interminable wait for food we'd decided not to order Round 2 in protest, however we were quite impressed with what was eventually served up. So we ordered again, this time lamb and rosemary meatballs and patatas bravas.

They hadn't been shy with the rosemary and it complemented the softly cooked lamb wonderfully to make a richly flavoured dish. The potatoes were spot on, crispy and salty with a curiously green, gratifyingly garlicky aioli.
There were many other dishes we could have chosen, and they do have banquet options that would satiate a fierce hunger. The wait on the food though was really inexcusable and removed the option for us to pace our way through a tantalising menu, which is how good sharing food should be enjoyed.

Mi Corazon

462 Lygon St, Brunswick East; 03 9384 6153

New Year, new restaurant. Mi Corazon opened on New Year’s Eve at the very northern end of Lygon St. It specialises in a range of tequilas and cocktails, as well as offering a selection of snacks and meals, cooked in traditional South American style. The venue has been completely renovated from its former incarnation as Cafe Banter. The front area is expansive, with seating options at tables, cushioned benches, or bar stools. A small, semi-shaded outdoor courtyard is accessed through a cosmic blue brick-lined walkway at the back. The makeover has been tastefully done - the stone floor brings to mind walking into a cool Mexican cantina from the heat of siesta time. The walls are warm oranges and reds, and the Mexican touches - piñata, saintly statues - are not kitsch.

The drinks menu is extensive, with eight types of tequila, priced from $7.50-$16 a shot. There's no draught beer, but the fridge features several appropriate imports, including Sol, San Miguel and Dos Equis, most priced around $7.50. Bottles of local beer are priced from $5.50. The bar list also includes a range of cocktails, and the eager bar staff are happy to talk about selections.
A simple food menu offers snacks and mains. We had a beef taco, served as a soft folded tortilla, fried and filled with minced beef and potatoes ($12). The dish came with a generous green salad with salty dressing and a hot peppery dip. The menu reads as standard South American fare - quesadillas, enchiladas, nachos (served as a plate of corn chips with bowls of guac, sour cream and salsa), with snacks ranging in price from $8-$12 and meal options of fajitas or enchiladas for $16. However care is put into the food to make sure it's flavour and spice that stand out, rather than oil dominating, as is often the case with Mexican food.

Mi Corazon is a new addition to the Brunswick section of Lygon Street that enhances the range of quality, international culinary destinations on offer.