Melbourne Patron

Kisumé Japanese Restaurant The new fine-dining venture on Flinders Lane by the Lucas Group Any Melburnian foodie worth their salt is aware of the Lucas Group and its portfolio of very successful restaurants: Chin Chin , a loud hall of colourful South-East Asian food and cocktails on Flinders Lane that still attracts queues of several hours' wait, some six years after its opening Hawker Hall , a similar style venue to Chin Chin but on South Yarra's Chapel Street and with more of a focus on street food, that once infamously proffered a wait time equal to a return drive to Torquay with a beer stop in the middle Baby Pizza , quiet stalwart of the group, churning out delectable, fresh Italian food on Church Street, and  Kong , offering Japanese-Korean BBQ fusion also on Church Street, and perhaps the most casual venue of the lot.  And if you have read any of my posts before, you will know that I am utterly fed up with the 'Americana' craze, whereby every...

Warning!  If you are going to eat at Lûmé anytime soon, I'd advise you to STOP READING NOW! The dishes described below are likely to show up in your dinner, at least until the menu changes significantly, and I don't want to be your spoiler. (Having said that, don't read any reviews online either, because most of them spoil the surprise too. Just sayin'.)  Like a welcoming suburban home I'm not really sure how to start describing my feelings about  Lûmé  (226 Coventry Street, South Melbourne). I went along expecting fine dining: a fancy degustation of a high culinary standard. I wasn't even sure I'd blog about it. I knew there'd been hype (much of it self-generated, I later discovered). But I tend not to read up lots about a place before I go there; I find that can make it less of an organic experience, and I like to make up my own mind. So I was not prepared for the experimental factor in the food here - actually, I had very few expectations...