Maze

Level 1, Crown Metropol, cnr Whiteman and Clarendon Streets
(03) 9292 8300

A bit of fine dining never goes astray. Well, actually it easily can - price can take the joy out of choosing; snooty staff can make things unnecessarily uncomfortable; substance can be subsumed into the restaurateur's idea of style.

Our recent lunch at Maze suffered from none of the above. It was almost we who went astray, as we wandered around the Southbank-facing Crown building for a while before hitting on the fact that Maze is in fact in Crown Metropol, the building behind it on Whiteman St. A tip to punters - the 'maze' logo might look easily solvable, but the location piccie on the website is the true puzzle!

Gordon Ramsay is not known as a shy man, and you wouldn't expect his restaurants to have dull interiors. Each member of his empire has a described 'ambience'; for Melbourne, it's stylish and inviting. And it is, although without quite escaping the fact that you're essentially in a hotel lobby. Enormous, curtained floor-to-ceiling windows allow in the sunlight that defines the ambience, and pick out the many tones in the carpet. The huge cane lampshades would reach the floor in most restaurants, but with Maze's elevated ceilings they swing high above, drawing the eye to a labrynthine wood sculpture interspersed with bird silhouettes.

Maze does an excellent value set lunch: from a list of 10 items (seven savoury, three dessert) you can pick any three for $38 or four for $49. They're known for their small serving sizes, but their food follows the maxim that top-quality, full-flavoured dishes are just as filling as those that spill over the sides.

Here's a sample of what came to the table:

While a dish of yellowfin tuna tartare looked skimpy, hiding in the middle of its ample bowl, this tete de cochon was presented as a more regular entree size. It's pig's head, boiled and boiled til the skin falls away and gelatinises into a wonderful goop, which is then set, crumbed and fried. More rillette than terrine, it was an excellent start. It's served on a wafer of watermelon, with yellow beetroot and crispy pig's ears. This is not a shy plate, neither in ingredients, combinations nor flavour.

This slow-cooked octopus bared its suckers proudly, and partnered wonderfully with a couple of morsels of super-dense, salty chorizo. Dotted around the plate were nasturtiums, along with tiny cubes of grilled capsicum.

These two pieces of John Dory came glazed with a sticky red wine sauce. The gyoza-looking item in the foreground is in fact a cashew concoction, while on the left are cubes of pumpkin on a pumpkin disc.

Cubes and discs were a common element to most plates. I felt almost Lilliputian, stabbing my weighty, outsized fine-dining fork at those tiny samples of produce.

This dessert pannacotta was a cleansing end to a robust meal. The pannacotta nestled under shaved coconut, with mango puree wedged between. A splodge of salty caramel on top was a bold contrast to the sweet and cool flavours underneath. On the side is an olive friand.

I must also mention the bread, pictured above - it's replenished throughout the meal, lest diners should experience a piece less than oven-warm. It's generously salted and served with a whipped seaweed butter. It's delicious, but a pat of the regular stuff would have been welcome alongside.

Lunch menus are an excellent way to test a restaurant before a bigger event, or as a way to experience somewhere you wouldn't otherwise shell out for. Maze nails it on the menu and price. What I'm waiting for is a restaurant to introduce the lunch wine menu. Most wines on offer cost more by the glass than the individual plates (each are available at $14). It's wonderful to have access to a cellar as copious and proudly displayed as Maze's, but if you've only set aside $40 it's tough to up that by a third to toast your meal.

Art of the Picnic at NGV

180 St Kilda Rd; (03) 8620 2444

The National Gallery has a rather marvellous thing going on for the weekends of the warmer months. Not content with keeping their art indoors, they've moved outside and are offering patrons the chance to experience the art of the picnic surrounded by the art of their sculpture garden.

The hampers are arranged by the on-site caterers, and they've thought of everything. Picnics, more often than not, are something you arrange yourself and the most careful of picnic packer can be forgiven for forgetting an essential in the haste of making the most of a beautiful day.

In this case, the organisers take care of all that forethought for you. Your hamper consists of a sturdy blanket, wrapped in its own carrying halter, cloth napkins and tablecloth, cutlery, plates and breadboard. Even the apple-box it all comes in can serve as a table once you've unpacked.
The edible goodies for two comprise a baguette, butter, quince and goats cheese, a quiche each, chickpea salad, a selection of cured meats and, for when you've nibbled through as much of that as you please, two macarons.

It's worth lingering over lunch while you ponder the serenity of this garden, nestled and protected within the city's most populated and visited precinct. Eureka peeks over lesser apartment buildings, but one suspects even those looking down from the comfort of their own home couldn't feel more at ease than the couples lounging on the dappled lawn.

While it's not included in the price ($35 per hamper for two), they haven't forgotten about beverages, and a bar in the garden (from where you also pick up your hamper) offers wine and soft drinks.

Pick your day right, and it's just about a perfect afternoon out.

Just watch out for this guy while you're there.
See the What's On page on NGV's website for menu and booking details

Figtastic

Trunk: 275 Exhibition St, Melbourne; (03) 9663 7994
Pizzeria Amici: 100 Burgundy St, Heidelberg; (03) 9459 0907

The fig. An intriguing fruit, one with a brief but abundant seasonality, and one hailed as much for its partnerships as an item to eat solo. Also, a fruit reputably worth little, if the phrase 'to not give a fig about something' is taken literally. It's an ancient fruit too: the asp is brought to Cleopatra in a basket of figs. Interestingly, the word sycophant derives from the Greek for 'showing the figs'.

But enough of the trivia, let's get down to the eating! Figs featured in two dishes I enjoyed last week, the first as part of an Express Lunch at Trunk. Here it was served for entree in the peerless pairing with proscuitto di parma, with some witlof, aged balsamic and a smear of goat's cheese. The flavour match of proscuitto and figs is just exquisite, particularly when the restaurant takes the care to source quality ham.

For me the strange thing about figs is that I would never sit down to one on its own. I don't mind the flavour so much but the texture isn't one I enjoy. Yet, when properly partnered, it's a joy. I much prefer the combination of proscuitto and fig to prosciutto and melon; the latter has always seemed a step too far in terms of texture and taste contrast.

Figs also featured in a Friday night dinner at Pizzeria Amici. With the return of the fig season, their most famous pizza gets its annual reprise: figs with gorgonzola, speck and rocket. It is a superb combination. Amici get the cheese spot on, so it covers the base but doesn't overwhelm with its own richness. The figs and speck are a natural pairing and the rocket brings the bite and roughness to even it all out.

If you're craving magnificent, authentic pizza, served up with conviviality, get to Amici. Best to phone for a booking too: the locals can't believe their luck and the place is pumping every night.

Hardware Societe

120 Hardware Street, City; (03) 9078 5992

Beetroot's former owners return with a new venture across the road from their old cafe, which itself is recently closed and re-opened as the disturbingly named McSpankys. (I don't know what the chances are of someone googling 'beetroot' and 'spank' in the same search, but I guess they'll be disappointed if they end up here!)

Hardware Societe could not be less disturbing. It's delightfully fitted out with glass and faux marble counters, muted flocked wallpaper, oversized bare bulbs and bright cabling drooping from the ceiling. It suits the chi-chi clientele dropping in from the west-end business sector, but it's just as big a drawcard to anyone hankering after superb produce cooked with skill and a firm nod to French and Spanish influences.

The menu barely misses a beat through breakfast and lunch options (except for unforgivably misspelling jamon throughout). Breakfast dishes include arroz con leche; miniature, indulgent raspberry doughnuts; or a slice of brioche from a gorgeous high-tea set.

The only certainty when ordering at lunch is that you'll have to come back to try whatever you don't choose. Cod croquetas are crisp and creamy in a puddle of tomato sugo.
The aforementioned jamon, from Casa Iberica, is perfectly wedded on a bocadillo with manchego and membrillo. Another bocadillo option of tortilla, pimientos and aioli is perfectly Iberian, whereas a gooey, moreish goat's cheese and chive souffle says 'oui' to Spain's northeast neighbours.
Other lunch options include charcuterie and tapas plates (the latter perfect for putting off choice and simply sampling some of everything) and a range of exquisite tarts.

And then there's dessert. Daily-baked macaroons might be filled with lemon curd or white chocolate ganache, and the cafe's dual influences are respected with the offer of creme caramel or creme brulee. A chocolate raspberry tart provides a heavenly end to a deliciously satisfying meal, its ganache filling held in a pert pastry and hugging super-tart raspberries.

At the moment the cafe is open Monday to Friday, but Epicure reports they do want to open weekends from the New Year. Keep your fingers crossed.

100 Mile Cafe

Level 3, Melbourne Central, 211 La Trobe St, Melbourne; 03 9654 0808

My only visit to 100 Mile Cafe came just a few weeks before it was due to close. Paul Mathis, the restaurant's owner, has been upfront about his two projects at the Melbourne Central site - 100 Mile and its predecessor SOS (a vegaquarian cafe) - losing big money, but he remains dedicated to the cause of presenting a sustainable dining option.

Both ventures were founded on admirable tenets. The earlier restaurant eschewed meat and fish sourced unsustainably. 100 Mile takes the ideology made popular by figures such as J.B. McKinnon and Alisa Smith in Vancouver, Canada (via their book, Plenty) and applies it to a restaurant format. (The only one of its kind in Australia that I know of - does anyone know of other restaurants going hardcore locavore?) The focus is about local eating, and while the radius may stretch beyond the nicely rounded 100 mile mark, diners can expect that food is sourced within Victoria.

Eating locally is often touted as a strong environmental protection mechanism. Transporting food from its growth source, to where it's processed, to the point of sale, and from there to the place of consumption, produces phenomenal amounts of emissions. In many cases, sourcing food from within 160 kilometres is far more energy efficient than the 1000+ km the majority of food travels to reach our plates.

The idea of Melbourne's population of four million being supported by agriculture and farming within a 160 km radius of the city is, naturally, fanciful. Locavorism works optimally with smaller communities than our metropolises. Inherent in locavorism, however, is the notion of seasonality, and embracing the concept of eating food in its natural cycles is a great first step to reducing your food's footprint, as well as making your diet healthier. Fresh, seasonal food needs very little dressing up and following the seasons - waiting for the first apples of autumn, or finding the first ripe peach of summer - adds excitement to food consumption.

So, in these last weeks of trading, what did 100 Mile Cafe have on offer?

A tasting plate of local produce makes for a tantalising entree.
Starting with the pink sticks and going anti-clockwise: pickled beetroot, eel mousse, calamari, proscuitto, felafel and marinated Mt Zero olives. A more diverse range of cuisines than I expected on a local tasting plate! The olives and pickles are from outside the 100 mile zone, sourced from the Grampians, about 300 km from Melbourne. Mt Zero also produce chickpeas and hence may have been the source for the felafel (and hopefully they all came in on the one truck!). The calamari are from nearby Portarlington.

For main, there was seared rainbow trout fillet - plucked from the Yarra Valley - with asparagus, kipfler potatoes and orange butter.
I believe strongly in locavorism and seasonality, and applaud Mathis's intent. Generally, I think the menu would have priced many otherwise eager consumers out of the equation, and the location just gave off the wrong vibe and attracted the wrong passing traffic (locavores and shopping centres don't always mix!). The politics of such a venture are difficult as well. Advertising a 'mostly local' restaurant just wouldn't have the same punch, but to truly source everything (eg, the calamari, sourced from within 100 km, are rice-flour dusted) from within a small radius would necessarily make the restaurant economically unviable (if not uninteresting).

A case in point: the highlight dish of the night was the chocolate fondant - served warm with caramel espresso ice cream and pistachio praline. Every bite was divine, but it's well known that both coffee and chocolate were menu items that Mathis had to source from much further afield (though he still went as close as possible - the coffee is from Byron Bay).

Wholesale change and strict rules aren't the answer to addressing sustainability through locavorism. Seasonality, something diners can rely on at many of Melbourne's restaurants, and awareness - on the part of restaurateurs to think about where they're sourcing produce from, and on the part of diners to enquire - are more important.

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.

Cafeklatsch: A Minor Place III, El Mirage, Aix Creperie

Aix Creperie: 24 Centre Place, Melbourne; 03 9662 2667A Minor Place: 103 Albion St, Brunswick East; 03 9384 3131El Mirage: 349 Lygon St, Brunswick East; 03 9388 0966

Centre Place could be Melbourne's Diagon Alley. It's narrow, bustling, and for folk stopping for coffee before scurrying to school/work/shopping, there's a certain amount of alchemy going on in those kitchens.

At the lane's northern end lies one of its oldest inhabitants: Aix Creperie. Grab an elusive seat in this shoebox and take your pick: believe you're writing a novel in Paris, contemplating love and bullfights in Barcelona, or learning the language in Rome.

An exhaustive list of crepes, both sweet and savoury, are prepared efficiently by a practised hand. The dough is spot-on: it can hold a hefty filling, but is far lighter than bread. A folded triangle of salami, gooey goats cheese, olives and tomato was a perfect between-shops pick-me-up.
Inevitably, the cafe road leads to Brunswick East. A Minor Place continues to prove that surly service is no barrier for the hordes that flock there for great coffee, good cafe fare and, recently, the odd glass of wine and tapas.

A sunny mid-week afternoon brought us to their milk crates for a bagel with poached egg, bacon, rocket, and salty relish;and some fine-looking pancakes with pear and walnuts.
Back on Lygon St, we hit upon a rare quiet weekend lunch at El Mirage. Their menu does a fine job of mixing up lunch and breakfast to suit your cravings any time of the day. Onion-flecked rosti with feta and slightly piquant tomato relish were lifted by the dots of cheese among the potatoes. Chicken croquettes with saffron aioli were just awesome. Fulsome, flavoursome and fabulous.

Sette Bello

Cnr Hardware Lane and Lt Bourke St, Melbourne; 03 9670 7070 Now closed


I wasn't as quick off the mark with Sette Bello as with Baba: a couple of other bloggers have had their pastries in a twist since the city cafe opened in May this year. In the depth of winter, I recommended Bello on the strength of those reviews to a friend from 'oop north', who was in need of a restorative Melbourne breakfast after landing on the early (and I mean early) flight from Newcastle. Mid-morning I received an enthused text raving over a nourishing bowl of porridge and their signature breakfast pizza.

Many of their breakfast items are on display: cheese and egg tarts, focaccias and the aforementioned pizza - an ample circle of dough topped with greens and a poached egg (surely a winning hangover cure!). From the menu, sweeter breakfast options include toasted brioche with warmed ricotta and honey.

I was after something a bit heftier, a wish amply fulfilled by the funghi al bosco: field mushrooms with rosemary and taleggio on focaccia. The plate arrived with a chuckle from the barista: 'Your breakfast, ma'am, and perhaps you won't need to eat again til dinner!' Ha! I thought - it's just vegetables and bread...but then again mushrooms are always best at breakfast when they've soaked up their own weight in butter, and the talleggio did contribute more than a drop of oil to the plate. Happily the rocket provided some crunch and peppery bite to cut through the oil. The herbed focaccia was wonderfully pliant, but didn't end up soggy under the influence of all that oil from its toppings.

Alongside the mushroom-focaccia mountain was a fine cafe latte: a sweeter blend of coffee that only required a little bit of sugar for the spot-on bittersweet kickstart.

Sette Bello also offers a range of pastries that would daunt most so early in the morning! Enormous cannolis, chocolate eclairs, giant profiteroles, bombolinis. (Claire's post has some piccies.) They could easily get in the way of lunch options, such as pizza or soup of the day, on a later visit.

Open Monday to Saturday, Sette Bello provides a welcome alternative to some of its neighbours on Hardware Lane: where they spruik for custom, Sette Bello is so laidback and happy to let its produce do the talking, that it doesn't even have external signage.

Journal Canteen

Mezzanine, 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne; 03 9650 4399

Ah, Mr Christopoulos, what good things you have bestowed upon Melbourne and her citizens who wish to be nourished by noble traditions of food and coffee service. I hailed the Christopoulos empire recently after eating at Gill's Diner. Two of his other establishments are just part of the temple of nourishment, for mind and body, housed in the CAE building on Flinders Lane. Here one can access the City Library (if you don't belong to a library, join one - they are an incredible public institution), or undertake courses in writing, sewing, computers, languages and a cornucopia of other fields at CAE (got some time over summer? Check out their catalogue and enrol in something). The cafe Journal is a regular in Top 5 cafe lists, whether for its coffee, vibe or location.

Up a short flight of stairs, Journal's sister venue, Canteen, is a study in resourcefulness. The restaurant is essentially one big room, with stools overlooking the upper level of Centre Place, and an open kitchen displaying gloriously huge pots bubbling with the day's sauces and pastas. As a restaurant, it's open Monday to Friday, 12-3 pm. In the evening, CAE uses it for its cooking classes. The daily menu consists of an antipasto platter, a soup, three or four mains and a couple of desserts. (A degustation is also available.) It's not flamboyant; it's not showy; and at $15-$20 for the main dishes it's not the cheapest lunch option in the area, but these prices are absolutely the result of the best, seasonal produce in dishes made with a slow food ethos.

We chose a small antipasto plate:Fried ricotta; marinated eggplant, carrot and capsicum; slivers of delicious, delicately dressed cucumber; frittata; green olives; asparagus; and a lone piece of salami. Nourishment central.

From the mains menu, orecchiette with peas and ricotta seemed the best fit for lunch on a fine Wednesday. This dish could define the worth of making pasta fresh and eating it on the day: the texture is so superior and the pasta contributes much more to the dish than just being a base for sauce. All main meals come with a simple side-salad of dressed lettuce and sliced onion.

There's an inviting wine list as well: a couple of sparkling and three each of white and red. They're carefully selected Italian wines, sometimes of lesser-known varietals such as vermentino, but undoubtedly fine examples.

The food is of the kind that, even after eating perhaps slightly more than was strictly necessary to merely sate one's appetitie, doesn't leave a feeling of biliousness. Rather, one feels enriched for choosing something of quality that has been handled respectfully.

Gill's Diner

Gills Alley (nr 360 Lt Collins St), Melbourne; 03 9670 7214

What are the essential ingredients of a successful restaurant? For a good answer, Con Christopoulos is the man to ask. The man with the sauciest fingers in the business - so many pies does he have them in - mixes magic ingredients to make his myriad ventures successful. Part of the magic is that said successful ventures are never niche. European, City Wine Bar, Self Preservation, Journal (Canteen): they don't pigeon-hole neatly into a standard restaurant definition, of an outlet simply offering well-cooked fare for lunch and dinner. Therein lies the greatest difficulty in summing up the Christopoulos empire: it would be lovely to bunch them all together, but each venue is unique; the main factor linking them is their aptness for the overall Melbourne dining scene.

Gill's Diner, opened in 2007, is a great example of a Christopoulos venture that is not only innovative but also definitively 'Melbournian' example. A restaurant with a flair for cross-European cuisine (albeit rooted strongly in French and Italian), in a laneway, with a wood and concrete fitout that feels rustic and 'now' at the same time. The decor is marvellous: wooden door frames; squat, square, hefty dining tables; schoolhouse chairs; tiles on the walls. It's up-market bistro but all the menu items are on a blackboard (note to establishment: great effect; not so handy for the vision-impaired), and specials lists are dotted around the restaurant. As for music, from cafe to bar to this restaurant, vinyl is in vogue.

Luckily the wine list comes to the table in printed form. It's superb, and requires more consideration than would be comfortable with a blackboard at squinting distance. Most excitingly, they stock Henry of Harcourts cider. Wines by the glass start at $7.50 and some excellent local drops (for example, Geppettos from Crittenden) come in under $40 for a bottle. We drank Chestnut Hill 2005 Sauvignon Blanc: far more caramelly than is common for the varietal, with a huge mouthfeel but enough delicacy to match a range of food.

The food too somehow manages to nail classic bistro dining, as well as modern Australian, the best of the Iberian and Mediterranean, and stay seasonal and, where possible, local to boot.

A farmhouse terrine arrives as a slab of pink tenderness, wrapped in bacon fat and with a curious dark bullseye. The centre feature reveals itself as a drunken prune, doused with sherry, a fabulous sweet foil to the saltier meat. The chutney, too, was curranty and ever so slightly piquant.

Seafood is handled adeptly. Fresh gamberetti with lemon and aioli are served in a low-key basket, resembling a catch of whitebait as much as their fleshier cousins. There are oodles of them, crisp with a dusting of batter. The aioli is strong on creaminess and light on tartness, the emulsification having been handled expertly.

The chalkboard menu heralds the calamari as coming with chorizo and broad beans, an irrestible combination. It was somewhat disappointing that green beans were far more in evidence. The waiter described the broad beans as a 'smattering', on a 'light, entree dish'. The richness of the garlic sauce pooled on the plate lifted it up a weight level and perhaps just a description of 'beans' would have resulted in better-met expectations. The calamari itself, however, was delicious.

Not to be outdone, the meat portions are also wonderful. Porterhouse steak, with dauphinoise potatoes (served here at room temperature - accidental or intentional? We didn't ask), sits in a blissful reduction of its juices.
The menu item of 'roast duck breast' was ever so much more - five plump pink carvings plus a leg. They sat on carrots and lentils in a sauce that could have been ladled from an urn marked 'Gluhwein' at a Weihnachtsmarkt.

The service, decor and approachable yet succinct menu combine to make this an eminently comfortable and rewarding dining experience.

The Press Club

72 Flinders St, Melbourne; 03 9677 9677

Listening to David Sedaris at the Melbourne Writers' Festival recently, I was taken with his statement that sometimes he feels like his life has become a story. At such times he resists the compunction to take out his notebook and notate what's happening, as he doesn't want to do anything to bring the situation to an end before its natural conclusion.

There's a tenuous link between that concept and my recent dining experience at The Press Club. Originally I was going to say that I took my inspiration from a recent post at AOF's Confessions, where she discusses the idea that by constantly thinking as a blogger - analysing and worrying over lighting conditions for photos - we diminish our ability to savour our eating experiences in the moment. I think Sedaris' notion was closer to my reasons for not photographing my food at The Press Club though: troubling myself with that usual aspect of my dining excursions didn't fit in with the way I wanted to experience this rare and treasured treat.

I am, nevertheless, compelled to record it here. I have read much about George Calombaris' skills and the awe in which many hold his treatment of Greek cuisine, and had experienced it in reduced form at The Press Club Bar. I hadn't quite understood what was meant by a lot of the language: Lethlean uses phrases like 'modern, yet reverent' and 'springboard' comes up a lot, but now, having taken on the full dining experience it's quite clear. The ingredients are classic, traditional – lamb, beetroot, honey, cheese, mushrooms – yet their treatment is revolutionary without being unapproachable, without making them unrecognisable.

With the quality on offer the menu is expansive without being so extensive that choice seems impossible. It divides into small and large dishes and while 'kerasma' is available - a chef's choice of dishes, with or without dessert and wine - we decide to control our intake; given our tastes and predilections the four dishes brought to our table almost order themselves.

Seared scallops souvlaki, Santorini caper leaf keftedes (meatballs) and cauliflower vinaigrette arrives skewered on its own sword. A salad of cumin-roasted beetroot, pistachio biscuit, yoghurt cheese and Attiki honey offers so many combinations (there's a picture on the restaurant's homepage): the nuttiness of the cake-like tower of biscuit, soft and spongey when you cut into it; the sour-savoury cheese wrapped in herbs; and the honey, undoubtedly sweet but in such a fundamental way that it doesn't so much taste sweet, as demonstrate sweetness. (You know you're in a good place when the food promotes musing on the metaphysical.)

At Melbourne's best Greek restaurant it would seem requisite to order the lamb: in this case a 'hot off the press' lamb spit with white bean skordalia, lemon potatoes and marouli salad (lettuce dressed with dill and vinaigrette). The lamb, as expected, is superb: tender, moreish, extraordinarily flavoured and textured. It would be hard to imagine a better fine dining experience. Unless, as was my blessed experience, you had ordered the duck.

The duck. Perhaps I should have written the post as just a reflection on this one dish. The menu description reads as: slow-cooked duck in olive oil, mushrooms, garlic, parsley and greek kafe and sokolata soil (a crunchy, crumbly mix of coffee and chocolate). There's a process to its consumption: as the soil is sprinkled onto the duck it begins to melt into it, at the same time breaking down the meat, which was already separating so willingly from the bone, even further. What takes place is so much more than a fusion to produce a new flavour combination. Instead the ingredients alchemise – creating an altogether new entity unlike any flavour made up of the component ingredients.

The Press Club has been hyped, praised and awarded. In this case it's deserved: this is extremely high quality, innovative, thoughtful food. After our experience at The Point, I will say that I find it surprising that restaurants at this level seem to assume diners want to stay the night - both meals lasted 3.5 hours - but the staff at The Press Club were so enthusiastic, genuine and knowledgeable that I almost felt compelled to forgive their interest in re-setting tables rather than bringing us dessert menus.

Alchemy and metaphysics. George Calombaris is an exciting man to have in the kitchen, and the anticipation over Hellenic Republic grows ever greater.

Beetroot

123 Hardware St, Melbourne; 03 9600 0695 Now closed. The previous owners of Beetroot run Hardware Societe, across the street.

Beetroot have assessed their market and tailored an irresistible lunch option accordingly. During the week, a good range of pre-prepared meals are available for $10 and a tumbler of their house wine for just $1. If that won't get you away from your desk and out of the office, I don't know what you're waiting for!

The pre-preparation is an indicator that your food will not only be cheap but also quick to the table, rather than a suggestion of poor quality. A bowl of chicken pesto pasta is a perfect demonstration: a drizzle of parsley and sundried tomatoes sit atop firm pasta and a sauce that wasn't excessively creamy. The serving size was spot on for lunch, and the addition of a side salad is both commendable for the price and guilt-assuaging after taking the creamy pasta option.

If it's more of a sugar hit you're after to power through the afternoon, indulge in a milk, dark or white hot chocolate with persian candy floss. You could almost consider it a dessert and, at $3.80, it could give you a two-course lunch, with a glass of wine, for less than $15!

Brother Baba Budan

359 Little Bourke St, Melbourne

Hot drinks have had their moments in the spotlight on this blog, but they tend to be on the peripheral of reviews, mentioned in addition to the food on offer as an extra indication of a venue's style and worth. On this occasion, however, there's no food stealing the limelight, in part because this particular venue doesn't really serve food (with the exception of the odd pastry): at BBB, it's all about the coffee.

Run by the same bloke who looked after St Ali in South Melbourne, this is a cafe devoted to the service of the best coffee possible. There's not a lot to recommend the place from the outside - an intriguing shingle would probably indicate a boutique rather than a cafe to the uninitiated - yet within that subtley is an immediate allure, and that's before you notice the flock of chairs stuck to the ceiling. Coffee franchises often note their 'blend of the day', which indicates which packet they opened under orders from Head Office that morning. At BBB that blend will be something developed and roasted by the guys making the coffee. It's not a place to stop into for a quick takeaway, either: they take the necessary care with each cup.

So, what was it about my takeaway cup of caffeine that so tickled the tastebuds? Sipped without sugar, the coffee was extremely bitter, but not in an aggravating way. There was no puckering: alongside the bitter taste was an astonishingly smooth mouthfeel. It actually made me think of a whiskey, in the way tart taste and smooth texture combined. By the time I added sugar it became an extraordinary and, given the lateness of the previous evening, life-giving drink.

Update (July 2013): Just imagine it, a venue in Melbourne dedicated to coffee! I had to chuckle, reading this post almost five years after it was originally published. How the industry has progressed in that time. Coffee temples are the business du jour, and to list places in the CBD and inner-north and east suburbs venerating the bean would be no quick task.

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.