restaurants and cafes

HOT: Thorsten Schmidt event, Denmark House, Level 3, 428 Little Bourke St, Melbourne

March 9, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

New Nordic cuisine is so hot right now. You may know that best restaurant in the world according to San Pellegrino’s World 50 Best Restaurants is Noma, in Copenhagen. The chef of Noma, Rene Redzepi, has been instrumental in building a movement to reinvent Nordic cuisine using local, oft-forgotten ingredients. In 2004 some of the [...]

HOT: Marquis of Lorne, 411 George St, Fitzroy

March 7, 2011 ⋅ One comment

I stepped into Marquis of Lorne and the word that came immediately to mind was ‘lair’. The tri-level street corner boozer just has an insouciant air of 70s rock and roll about it. It might have been the Rolling Stones covers that the pub band was playing on a Sunday afternoon, maybe the luxurious Sergeant Pepper [...]

HOT: Le Cellier, Shop 2, 231 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

March 1, 2011 ⋅ 4 comments

The Age recently ran a story about the rise of the gourmet sandwich and one of the places which was omitted from the article was Le Cellier. This cosy nook is an outpost of the slice-of-Paris restaurant next door, Madame Sousou. It shares the same provincial French outlook – cane chairs, gleaming copper features and Edith Piaf [...]

HOT: Supermaxi, 305 St Georges Rd, Fitzroy North

February 28, 2011 ⋅ One comment

Melburnians love their gourmet pizzas and Supermaxi is the one of the newest kids on the block. However, the team behind Supermaxi comes with a lot of experience – namely, the head chef is Rita Macali, one of the original owners of Ladro in Fitzroy and arguably partly responsible for kick-starting the trend about 5 [...]

HOT Chat: Braeden Lord of Aussie Farmers Direct

February 25, 2011 ⋅ One comment

Bizarre as it sounds, one of my hobbies is grocery shopping. I’m not talking about trawling the fluorescent aisles of a mega-supermarket, but rather poking around farmers markets, ethnic grocery stores and fancy providores. However, given my recent lack of mobility due to pregnancy and a newborn baby, I’ve fully embraced the concept of online grocery delivery. [...]

HOT: The Estelle Bar & Kitchen, 243 High St, Northcote

February 16, 2011 ⋅ 5 comments

Some people have strange hobbies. And I came across a particularly strange hobby when I visited The Estelle and discovered that one of the owner’s family friends knits smallgoods. As in, create objects d’art like sausages and a leg of lamb from knitting needles and wool! The Estelle is a quirky bar/cafe in the vintage shop-baby [...]

HOT: Fitzroy Curry House, 240 Johnston St, Fitzroy

February 15, 2011 ⋅ 3 comments

Righto. This baby is now past its due date. I’ve started read articles with titles like ‘natural ways to bring on labour‘ and one of the suggestions that seems to crop up is to eat curry. I can do that! I have Fitzroy Curry House close by and the last thing I feel like doing [...]

HOT: Johnston Street Foodstore, 256 Johnston St, Fitzroy

February 9, 2011 ⋅ One comment

As human beings, we all have our strange little foibles, don’t we? My friend R will eat tomatoes, but only if they’re on pizza. RM likes strawberry jam, but won’t eat strawberries. I don’t drink coffee, but I’m a sucker for tiramisu. Weird, I know. Which leads me to the housemade tiramisu at Johnston Street [...]

NOT: Misuzu’s, 7 Victoria Ave, Albert Park

February 8, 2011 ⋅ 9 comments

I wanted to like Misuzu’s, I really did. Out of all the cafes and restaurants in the Victoria Avenue strip, I thought that Misuzu’s sizeable crowd of alfresco diners signalled that the kitchen must be producing something good. Also, the restaurant was rated second on Urbanspoon for the best Albert Park restaurants. On entering, I [...]

HOT: Hausfrau, 123 Bridport St, Albert Park

February 3, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

Albert Park is surely the ultimate suburb to find glossy blonde ladies-who-lunch, so what better place to set up a cafe called Hausfrau? Hausfrau Albert Park is the sister cafe to the original Hausfrau in Yarraville and it opened two weeks ago. The cafes look similar with their quaint tea salon decor, except that the [...]