LET’S DRINK TO THAT

Fun and sophistication is the order at Gimlet, Andrew McConnell’s ode to a bygone era of cocktail party elegance, serving inspired plates with cocktails to match.

Gimlet’s Andrew McConnell nods to the elegance of a classic cocktail party.

At its heart, Gimlet is a cocktail bar, “but it also presented us with the chance to create something a little more – to create food and cocktails that enhance the beautiful room rather than trying to compete with it,” says Andrew McConnell. Anyone who had the luck to experience McConnell’s newest Melbourne CBD restaurant, Gimlet at Cavendish House, in the brief hiatus between lockdowns would agree wholeheartedly about the beauty of the room. Large, elegant, exciting, it’s designed with a party in mind, most obviously because of the bar that’s the central feature.

In the spirit of what will be, McConnell has created a menu of party food with matching cocktails for this month’s issue. The objective is a Gimlet-style celebration

– as sophisticated as it is fun.

“The sweet spot for matching food with cocktails is restraint,” he says. “You don’t want too many flavours in your cocktails – anchor them with two or three – and you don’t want them too sweet. I like a more apéritif-style where the drinks lean towards the savoury and the salty.”

Gimlet’s dishes embrace infusions, pickles, preserves and vinegars, similar to the way a bartender would create a cocktail. Pickled blackberries accompany the saltwater duck salad, which is tossed in a dressing that includes the pickling vinegar in the mix. There are preserved cherry tomatoes in the seafood salad and pickled onions in the tuna and lemon mayonnaise sandwiches.

Accompanying these are thrillingly savoury cocktails, such as the Bambino, a suave number including dry apera, dry vermouth, elderflower liqueur and caperberry brine.

“I like flavours that make you stop and think; that get your attention without screaming ‘look at me!’,” says McConnell. “I like understated food and cocktails like that, especially at a party when the main point is people getting together. I think we get that point now more than ever.”

Gimlet at Cavendish House, 33 Russell St, Melbourne, (03) 9277 9777, gimlet.melbourne

Above: Andrew McConnell and Gimlet’s dining room. Opposite Elite cocktail shaker and Cocktail mixing glass jug, both from Tomkin; Gin Journeys Aras hi ball (left), Mixology coupe (centre) and Irish Dogs tumbler (right), all from Waterford. PREVIOUS PAGES Luna swivel chair and Jonathan side table, both from Coco Republic; Mixology Circon rum coupe (back left) from Waterford; Cabbage plate from Pigott’s Store. All other props stylist’s own.