Summer in Melbourne has become a different, friskier beast in recent years, writes Annabel Ross.
FOUND yourself stuck in town this summer while your mates are all away? Spending your holidays in the city needn't mean being cooped up indoors. Summer in the CBD has become a different beast in recent years, and it's possible to enjoy the ''great outdoors'' without so much as opening a Melway.
St Kilda's Openair Cinema has kicked off its eight-week season, following in the footsteps of the wildly popular Moonlight Cinema in the Botanic Gardens and Rooftop Cinema at Curtin House, to give Melbourne filmgoers another alfresco option.
Perched atop the St Kilda Sea Baths, the Openair Cinema adds a dash of salty sea air to the outdoor film formula, which here also includes a bar serving food and cocktails and live music before the screening.
Film buffs can bring picnic food and non-alcoholic drinks. Beanbags and deckchairs are provided from 7.30pm, when live acoustic and DJ sets are played until the screening at sundown.
Seats are unreserved, so arrive early for a better chance of securing a good spot. Bring your own chairs and blankets.
Like Moonlight and Rooftop, the St Kilda cinema will screen a variety of new releases, classics and cult films, with this season's program including Avatar and The Goonies.
Despite the fierce competition in Melbourne, the St Kilda cinema has been holding its own.
Openair's Ainslie Lenehan thinks the live music component of the evening helps set it apart from the rest.
''We needed to come in with something quite different to offer, and I think that's what makes us so successful,'' she says.
Also jumping on the alfresco bandwagon is the Melbourne International Film Festival, which is showing films free of charge on the big screen at Federation Square each week. Deckchairs are provided for the Thursday screenings under the stars, with a selection of MIFF favourites on the program for February.
The outdoors might be the new indoors for summer film-going, but you don't need to be watching a movie to enjoy the breeze on a balmy evening.
At the Emerald Peacock's ''Fiesta Sundays'', the glam bar adopts a more relaxed tone, with $10 pizzas, cocktails by the jug, and chilled-out music on the rooftop.
On the first Sunday of every month during summer, the Bouzy Rouge restaurant in Richmond is hosting ''Paella and Sangria Sundays'' in its sun-drenched courtyard, bringing a little of piece of Iberia to Melbourne.
More Sunday fun can be found at CBD bar Madame Brussels' ''rather fancy barbecues'', with food prepared by guest restaurants including Coda, Cumulus and Sydney's Icebergs.
''It's Icebergs comes to Bourke Street. BYO budgie smugglers,'' chortles Madame Brussels' Miss Pearls.
Bookings are essential as the Astroturf rooftop heaves from 2pm on Sundays until the end of April, with $40 buying you three courses and a glass of Madame Brussels' ''gay rosé''.
Even should the dancefloor beckon on a hot summer night, you needn't head into a sweaty club.
Inspired by the European tendency to spill on to the streets when the sun is shining, Joe Gannon returned to Melbourne from Amsterdam with the idea of taking the party outside during summer.
Under the name Flaner, he organises free live DJ sets at various outdoor venues in the city including Degraves Street and Federation Square.
Gannon says the response has been overwhelmingly positive so far. ''At the Fed Square gig, we had people coming out from the surrounding bars and dancing, we had little kids dancing. At Degraves Street we had speakers set up on the dumpsters and it was more chilled out, but the feedback from both was really good.''
Perennially popular twilight markets also bask in the glow of daylight saving hours.
The Suzuki Night Market, now in its 12th year at the Queen Victoria Market, has more than 35 stalls of multicultural cuisine, licensed bars, live entertainment on three stages and some 150 vendors.
At the Queen Victoria Market's ''Summer Sunday Sessions'' on the first Sunday of each month until March, you can enjoy live local musicians in the beer garden and peruse the local designer market from 11am until 3pm.
The bohemian bayside charms of St Kilda are seen on Thursdays at the St Kilda Beach Night Market, where vintage clothing, arts and crafts are sold. Char-grilled corn and falafel can be eaten against a backdrop of bongo drums and fire twirlers.
The new Supper Market at the Abbotsford Convent kicked off in October and continues every Friday night until February 26. The historical grounds of the convent are home to hawker-style home cooking, live music and roaming circus performers as well as clothing, arts and crafts stalls.
Appealing to the more adventurous are the aerial workshops at the City Square, running four times daily between Saturday, January 23, and Sunday, February 7.
Expert instructors will guide wannabe circus performers through trapeze lessons, or you can leave it to the pros and watch their daily acrobatic show at 1.30pm.
The trapeze workshops are part of the City of Melbourne's Summer in the City program, which includes sunset concerts in the Fitzroy Gardens, Sunday morning jazz sessions on Lygon Street and the opportunity to learn cheesy dance moves from films including Slumdog Millionaire and Dirty Dancing at Docklands on Saturday nights.
In addition to the MIFF deckchairs, Federation Square will run a range of outdoor events during summer.
The National Institute of Circus Arts will offer basic circus skills lessons in the Amphitheatre every Monday until March 22, while on Tuesdays the Urban Garden is converted into an outdoors pilates studio, with lunchtime classes until early March.
Provided that you keep your sangria intake to a minimum, The Humble Vintage bicycle hire company is the perfect way to flit around town on a sunny day. Matt Hurst's business rents out vintage bikes from three pick-up points - Fitzroy, St Kilda and the city. For $30 a day you get a helmet, a bike equipped with a lock and lights and a custom map and guide written by Hurst, filled with recommended cycling routes and pit stops.
''It's the best way to see the city,'' says Hurst. Make hay while the sun shines.
Cutler & Co
Where 55-57 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy
Phone 9419 4888
Food Contemporary
Cost Typical prices E $19 M $38 D $16
Wine list Excellent and thoughtful selection of Australian, NZ and European wines.
Corkage n/a
We drank Naia Verdejo (Rueda, Spain) $80
Service Energetic and informed
Value Fair
Owners Andrew McConnell, Pascale Gomes-McNabb & Frank van Haandel
Chef Andrew McConnell
Outdoors No
Wheelchairs Yes
Parking Street
Cards V MC Amex Eftpos
Hours Tues-Sun 6-11pm, Fri 12-3pm
IT USED to be easy to dismiss all this fuss about chefs being the new rock stars as complete palaver, until recently I was privileged to witness the first recorded crossover between the food-nerd and ghetto-fabulous movements. It happened at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, and at the centre of it all was the hero of this piece, Andrew McConnell, who found himself on the receiving end of a kind of Spinal Tap homage when a youngish fellow in a blue T-shirt and jeans walked up, tapped two fingers to his heart, gave a little salute and said "respect".
To his credit, McConnell had the good sense to look surprised and bemused and rather mortified. Anyway, he's never been much of a rock star chef — his CV is blissfully free of TV appearances and book deals, bless 'im — but ironically enough, his latest venture is a venue fit for rock stars and terribly fashionable types and, naturally enough, food types.
It is, of course, the relocation of Three, One, Two, which grew altogether too big in reputation for its Carlton digs and has taken over an old cutlery factory on the previously unfashionable bit of Gertrude Street that, courtesy of its new tenant, is now poised to become quite the opposite.
It's the bookend to a very busy year for McConnell and his architect wife, Pascale Gomes-McNabb, who less than nine months ago opened the doors to Cumulus Inc, their more informal, all-day city "eating house and bar".
Cutler & Co isn't the yin to Cumulus' yang. There are plenty of crossover elements, including another achingly expensive-looking fitout from Gomes-McNabb that manages to turn what could have been a cold and echoing cavern into something altogether human and inviting. There's a piece of pressed metal with filigree trees stamped into it arching over the bar, and envy-inducing Thonet chairs, and several different types of lighting including smart pendants and big puffy lights made out of netting that look like glowing jellyfish (hard to describe; they were custom-designed by Gomes-McNabb).
There's none of that open kitchen business here. The hard work is kept behind the scenes, with bright, clinical flashes of white and citrus yellow glimpsed through automatic glass doors from the dimly lit dining room. There is also, notably, no table linen, which is unique for a restaurant of this calibre. The waiters, too, are just as likely to be type A personalities as your more traditional phlegmatic models. But it's undeniably still fine dining, just a modern approach to the old warhorse.
The food won't be a surprise to anyone familiar with the McConnell back catalogue, including not only Three, One, Two and Cumulus but Mrs Jones, Circa and Diningroom 211. By which I mean: we knew he could cook. This merely confirms it.
He's never been the kind of chef to go in for the more outre combinations. There's something about his food that makes it just as suited to those people who tag themselves as foodies as ordinary punters to whom dining out is a special occasion and who lust, not unreasonably, after big flavours and something they can at least vaguely recognise as protein and veg. McConnell's peculiar talent is that he can satisfy both.
The appetisers list kicks off with freshly shucked oysters from Moonlight Flat, purveyors of fine molluscs. Or long, chewy pastries wrapped around a single anchovy — Ortiz, naturally. Or pimientos de padron, the usually mild but potentially fiery Galician green peppers. They anchor a noteworthy menu of small shareables in the bar as well, which is a perfectly good place to sit and spend some quality time exploring the punchy list of wines by the glass.
But you'd be missing out on some truly sensational dishes; like the hapuka fillet ($38). Along with practically everything else on Melbourne menus these days, it's had the sous vide treatment, which really does work a treat with fish, and the almost translucent but firm flesh is brilliantly married to a velvety green sauce dotted with pipis in the shell and mussels. The requisite carb hit comes with a smear of white bean puree with a hint of garlic and lemon. It's a straightforward dish perfectly executed — transcendently clean and restorative.
A starter of wood-grilled quail with foie gras parfait ($20) is equally memorable. It's so simple, really: perfectly cooked quail that's crisp on the outside, tender and pink inside. The really clever part is wrapping the foie gras parfait in crunchy pastry so that it's like a cigarette with molten deliciousness spilling from it; there are a couple of quartered segments of figs that have been caramelised on the wood grill. Again, nothing to scare the horses, but a perfectly elegant interplay of colour, flavour and texture.
The salad Lyonnaise ($19) is more of a plate of charcuterie with the traditional frisee salad: cubes of smoked tongue, garlic sausage, some crispy pancetta, a long, thin strip of fried pig's ear and a scattering of confit duck gizzards. The poached egg is a duck yolk that's been lacquered with a thin, hard shell of bruleed sugar for additional wow factor.
Suckling pig ($39) is also cooked sous vide, this time for 12 hours, cooled then cooked with a quick flash in the pan. The result is an unctuous rectangle of pig with a thin top hat of uniform crackle, finished with caramelised sherry vinegar. It's pure porky heaven.
The record should also note that the portion sizes are perfect. Not too small that you start guzzling the Baker D. Chirico bread; not too big that you have to pop the top button of your Commes de Garcons trousers.
The desserts, too, wear the stamp of well-judged modishness. A rich chocolate ice-cream "sandwich" ($16) sits in a puddle of salted caramel; a messily pretty jumble of meringue, batons of rhubarb, lemon curd and yoghurt sorbet ($16) looks like a landscape after a snowstorm. Fittingly, both are delicious.
It's early days at Cutler and they're pacing themselves. Judging by how difficult it is to snaffle a booking, the dining room could be filled several times each night, but they're wisely limiting the numbers to avoid the Bombay nightclub scenario that engulfed Cumulus. This opening was always going to be a big event; McConnell has enough runs on the board for punters to know it was a safe bet.
And it is. Here he's found the perfect canvas for his not inconsiderable ambition. It's not a finished product by any means. But even from its inception, Cutler & Co is a triumph — a downright sexy one too.
I'm looking forward to going back, when I can get a booking. Until then I'll keep muttering the same words. Inventive. Confident. Energetic. Love it. Go.
Colonel Tan's
Nina Rousseau
January 12, 2010
Where Upstairs at Revolver, 229 Chapel Street, Prahran, 95215985
Prices Entrees $3.50-$10.50; salads $8.50-$11.50; curries $12.50-$14.50; stir-fries $9.50-$12.50
Cards AE DC MC V Eftpos
Fully licensed
Open Tue-Thu and Sat, 5-11pm; Fri, noon-11pm
I SHARE a birthday with Elvis — January 8 — so, naturally, I've been thinking a lot about the King. As I sit at Colonel Tan's, a fantastic hawker-style Thai kitchen in the upstairs warren of Revolver, I'm wondering if Elvis might like it here. And, you know, I reckon he might.
For a start, they've got the Colonel's five-spice fried chicken (an all-time Elvis favourite), plus a bumper crop of about 50 beers and a decorating theme that would fit in seamlessly at Graceland. There are umpteen velour couches, chandeliers and even some retro floral plastic tablecloths.
So far, Colonel Tan's has managed to avoid the food press. It's the latest project by Karen Batson, who also helms the kitchens at Cookie and the Toff in Town (Revolver's sophisticated siblings and part of the Ivy League family of bars owned by nightclub guru Camillo Ippoliti and Thai pop star Tan Punturaumporn). Colonel Tan's is the cheaper, grungier and much quieter version, with a pithy menu and the same brilliant Thai food.
Dishes are whipped up in the tiny kitchen with one fryer, four burners and one wok. The chefs are all from Thailand and they don't dumb down the heat for Western palates (unless requested), so there's a liberal use of chilli and fresh ingredients such as kaffir lime leaves and galangal.
Many of the dishes cross over from Cookie but are worded differently. Cookie's "drunken noodles" is Colonel Tan's "Bangkok bolognaise", a tomatoey minced pork dish bitey with chilli and the aniseedy kick of Thai basil.
Snacky bar food includes chilli peanuts; corn fritters; zesty chicken and kaffir lime nuggets; and a minced-chicken rendang that rocks with lemongrass — it's served with roti that's pan-fried in butter.
Mushroom, beef and lotus-root salad is a spin-off on the traditional Thai beef salad, with a fiery heat — the beef cut thin and cooked rare — and there's texture in the form of grilled field mushrooms and pretty rounds of lotus root.
There's a couple of curries. One is the green chicken with a salted egg salad. The other is the earthy yellow fish curry, a jungle curry that's thinner in style, without coconut milk. It's chunky with snapper and pieces of spongy green papaya that soak up all the juices. White rice and a shredded omelet come on the side, to help cool the spice.
The other thing? The staff have fun. Not in a "hey, hey, we're so wacky" kind of way but in a "this is a good place to work" kind of way — the sort you can't fake. So the chefs giggle away as they cook and will give you a big wave and a smile as you leave and nothing's too muchtrouble for the bar staff.
Thursday is locals' night — produce ID that shows you live in postcode 3181 and the food is half price. Old-school games are available, too, so you can relive the '80s with a few rounds on the Commodore 64, Nintendo or Atari.
Frankly, I think the King would be hooked.
