melbournerestaurant

sophiavandenhoek March 16, 2015

The Kettle Black, Melbourne

Danish beauty Höst in Copenhagen, French favorite Septime in Paris, and now there’s the third place to add to my personal top 3 of most beautiful restaurants: The Kettle Black.

Nestled in a gorgeous, 1880s, typical Victorian house. In contrast with the big sleek, modern apartment towers build around it but it works together perfectly and almost makes it look like a surrealistic artwork. And this is just the outside..

Inside you’ll find honeycomb mosaic tiles, green ceramic tiles, concrete, wood, plants, marble, brass: everything merges seamlessly. It’s light, elegant, stylish, detailed and simplistic. Perfectly designed by Studio You Me.

Not only the interior is a pleasure to look at, the dishes are real artworks as well. I was happy to see they serve the huge ricotta hotcakes I saw coming by earlier at their other venue Top Paddock and a lot on social media like Instagram as well. I was glad I finally got to taste them an they didn’t disappoint at all! Neither did the home-made colorful decorated coconut yoghurt and the cray fish roll. Looked and cooked perfectly.

Ohh.. how I miss having my Australian ‘brekkie’..

The Kettle Black, 50 Albert Road, South Melbourne VIC 3205, Australië

sophiavandenhoek March 3, 2015

Cutler & Co, Melbourne

Australia, Melbourne 1 Reply

One of the best surprises in Melbourne: Cutler & Co. After a long, hot and sweaty day of wandering through Melbourne we accidentally walked by Cutler & Co. The good looking restaurant caught our eye. At that time our experience in Melbourne already learned us all the places in Australia that look good actually serve good food as well so we stepped in. Wearing shorts, flip flops and messy hair immediately made us feel a bit uncomfortable when we saw the beautiful interior but the friendly staff at the door made us feel welcome anyway. Unfortunately they were fully booked that evening but we got ourselves a table for the next one. Without doing any more research we dressed up the next evening to eat at Cutler & Co, not knowing the restaurant was voted nr 7 in the top 10 best Australian restaurants by Gourmet Traveller. The restaurant is classy but unpretentious. You’ll find a mix of diners ranging from young couples to business meetings and family-get-togethers. The enthusiastic, friendly and well informed service team knew how to precisely introduce the dishes without overdoing it and kept us focussed on the degustation menu with paired juices en excellent wines. Cutler & Co, Melbourne | un-fold-ed.com We started off with a delicious Ortiz anchovy pastry, followed by the tuna tartar with slightly smoked kohlrabi, fromage blanc, bottarga and lavas. This might have been the highlight of my meal although the following course with pickled mussels, bean salad and almond, fennel cream was very, very impressive as well. Cutler & Co, Melbourne | un-fold-ed.com And of course the rest of the meal is also worth mentioning. Like the Flounder with blackened leek, pickled onion and Brown Butter. The smoked duck breast, salsify and prunes. The dry aged lamb saddle, confit belly, garlic sauce and fermented carrot. Dessert was no letdown either. In fact, the buttermilk ice-cream with melon, cucumber, verbana jelly and thickened melon juice was in our top 3 dishes at Cutler & Co. as well! Happily surprised by how good the food was I did some research afterwards and found out Chef Andrew McConnell is a veteran of the Melbourne restaurant scene an has won just about every award going during his career. His restaurant group also includes Cummulus Inc, Supernormal, Moon Under Water/ Builders Arms Hotel and Luxembourg. I visited Builders Arms Hotel and I’ve put the rest on the list for my next visit to Australia! 55–57 Gertrude St. Fitzroy 3065, Melbourne

sophiavandenhoek March 2, 2015

Smith Street Alimentari, Melbourne

Australia, Melbourne 1 Reply

Of course there was a reason we went to the other side of the world. In first place to relax but also to find out more about the Australian cuisine we heard so much about. Our first food experience in Australia was at Smith Street Alimentari (former Gorski and Jones) in Collingwood. We felt a bit hangover cause of our jet-lag which resulted in terrible cravings for eggs and bacon. And we soon found out Aussies are very keen on their eggs! Baked, poached, scrambled: every breakfast/ lunch place includes eggs in their menu. We took the sweet potato latkes with a poached egg, baba ghannooj and rocket and toasted pumpkin bread with humus, mashed avocado, bacon and tomato salad. Comforting food accompanied by freshly pressed vegetable juices and good coffee. Just what we needed after the long flight from Holland. The laid-back atmosphere in the sunny rear courtyard, the colorful and detailed interior and the attached food store made this place the perfect start of our Australia trip. We got excited to discover more of Melbourne, starting with the rest of Collingwood. Smith Street Alimentari 302 Smith Street, Collingwood Daily 8am-7pm