Tedesca Osteria
1175 MorningtonFlinders Rd, Red Hill tedesca.com.au
Chef Brigitte Hafner Price guide $$$$ Bookings Essential Wheelchair access Yes
It starts at the front door, a hand-tooled thing of beauty that signals both attention to detail and a penchant for the singular and hand-crafted. It’s evident inside too, particularly with the kitchen being in the dining room, with chef-owner Brigitte Hafner rolling pasta on the blackened timber bench against a backdrop of the brick hearth’s flames licking at ducks, or pork, or vegetables. It has a dinner at a friend’s place vibe, underlined by the laidback service and the single seating policy, so lunch stretches to leisurely hours that include a visit to the wine cellar or a stroll around the gardens. The menu’s loose script is antipasto, pasta, fish, meat and dessert but how that manifests depends on what’s being produced nearby. Perhaps local mussels, loosened on the grill and tossed through pasta, suckling lamb flavoured with herbs and wine, or a berry tart. It is all good, often sublime, including the wine from a geographically diverse list. A must.
74 Glen Eira Rd, Ripponlea
(03) 9530 0111 attica.com.au
Chef Ben Shewry Price guide $$$$ Bookings Essential Wheelchair access Yes
With all the activity surrounding Attica and chef-owner Ben Shewry – pivoting to baking and lasagne through lockdown(s), free meals for hospo workers, Yarra Valley pop-up Attica Summer Camp, cooking with Hamish Blake on Instagram, DJing gigs – the moniker “restaurant” can seem reductive. Yet, the restaurant remains the Rosetta Stone for everything that spins off its moodily-lit dining room. It’s in the playfulness and dry Kiwi wit Shewry brings. A dish of green ants served with pancakes and sour cream is called “Reko & Ben’s Picnic Caviar”. It’s there also with the tableside barbecue featuring shellfish and Indigenous spices and the “Croc Fat Caramel” that finishes a meal. The jokey, slightly self-deprecating tone is matched by serious rigour, intellect and heart. Shewry recognises the expense of his world-famous 10-ish course meal and so strives to make it mean something, especially in terms of honouring Indigenous culture and ingredients. He succeeds, completely and beautifully.
45 Spring St, Melbourne
(03) 9070 1177 distasio.com.au/citta
Chef Rinaldo Di Stasio Price guide $$$ Bookings Recommended Wheelchair access Yes
A triangulation of food, art and X-factor, Di Stasio Città hit Melbourne with the energy of nuclear fission. Cementing Rinaldo Di Stasio’s reputation as the Medici of Melbourne’s hospitality scene, the top end of town address means the glitterati, politerati and literati accustomed to trekking to the St Kilda mothership can now enjoy an utterly familiar menu of Italian perfection right in their spiritual heartland. The maltagliati with calamari and radicchio has made the trip to Spring Street; so too the saltimbocca alla Romana and the ricotta gnudi. The chase of the new isn’t Città’s speed – not unless you count the avant-garde video installations playing on loop – but park yourself in the brutalist dining room with the certainty your Negroni will be mixed expertly and the anchovy and sage leaf fritters are the perfect aperitivo to accompany it. The opening of nearby Bar Democratico in 2022 promises to further split the local restaurant scene’s atom in the most captivating way.
33 Russell St, Melbourne
(03) 9277 9777 gimlet.melbourne
Chefs Andrew McConnell
& Colin Mainds
Price guide $$$ Bookings Recommended Wheelchair access Yes
Gimlet has a timelessness perfect for the times. With escape from reality at a premium, Andrew McConnell’s newest diner, a gorgeously renovated, high-ceilinged space in 20s-era Cavendish House – that’s all leather booths, rippled glass and chequered tiles – is the perfect bolthole, infinitely more appealing than the world outside. The drinks help, from complex cocktails to a superbly collated wine list that offers many thrills (few of which come cheap). The menu, a superbly balanced mash-up where French bistro meets Mod Oz meets New York grill, means you can eat brilliant oysters and/or caviar, tuck into a whole lobster or an 800gm T-bone from the wood-fired grill, rediscover the tarragon-infused joys of salade Lyonnaise and understand why some chefs go to the trouble of making their own gelato. The two-tiered dining room has exhilarating, genuine bustle, assisted by a highly credentialed service team that’s one of Melbourne’s best. Leave the real world behind.
121 Lygon St, Carlton (03) 9349 2223 kazukis.com.au
Chef Kazuki Tsuya Price guide $$$$ Bookings Essential Wheelchair access Yes
Kazuki’s is a lesson in subtle disruption. There’s the location for starters, a monochrome shopfront on Lygon Street’s gaudiest stretch that opens to an oasis of minimalist, mustard-carpeted calm. If the atmosphere wasn’t so serene the juxtaposition would be jarring, as would a glance at the nine-part snack course that starts the tasting menu. It’s light years away from the food outside and the perfect overture for the brilliant fusion (a rehabilitated word) of Japanese and European flavours and techniques that chef-owner Kazuki Tsuya displays over eight-ish courses. Squid ink gnocco fritto is draped in superb jamón, a cube of ox tongue glistens under a soy and pepperberry glaze, crumbed slivers of abalone are topped with sesame mayonnaise, oysters are teamed with Tasmanian sea urchin. Post-snack, the quality doesn’t wane, whether you’re talking Moreton Bay bug wontons with soy butter foam, a finely tuned wine list or subtle, engaged service.
4 Lord St, Richmond (03) 9429 5180 minamishima.com.au
Chefs Koichi Minamishima
& Yoshiki Tano
Price guide $$$$ Bookings Essential Wheelchair access Yes
The Japanese notion of “ichigyo zammai” – doing one thing excessively well – is on vivid display at this backstreet Richmond sushi temple. The 12 seats at the softly-lit counter are primed for dinner and a show – watching sushi master Koichi Minamishima’s meticulous knifework, his deft palming “of rice in which each grain is distinct, his judgment over briefly torching a piece of tuna belly so its rivers of fat explode on contact. The 15-odd course line-up features only premium seafood, much of it flown in from Tokyo’s Toyosu fish market, with the likes of marron and scampi flying the flag for Australia. Order à la carte hot dishes in the Zen-like dining room – the exceptional wine and sake list wielded with calm authority by sommelier Randolph Cheung will make no distinction – but that’s really missing the point. The sushi counter is the fabulous, beating heart of this singular restaurant.
18 Punch Lane, Melbourne
(03) 9654 8190 sunda.com.au
Chef Khanh Nguyen Price guide $$ Bookings Recommended Wheelchair access Yes
Khanh Nguyen is Melbourne’s latest chef hero, and Sunda is his vehicle to stardom. The industrial-cool dining room is an appropriately futuristic stage set for his virtuosic Mod-Asian display, deftly mixing a grab-bag of Malaysian, Indonesian and Vietnamese traditions with native ingredients to deliver something shockingly new. Witness a two-bite canape of puffed taro, dressed to the nines with fermented coconut, smoked bone marrow and the tart citrus spike of lemon aspen; or the precision-plated veal sweetbreads surrounded by a mandala of caramelised cashews and pickled muntries, finished with a glistening lick of roasted chicken jus and the molasses curveball of dark palm sugar. A dining age given to cloning over creativity makes his feats even more remarkable – and yes, that includes the roti with Vegemite curry that continues to be an off-menu winner. Want more? Nguyen’s equally boat-rocking newcomer Aru brings the same unique spin to a share-friendly menu playing with fire, smoke and ferments.
362 Oxford St, Paddington
(02) 8937 2539 saintpeter.com.au
Chef Josh Niland
Price guide $$$ Bookings Essential Wheelchair access No
Every seasoned diner knows the best seat in the house is at the counter.
So, it was perhaps logical for Josh Niland to reconfigure his petite Paddington restaurant to feature a single, marble counter stretching the length of the room. The fact it meant halving the number of diners in a sitting made it a little more radical. But fortune favours the bold and, a year on, Saint Peter is setting the bar for how diners want to eat in 2021 and beyond. As an experience, it’s intimate and informative; engaging and entertaining. Most importantly, it’s delicious. You don’t need to particularly like seafood to enjoy Niland’s cooking, such is his ability to transform all manner of fish bits into delicate, flavoursome bites. From ’nduja and mapo tofu to meaty slabs of dry-aged rib eye, there is almost nothing Niland and his team can’t wizard out of a fish. His unwavering commitment to sustainability and minimising waste drives endless innovation, while his mission to educate and engage diners sees the chef take time to speak to every guest. Questions are encouraged and enthusiastically answered. With dinner now a set tasting menu, those less confident can always test the waters with lunch, which offers plenty of approachable options. It won’t take long before you return, ready to dive deeper.